Chuubos Marvelous Wish Granting Engine - May 2013

Chuubos Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine
The Roleplaying Game
Hi! This is Jenna Moran.
This is my current working draft of the Chuubos Marvelous Wish-

Granting Engine RPG. It hasnt been professionally edited yet the only
real impact of the editor on this particular document is that he told me,
You really need a formal character generation process, so I added one.
Hes also mentioned wanting a game flow summary near the front.
So the four major changes this is likely to see before layout are as follows:
editing and possibly content rearrangement;

catching any leftover document quirks that adding a formal
character generation process created;
adding that game flow summary; and possibly
shuffling some content between the three books, although I dont
think thatll happen at this stage.
This draft release is meant to reward the campaigns supporters by giving

them a chance to familiarize themselves with the game a little early and to
know what theyre supporting.
Accordingly, please only read this document if youve supported, or fully

intend to support, the kickstarter at at least the $15 level, and please dont
share it with others unless theyre looking at it on one of your devices or
over your shoulder or something.
If youve pledged $1-14 on the kickstarter feel free to take some random
peeks in here to see if you want to go to $15+. Honestly, its all on your
conscience anyway.
Note: this is basically laid out so that I can read it, not as an attempt to
mock up an actual layout.
Similarly, all the art in here is in here as a visual anchor for me whatever
I had on hand with the right feel. Some of it will be used in the book; some
of it is Nobilis art; some of it is meant for webpages and promotions and
stuff and not for the book. The eight Arc-type &c. icons are by Tony
Damiani. The Chuubos logo is by Ciaoffen. Other images should be
marked with their artists where they are.
Best wishes, Jenna

Nobilis: Antithesis, Nobilis: the Essentials, and all included text, concepts, and game
mechanics are copyright 2011-2013 by Jenna Katerin Moran.
Chuubos Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine and all included text, concepts, and game
mechanics are copyright 2012-2013 by Jenna Katerin Moran.
All art and presentation elements are copyright 2012-2013 by Jenna Katerin Moran; by Eos
Press, LLC; or by the original artist or artists. Nobilis is the creation of Jenna Katerin Moran
(formerly known as R. Sean Borgstrom). Reproduction without the written permission of one of
Jenna Katerin Moran, Eos Press, LLC, or the appropriate artistic copyright holder is expressly
forbidden, except for the purposes of reviews, blank character sheets, and copying reasonable
selections for personal use and reference only.
The mention or reference to any company or product in these pages is not a challenge to
the trademark or copyright concerned.
This book uses fantastical and supernatural elements in its setting, for its characters, their
abilities, and themes. All such elements are fiction and intended for entertainment purposes only.
This book contains mature content and reader discretion is advised.
Check out Eos Press Online at www.eos-sama.com!
Dedication
For Robin Michael Alexander Maginn, who wanted to visit me in China; for Lillian Elanor
Tewson Heino, just in case you get into gaming someday; and for Killian James Sebastian
Maginn, whom I havent had the chance to meet yet.
Also for Cync Brantley, Rand Brittain, Cheryl & Joseph Couvillion, Anthony Damiani,
Chrysoula Tzavelas, Kevin Maginn, Raymond Wood, James Wallis, Dara & Anna Korrati, Jesse
Covner, Hsin Chen, and Gayle Margolis.
Special Thanks
To Karl Friedrich Borgstrom, for teaching me the joy of sailing. Fortitude would be different
without you.
Credits
Written and Conceived by: Jenna Katerin Moran
Edited by:
Layout and Visual Design by:
Design and Development Contributors:
Playtesters:
Contents
Introduction
Sometime after the world drowned I found myself on one of the boats that go to Town.
I didnt know yet that the world had fallen.
Being and nothingness were swallowed, both of them, by the tidal wave of the Outside, but
I hadnt noticed yet, because Id been living in one of the places that got covered by it, and so Id
stopped existing in any kind of defined way for a little while.
Then one of the exploring boats found Suzhou, where Id been living. It made Suzhou exist
again, more or less. It stopped being a wild, chaotic delirium and became a place again . . . more
or less.
I dont think I was fully real again yet when I boarded.
I didnt wake up, not all the way, until the boat crested the horizon of Big Lake and I saw
the dockside settlement of Fortitude for the first time. Then it was like my heart woke up, and
everything that had been black and white became color, and the textures of the world came back,
and sound had richness and deepness once again.
It wasnt because Id been unreal, exactly.
It was part of it, I think, but only part of it. It was because . . . it was because as soon as I
saw Fortitude I understood that work would be rewarded; that things had a beautiful simplicity;
and that I had a home.
I guess that if youre reading this then you are real. As I write this, you are mildly notional,
of course. You cant possibly be as real as the wood of the buildings, the depth of the air, the
sounds of fish being sliced open and the smell of marlin cooking on a limestone slab. Youre part
of the diffuse potential of you could be reading this.
But by the time you actually see this I guess you must be someone real. You must be a real,
physical person, in one of the reclaimed regions, and maybe not even knowing that the world
was lost. You might not even realize that youve been cheated, that there could be
That there was more.
So come. Come to a little place called Town, in the middle of nowhere, circled by its reborn
sun. Come, at least in play, and maybe in person if you can stand giving up some of the modern
luxuries, and feel what its like to really live.
There is so much to experience here. You could live.

What is This?
The Chuubos Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine RPG is a guidebook to finding magic and
wonder in your everyday life. Its designed for telling charming little fantasy stories with, heart-
lifting and soul-cheering stories, things to leave you with a smile; as well, of course, as a couple
of doses of laughter, adventure, and fun.
For this game, Im targeting forum and tabletop play
Anything where you can have a permanent physical record of events. You can have fun with
this stuff in a real-time online game but its going to be a little more difficult!
The Wishing Boy (or Girl)
And lets start by imagining you as a pretty ordinary kind of person.
Just an ordinary kid, living on an ordinary street. If youre usually older than a kid, well, bear
with me. Get younger? Or at least imagine yourself a little younger than you actually are. Just an
ordinary kid, in a kind of modern part of a kind of rustic Town.
You get ordinary grades. You do ordinarily well at sports. You like to sit out on the sidewalk
of your street and eat ice cream or play jacks or talk to your friends or pet the neighborhood cat.
Youre named something bland like, I dont know. If youre a boy, maybe Chuubo or something?
If youre a girl, how about Shokyou, instead?1
Youre normal and you have no trouble fitting in.
Youre ordinary and you like it that way.
But just because youre not very strong, and youre not very smart, and youre not very fast,
and youre not even very charismatic, and you are, in fact, pretty much all-around ordinary in
every sort of way, that doesnt mean that you cant go down to the vacant house at the end of
your cul-de-sac and go in and close the door and unroll your plans and get out your saw and
hammer and nails and wood and build a Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine that grants wishes.
Because, obviously, in fact, you can.
You did.
Its right there.
1
Warning: names may not be ordinary in non-participating locations.
The Game
Thats the kind of game this is. Thats the kind of character youll play.
You dont have to actually play a kid with a wish-granting engine, of course. Thatd be a bit
weird after a while. In the first major campaign for this game, The Glass-Makers Dragon,
youll have a total of eight standard options, in fact
Chuubo or Shokyou, with their wish-granting engine;

Seizhi Schwan, their best friend;
Rinley Yatskaya, troublemaker;
Leonardo de Montreal, the master of deviant science;
Natalia Koutolika, hero and ice queen, best of her mortal generation;
Principal Entropy II, his hands dripping with his fathers blood;
Miramie Mesmer, the dream-witch; and
Jasper Irinka, the daughter of slain Jade Irinka, angel of the houses of the sun.
Not to mention variants, characters from various supplements, and characters that youll design
yourself
But at the core of it all?
At the heart of it?
This is the kind of game where your wishes come true.

Town
This game is set in Town. Its a pretty nice place, surprisingly rustic, with about 165 square miles
of settlement and suburbs and 80,000 people2 calling it home.
At its core, Town is
Fortitude, a sweet, laid-back pastoral region;

Horizon, the ruins of a vampires Night London;
Big Lake, that spans the worlds, and its
Little Island a jewel in that endless lake;
Arcadia, a dazzling whirl of fun and magic;
Old Molder, left over from the age of progress;
Bluebell Park, a lurid place of alien magic; and
the Walking Fields, dotted by scattered settlements;
and beyond and around all of that is the Outside.
Town used to be a youkai place. It used to be a monster town, home to creatures that served
the gods of dream and nightmare. It used to be in darkness, every day, as it had no sun. But then
humans came sailing over the Lake first from Russia, then from Japan, and later elsewhere;
and Alexandrel Celdinar built Night London; there was a grand age of deviant science and
strange wonder, and one day Jade Irinka showed up.
She was the sun.
Shes dead now. Shes dead, and we all almost went with her. But we didnt. The sun came
back there are a handful of different stories as to the reason and that pretty much brings us
up to the present day, in Town.
What is this For?
This is a system to help you tell stories. Its a story of a beautiful place. Its an ideological tool,
too, its totally propaganda, because I do have a purpose here, in writing it.
I want you to heed the call if you ever hear it.
I want you to come to Town if you ever find it. I dont want you to be scared or
disbelieving. I dont want you to be dismissive. Its a beautiful place and it needs a few more
people, good people, like you.
2
Depending on how you count the ghosts, vampires, ogres, rats, dryads, robots, fairies, and youkai, I suppose.
Play
Basic Principles
preamble
The Chuubos Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine RPG is a game of pretend.
It plays out in the course of a conversation. It can be an online conversation or a bunch of

people sitting around a table. It can have props or it can do without. But fundamentally, the core
of play is a bunch of people talking.
Most people are playing a single character their PC or Avatar.
If youre doing that then your fundamental power is the right to take actions. You can use
your game traits to do stuff. You can say, I do this, or I do that, meaning your character by
I.
This doesnt mean that your actions will do what you want them to.
It just means
The game is built on the assumption that you can always do stuff.
This isnt philosophy or a manifesto. Its just how the rules are designed. You could have an
ability that helps you wake up fast, so youre allowed to use your abilities even when youre
asleep. You could have a character whos really good at reacting quickly so nothing ever
happens too fast for you to react.
Sometimes your actions are pointless. Sometimes youre trying to do stuff that is just plain
beyond what your character can do. If your character is a normal human, and you take an action
like I catch that falling star, then maybe all that happens is that you run down the beach and
realize too late that its actually extremely far away. If your character is on a fishing boat in a
storm trying desperately to bring a forty-foot halibut in, and you take an action like I play a
quick game of tennis, then maybe all that happens is that people blink at you and then say,
OK, and, moving on.
(Or ask a question like, Wait, what?)
But if youre playing then you have access to the game rules and your abilities. Youll be able
to use Skills (pg. XX), emote (pg. XX), take quest-related actions (pg. XX), and earn XP (pg.
XX) if youre in the game, if you have a PC, then you have full access to the rules.
Conversely, if you lose control of your PC so thoroughly that you cant act
If your PC dies, and the game doesnt just pick up with you playing their spirit out in the
bleakest regions of the Outside where the dead things go; or if theyre possessed by some evil
witch or dream-poison and youre not in their drivers seat; or even if theyre just so thoroughly
beaten that theyre part of someone elses story now
Then youre no longer playing them. All conditions like that mean that you dont have a PC
any longer, and youre just a spectator until you get them back or make a new one. Youre never
actually playing a character that you cant control.
One player maybe one or more players in a big game does things a little differently.
Theyre called the HG (or an HG). Theyre the final arbiter of rules stuff that affects or
changes your abilities, but more importantly, theyre not playing a character. They dont have a
PC or an Avatar.
Instead, they play the world.
What this boils down to in the end is that the HGs role is to describe what happens as a result
of how you act. Often the HGs descriptions will look a lot like the people in the world are
taking actions, and thats fine its even normal. The HG can pretend that some kid youre
playing hockey with has a Hockey Skill, like a PC would, and is using that to take actions, like a
PC wound, with a certain numerical level.
But thats not whats really going on! Thats just how it looks.
The rule is . . . players take actions, the HG describes what happens.

BOX Gaming Terminology
PC or Avatar Player Character. Your Avatar in the world of the game.
NPC Non-Player Character.
Main Character this term isnt actually standard. A Main Character is someone at the heart of
the story, including all PCs but some NPCs as well.
IC IC actions are taken by your character, in character.
OOC OOC actions are things you do as a player, out of character.
HG this term isnt actually standard. The HG is the Hollyhock God, this games equivalent
of the Game Master.
Chapter this term isnt completely standard. This refers to a short unit of play with a relatively
coherent beginning and ending, usually taking 15-90 minutes of tabletop play or a week or two
on a forum.
Chuubos Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine this term isnt actually standard. This is the
general term for the game rules were using, e.g. In a Chuubos Marvelous Wish-Granting
Engine game, youll have 8 points of Skills . . .
END BOX
Quests and Experience
a rules concept
Chuubos Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine tracks all the things that your character is
working on or through, the various projects and efforts and struggles in their life, as quests. If
youre trying to learn the flute, thats a quest. If youre building a little ship, thats a quest. Even
more abstract life things like living through a tough time and taking care of a shrine or park can
be a quest
Theyre the targets of your time and focus, in whatever form.
The big thing youll be doing during play is making progress on these quests; and to do that,
and to move forward with your life, youll need to earn eXperience Points, or, XP.
There are three major sources of XP in this game:
Action XP (aka Group XP) comes from taking various actions that advance the story. It
goes into a group pot that will be shared among the players and you can spend your
share on any quest.
Emotion XP comes from evoking certain emotions and semi-autonomic responses

from the other players. For instance,
o if your character type is hapless, you can get XP from making other players
head-desk.
o If your character type is stoic in enduring awful things, you can get XP from
evoking an aww!
Emotion XP goes to specific players, and you can spend it on any quest.
Bonus XP (aka Quest XP) comes from the quests themselves. If you want to learn the
flute, you need to practice; practicing the flute, ergo, is the kind of thing that earns
bonus XP specific to that quest.
Youll be earning these XP at a steady pace throughout the game 2-3 times per hour, basically,
with occasional special bonuses, although the rate will depend on how exactly your group plays.
Action XP
a rules concept
Sometimes in play theres a choice of paths between something meaning, something mattering,
and something kind of fading into a diffuse blur of stuff.
Action XP exists to open those meaning/mattering paths a little wider.
The rules wont always get this right. In fact, Im not even really trying to get it 100% right.
Think of these rules more as a . . . freeway network through the space of story. Sometimes youll
get stuck on the road and itll go past your destination. Sometimes youll have trouble crossing
from one side to other.
The freeway system isnt there for this specific trip to this specific place.
Its just here to make it a little easier, on average, to get where you need to go even if that
means that you get stuck or blocked at other times.
Heres how it works.
Sometimes youll find yourself in an identifiable situation one of the 3-5 that Im going to
ask you to keep in mind, or one of the other 13-15 thatll be floating around in the rules in case
you happen to notice that theyre going on. Youll spot one of the 3-5 conditions that let you do
something in your particular genre of game, or your HG or groupll realize that this is a perfect
use for one of the out-of-genre actions.
In that case, youll have the chance to take an XP Action
Youll do something, and earn an XP for the group.
For instance, in a Pastoral game, youll be watching for opportunities for . . .
Shared Action (pg. XX)

Shared Reactions (pg. XX) and
Slice of Life (pg. XX).
If youre in a Gothic game, youll still want those three actions, but youll also be on the lookout
for opportunities for
Obsessive Action (pg. XX).

You usually wont use the full rules for, say, monologuing and taking a Decisive action (pg. XX),
because those rules are more specific to epic and adventure fantasy, but even in a Pastoral game,
you can dig them out if youre reminded of them and you think theyll fit.
The Group XP that you get from XP Actions goes into a shared pot that you can divide
up among the players at any convenient breakpoint during play. If theres XP left over after a
division, it stays in the pot; at the end of the session, the HG should add enough XP to the pot
to make the final division even out.
BOX Conditions, Actions, and Details
Heres the internal anatomy of an XP action.
It has a condition. Thats the circumstance where you can use it. For instance, the trigger
for a Shared Action is that you encounter someone whos doing simple, honest stuff you
know, studying, or fishing, or whatever.
It has an action the thing you do to get the XP. In this case, say: you reach out to them.
In a few cases it also has a special consequence something that happens because of the
action that isnt just my character does/feels/experiences X.
Normally at that point you add an XP to the group pot, play out the XP Action and the rest
of the scene, and then fade into the background so that somebody else can act. If theres
anything more to it than that, Ill mention additional details and consequences in the description
of the action!
END BOX
BOX Session Goals
At the beginning of the session, particularly if the players or characters are or might be having
trouble figuring out what to do with themselves and which quests matter, I recommend the HG
ask each player to define a session goal.
This is a wish or dream that will be guiding their characters heart for the session.
It will tie directly into character motivation: the same thing in the characters heart that
pushes them towards that wish and dream drives them towards the XP they can earn in play. Its
the thing inside your PC that makes them willing to face trouble, adversity, and the like when the
opportunity arises and drives them to connect to people in a more pastoral game.
END BOX
Issues
a rules concept
Taking an XP Action can earn you a point of an Issue a little story, a dramatic movement
in your characters life, that moves forward from there.
For instance, take the Slice of Life XP Action.
Its pretty tame. It doesnt require much. Its just you out there in the world, taking in the
things around you, and feeling an emotional response. You might think that theres no narrative
movement there; but I like to think that we can do something with it anyway. So if the scenes are
cool, even a laid-back Slice of Life scenell get you a point of an Issue.
What does it say about a character that theyre spending a lot of time out in the world
feeling things?
What kind of story are they in?
My favorite Issue for that is the Something to Deal With Issue. You have some baggage
you have to deal with, something in your psyche or your life. And the first few times youre
doing Slice of Life stuff and get +1 to the Issue, you probably have no idea what that little-i issue
even is. But Im thinking that by the time youve had the Issue on your plate long enough to get
to level 4-5?
Youll know, and you can resolve it, and all that time youve spent emoting responses to
tasty food and sad events and cool vistas will make more sense.
Thats how an Issue works.
In a fast-paced tabletop game you might wait a while between doing an action and getting
an Issue. You might get an Issue that sort of summarizes everything everybodys been doing
rather than a specific response to your cues. Even there, though, its basically the same idea:
Do quiet stuff, get the Issue for people who do quiet stuff.
Get in a lot of trouble? Grow towards being a Hero!

Fading
a rules concept
After an XP Action, a character normally fades into the background.
This is a conceptual trick used to explain why youre not off doing a zillion other things;
why, having savored a view or bonded with a friend or gotten worked up into a spiral of
obsession, you can relax and feel done for the next third or half of a chapter.
Youve faded.
The XP action casts its shadow over everything you do, forwards and backwards from that
moment, for a third to two thirds of a chapter each way.
For instance, youve been exploring a haunted house. And you came around a corner, and
you saw a face just before the flashlight went out. It wasnt actually anything scary just some
old rags, as it turned out but that Discovery Action earned you a group XP and left you
freaked out for a while.
Youre still freaked out now!
After a while, you unfade, and youre back to being an active character once again.
Time
a rules concept
Games of Chuubos Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine play out in a series of books

stories or seasons lasting about 2-5 sessions of tabletop play, dozens or hundreds of
meaningful events, and often 2-13 weeks in the game. A long quest will typically take about a
book to complete, and your most impressive powers can typically be used 1-2x/book (with
additional uses costing a resource.)
In the shorter term, the game divides into a series of chapters, each covering a couple of
significant events in the life of each PC and roughly 15-90 minutes of tabletop play. Many of
your powers will have limited uses per chapter, again with additional uses costing a resource. In
particular, your supply of Will willpower, gusto, and cope is tied to chapters; youll
spend your Will over the course of a chapter, and renew it when a new chapter starts.
If youre wanting to know how much of your life an XP Action should cover
How big a part of your life it becomes totemic for
The answer is that your character can take around two XP Actions per chapter. In a Pastoral
game, that means two XP Actions a week, and each one probably sets the tone of your life for 2-
5 days. In a Gothic game, chapters arent so regular: you might have one chapter representing a
single fervent night and another representing a slow and grueling season.
Either way, youll get two XP Actions per chapter and youll usually take them both.
The rhythm of play might be expressed as a chapter beginning with all the PCs looking for
opportunities for action; the characters finding definitive moments and fading into the
background one by one; one or two time-skips to later points in the chapter, to give PCs the
chance to take their second or their skipped-over XP Actions; and then, when everyones done
or the chapters time frame is naturally drawing to an end, a final jump forward so the next
chapter can begin.
That said, youll probably wind up skipping one of your XP Actions every now and then;
and, on rare occasions, the HG or group might find a situation so compelling that they push you
to take a third XP Action in a given chapter.
Arcs
a rules concept
The quests that youre on are organized into larger-scale Arcs epic stories of personal
advancement.
Ive broken these down into eight generic focuses
Blue or Bindings Arcs, focusing on sealed, bound powers: containment and

targeted use of wicked, forbidden, or dangerous things.
Orange or Knight Arcs, wherein you take on a formal role and wield its perquisites
and powers.
Green or Otherworldly Arcs, connecting you to some great force of nature as

another part of yourself, and vice versa, often by way of dreams, nature walks, and
communication with ally spirits.
Red or Storyteller Arcs, focusing on telling stories that come true, or, more
generally, on changing the boundary between ideas and life.
Golden or Aspect Arcs, wherein you develop and unleash new powers from your
body, mind, and training.
Purple or Shepherd Arcs, whereupon you learn to guard things, guide things, and
wake powers in things.
Silver or Emptiness Arcs, drawing on the bleak, lifeless power of the far Outside
and sometimes the more vivid chaos of the near; and
Black or Mystic Arcs, taking you outside of yourself; on these Arcs, you give
yourself into the keeping of, and walk in the footsteps of, higher powers.
Each character will spend most of their career pursuing these Arcs.
For instance, looking back at some events in my own life, my childhood was mostly silver
Arcs and college mostly golden; my last RPG, Nobilis: the Essentials, was written late in the
course of a multi-year Shepherd Arc; and if everyone in the world buys a copy of this game and I
am anointed with jewels and cherry boughs and made the ruler of all things, with clothes cast out
of diamonds and a retinue of double gnus, that will doubtless represent the beginning of a
glorious Storyteller Arc.
An Arc lasts for 3-5 quests, but in practice it can go a little more than that because when
you map the formalism onto the play experience and they dont quite fit together, the play
experience gets to win.
Completing one quest will usually earn you a Perk like a cute new power, power-up, or
bicycle; completing a full Arc will provide a substantive holistic improvement to your entire
power set.
Campaigns
The Chuubos Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine RPG is designed to handle a number of

different genres and game concepts, small though Town might appear. Before you create your
characters, before you start playing, youre going to want to pick:
a specific Region or game concept,

a target power level, and
a conceptual genre for your game.
The standard concepts the default stories to turn to if you just want to play a Chuubos
game are these:
A Fortitude Story your characters live out their lives in Fortitude

A School Story your characters attend School in Horizon or
Coming to Town your characters come from Earth or from elsewhere to Town.
Some of my other favorite pitches include:
Adventures on the Far Roofs your characters adventure with the rats of Fortitude
A Garden in Old Molder visiting or living in Old Molder, your characters discover
things about themselves and the natural world
A Horizon Gothic ghosts, mysteries, and obsessions haunt the characters in Horizon
An Outside Story a trading or exploration ship sails through realms of wonder
Changed by a Wish some wish-level effect has turned Town into a land of, say,
dinosaurs, and you run with it for a complete short campaign
Stray Cats your characters get involved with the exorcists and youkai of Arcadia
The Walking Fields larger-than-life characters live/adventure in the Walking Fields
or
Weekends in Arcadia a game about your characters visits to the Shopping District.
Youll also have the option of
An Else-world Story you play out a Chuubos-style game in an original or borrowed

setting.
Note that its easy to adapt Chuubos to any world but you may need house rules to
adapt it to a different tone or sensibility. Without house rules, its always going to be a
measured game of difficult but hopeful times, a game of growing up, whether your game
is about dungeon delvers, superheroes, space opera, wuxia, talking animals, cosmic
horror, weird time shenanigans, or wizards at school.
Whatever you pick as your basic story, youll probably want to refine it by taking early player
ideas and running with them or by consciously emulating and implementing some media that
you enjoy.
Power Levels
a rules concept
There are two standard power levels for a Chuubos Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine RPG
campaign.
The first is the mortal level.
At this level you play ordinary residents of one of Towns Regions normal kids, teachers,
vampires, talking rats, shop foxes, magicians, foreigners, laborers, Jotun, dryads, deviant
scientists, consulting detectives, long-neck people, exorcists, ghosts, and the like or the
ordinary residents of wherever else.
Characters like this wont be gods, or at least not important ones, and they probably wont
shake the world with their deeds. They can be jaw-droppingly cool. They can be capable of some
pretty astonishing stuff. They arent even necessarily weaker than characters at the miraculous
level but theyre fundamentally physical and mundane. Theyre limited. In the final analysis
theyll just be people.
The second option is setting the game at the miraculous level in which case the players
Avatars wont just be people. They will instead be something more. In a miraculous game, your
PCsll be archetypes. Symbols. They will be creatures of cosmic import, even if their concerns are
mostly local and even if they happen to be people as well. PCs at the miraculous level are icons,
myths, and world-shaking heroes:
Great forces of the natural and unnatural worlds, or the agents or representations of such.
Genres
a rules concept
This game engine is built to support eight different genres of play. The delineation between them
isnt a hard one youll need to choose one for your campaign, and youll want to stick to it at
least most of the time, but I expect bits and pieces of the others to show up in play.
In no particular order, these genres are:
Pastoral, focused on simple, honest living over the course of many seasons;
Gothic, focused on slow, brooding passions;
Urban Fantasy, set in a place of marvels;
Techno, with a goofy, meta, stylized kind of play.
The Road of Trials, where characters struggle against impossible odds;
Fairy Tales, for characters who flourish there;
Epic Fantasy, focusing on the deeds of flawed, larger-than-life heroes; and
Adventure Fantasy, with magic and danger around every corner.
From this point onwards to pg. XX Im going to talk about how these genres work.
The most important distinction between the genres will be the XP Actions that Im hoping
youll keep in mind. In particular, each genrell give you 3-5 XP Actions that players can initiate
on their own, while the other 12-15 only come into play if the HG or group consensus suggests
them
If youre in a Gothic game, for instance, then a player can just declare that theyre
overwhelmed by their obsessions or their passions and throw an XP in the group pot; if youre in
a Pastoral game, that only comes up as an option if the HG or the group as a whole thinks its
appropriate/fun.
The second most important distinction between genres will be the length of a typical
chapter Pastoral games, for instance, are designed to eat up weeks, seasons, and even years;
Gothic games are highly variable; but an Urban Fantasy can escalate from a handful of kids
bumping around the shopping district to the end of the world over the course of just 2-3 weeks.
A book usually takes around 10 chapters or 3-5 sessions to play through; if the genre
doesnt specify, assume that it takes one of those.
BOX On the Chuubos Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine Genres
I should warn you that all these genres are handled in a way pretty specific to this work. These
arent generic rules for eight different literary genres theyre labels applied to eight genres
worth of stuff happening in Town and its environs.
END BOX
Pastorals
a genre
Pastoral gaming is focused on slow, dreamlike play:
You can think of it more as a memory of a long-ago summer than as something urgent
thats happening now.
So I suggest
a typical chapter length of a week;

books that last a season;
and occasionally stretching beyond that and playing out the characters childhoods,
golden years, or other periods youd normally just skip over at a pace of one chapter
per season, per year, or per multiple years.
That means that in a typical week youll take about two XP Actions and maybe a bonus action or
two relating to your quests. The time it takes to reflect and process a single XP Action can run to
2-5 days. Picking up basic proficiency with a flute or a fishing boat could take half a season;
mastery would take plausible years.
In play, of course, some of this reverses just like your memories, when you look back at
them, Pastoral gaming seems to go by pretty fast. If you have year-length chapters, you could play
out multiple years of your characters childhood or adulthood in a single session; even with
week-long chapters, youll barely turn around after summer before Christmas decorations start
going up.
Festivals
a rules concept
Speaking of Christmas, festivals are a feature particular to Pastoral play
They may show up in other genres, but not as frequently and with less import. A festival
week adds to your XP Actions youll get a bonus XP Action that week, with the intention
being that you spend it at the festival itself.
If you dont have a suitable festival calendar handy, assume therell be one every 7-8 weeks.
The festival calendar in Fortitude, for instance, has:
the flower-viewing festival in the fifth week of Spring;

childrens day, in the ninth;
the star festival, in the fifth week of Summer;
the harvest and apple festivals in the tenth and eleventh weeks;
a cleaning festival in the fifth week of Winter;
and a cultural festival, in the eighth.
Im not including Christmas or Pancake Week because their festivals eat the whole week you
dont need an extra action to participate in those. Im also leaving off holidays like Halloween that
arent very important to the local culture
Towns aware of Halloween, its begun to make itself known here, thanks to sailors seeing
video of festivities and such and bringing the idea of it home, but its not important enough yet
to justify giving you an extra action for it in Fortitude. If you want to participate youll have to
make your own time!
There are a few things using the festival rules that dont appear there, though the festival
in honor of the elderly, say; or Valentines Day, which can be like a festival if youre in love.
Youll get the bonus action in chapters like that if and only if the holidays a festival for you.
Emoting
a rules concept
Pastoral (and Gothic) games make heavy use of the concept of emoting
Of consciously letting a certain emotion show. Maybe you get angry, so youll say something
like:
You bastard!
Im kicking the wall or
I emote anger.
. . . not so much to cause an effect as to let the emotion play out.
Or maybe your characters happy, so youll smile. But the other players might not notice you
smiling, or they might think its just you as a player, or they might assume for no real reason that
your character is putting up a front. So you say:
Smile or
I emote happy.
I dont mean to imply this is a new concept in RPGs or anything. Its not!
Im just calling it out and giving it a name.
Your character can take physical actions. They can say things. And also, you can emote:
Take an emotion. Let it radiate. Let your character be the vehicle through which that
emotion expresses itself in the world.
Emoting vs. Taking Action
Unlike most actions, emoting isnt physical and tangible. Often you wont be able to describe all
of the elements of your characters behavior that go into it. Youll know a lot of them, of course,
but you should assume that theres probably even more to it than your character is consciously
aware of and even more than you are. Emoting will come out in your body language, your
voice, your eyes, and the way you think and act.
There are two key rules for emoting:
You have to let the other players (in the scene) know what youre emoting.
Emoting has to be honest.
If you dont keep those rules, youre not emoting. I dont know what youre doing but it isnt
that!
Making it Clear
The first rule:
To emote, you have to let the other players know what youre emoting.
That means that if your feelings are too wordless, quiet, or subtle to express at a noisy
gaming table, youll have to make them explicit. Youll have to actually say something like I
emote [ the relevant feeling ]. If youre trying to stay in character, and youre wondering what it
means to say that, it just means that youre leaking enough emotion through your expressions
and body language for other people to read.
You dont have to be that explicit if you can make your feelings obvious through play. You
can just react to something, for instance, and let the other players see your reaction, and thats
often completely adequate as an emote.
Often but not always.
Remember that if you are not going to make something an explicit statement, and you want
it to be an emote, you are responsible for making sure that the idea gets across.
You can express sympathy and shock with a muttered, wow. Some people may even
express their sympathy and shock by totally ignoring someones pain and rambling on about
furniture. Thats fine, when it comes to expressing your character, but its not emoting.
Oh, my God, thats awful, thats so awful, is there anything I can do? thats the kind of
thing you need to be saying for an IC statement to qualify as emoting sympathy and shock.
And bear in mind that it also works to say Oh, my God, thats awful, is there anything I
can do? and then wait a beat and then, when your character would be doing something difficult
to convey like squeezing a shoulder or feeling a silent burst of empathy, Im emoting
sympathy and shock.
Keeping it Honest
The second rule:
Emoting has to be honest.
This is not the game for sending off false emotional cues. You can totally house-rule this at
your table, if you and the other players want to play through convoluted mind games, but at its
core, emoting is about sharing your characters true feelings. Dont worry about being too
obvious and open. The other players and the HG will find ways to be confused about whats
going on with your characters head even if you give them a play-by-play of your characters
internal monologue. Dont worry about losing the potential for problematic interactions, either.
People can hurt each other, and misunderstand each other, and have trainwrecks of
conversations even when theyre being honest, and in fact, it may even make it easier.
So youre allowed to fake emotions in character
but any time you actually say that youre emoting something, you need to be giving your
characters real emotional state. And any time your character is giving a false impression, and
someone asks if youre emoting, or fits things into some kind of rules framework where emoting
matters, or whatever, you need to clarify that youre not emoting, youre just talking and doing
things.
Emoting is for showing your characters heart.

BOX Success and Failure
Your emote does not succeed until somebody acknowledges it.
Now, its possible that you dont need an emote to succeed. This game doesnt currently
include any sort of mini-game where you have to emote successfully four times within a minute
or whatever to earn a Watanabe candy. The rules that demand that you emote, herein they
dont require your success.
Im just saying!
Physical actions tend to succeed by achieving a desired physical result. Mental actions
tend to succeed by giving you correct, actionable information. Emoting succeeds when the
HG or another character acknowledges the emoted feeling by responding. Maybe a PC
comments on it. Maybe they emote back. Maybe they just look over at you, sigh, and nod. Maybe
an NPC does one of these things. Maybe the world itself responds like, you shout that youre
not afraid of Heaven, and then, a few seconds later, thunder rolls in.
But if nobody at all notices, that emote is a kind of IC failure on your part.
I like there to be a beat a pause of a second or two between an emoting action and the
response. If the response is too quick, or too immediate, with a couple of exceptions maybe like
sweeping sad people up into hugs, the exchange starts to feel like overlapping actions instead of
like action and response. Accordingly, a too-quick acknowledgement might or might not count.
END BOX
BOX Why do you Need This?
Heres the three reasons Im including the emoting rules:
to give you a better handle on the Slice of Life, Obsessive, and Discovery actions, below;
to legitimize a focus on the things your characters are feeling; and
because people often find it a useful concept to keep in their mental foreground in a
Chuubos Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine game.
The last is also why Ive gone into such depth!
END BOX
Pastoral Actions
There are three XP Actions that form the heart of a Pastoral game.
You can do plenty of other stuff, and probably want to in order to take care of all that stuff
like progress with your life and fight scary monsters and get things done but these
three actions are what define the course of play:
Shared Action, where you find someone whos doing something simple and honest
chores, studying, fishing, or whatever and connect with them as they work;
Shared Reactions, where you talk things through with someone sort out your
head and/or theirs about stuff thats been going on; and
Slice of Life, where you travel, admire the scenery, have a meandering conversation
about nothing in particular; in general experience stuff and emote your reactions to it.
You can think of these as in-game actions if youre in a player headspace and as descriptions of
what the game thinks really matters if youre in a character headspace.
Shared Action
Shared Action
Condition: Someones doing something simple and honest, like cooking, cleaning, or practicing
their martial arts katas.
Youre hanging out with them, socializing or helping.
Or, youre the one doing simple, honest stuff, and someone else is interacting with you!
Action:
Reach out to them. Try to connect.
Since this is the first XP Action Im talking about, I want to make special note
This doesnt have to be a big deal.
Its not like you have to interrupt their cooking by grabbing their hand in your two hands,
looking soulfully into their eyes, and saying, I . . . want to connect with you.
Its just . . . you know.
You do something. You say something. You ask them what theyre cooking, or if theres
anything you can do to help. Or, if youre cooking, you ask them to stir something. If theyre
doing martial arts poses, try to imitate them and work alongside them. If theyre packing, and
you cant help because you dont live there, hang out and chat.
And in truth, what matters most is actually the movement in your heart that says: I want to
relate to this person!
Everything else is details.
Genres: Pastoral, Gothic

(in other genres youll need the HG or group to suggest this action)
Shared Reactions
Shared Reactions
Condition: Youre having a relatively open discussion with someone something that touches
on stuff that matters to you, and isnt just formalities and etiquette.
Action:
Reach out to them. Try to connect.

BOX PCs or NPCs?
You can try to reach out or connect to either PCs or NPCs and get the bonus XP.
In a tabletop game, you should have a strong preference for connecting to other PCs, both
in terms of frequency and the amount of time you put into a given interactions. In an online
game or LARP the matter is more ambiguous but its still probably best to connect with the other
PCs unless theres a high HG:PC ratio.
END BOX
BOX Vulnerability and Trust
In general both Shared Action and Shared Reactions work best if you make yourself a little
vulnerable if at some point you do something that shows some level of trust for or weakness
in front of the people around you, or if someone shows that trust or weakness to you.
As an optional rule, if the HG thinks that happened, they can add a second group XP to the
actions rewards. I think you should skip this for the first few sessions of the game but add it in
once you have a good handle on Shared Action and Shared Reactions.
END BOX
BOX The Pastoral Icon
This is the Pastoral icon. I use it to denote all kinds of pastoral and conceptually connected
things.
You dont have to do anything about it. Just admire it. You know. Its kind of cool!
END BOX
Slice of Life
Slice of Life
Condition: Youve just had an emotional reaction an action or emote to something in the
world. (To a tasty cake? A pleasant view? A sorrowful scene?)
Action:
The image/moment sticks with you; or

You get lost in that mood.
That moment will set the tone for your life for a while.

BOX Sharing a Moment
In general Slice of Life works best if you get two people emoting about something even if
its just as simple as you looking at the sunset and sighing, and someone else nodding and
agreeing, Yeah.
As an optional rule, if the HG spotted a second person emoting, they can add a second
group XP to the actions rewards. I think you should skip this for the first few sessions of the
game but add it in once you have a good handle on Slice of Life.
END BOX
BOX The Setting Icon
This is the Setting icon. I use it to denote all kinds of stuff thats related to . . . just living in the
world.
You dont have to do anything about it! For clarity. Just know its . . . well, there.
END BOX
Isolation
Isolation
So technically you can take all these actions more or less on your own. This is an animistic game,
so Im not going to insist that you have someone else there even for Shared Action I mean, if
you must, you can take the world itself as your partner in that action.
Even without that
You can go down to where someones working, and you can try to talk to them, and they
can completely ignore you. And you can declare,
XP Action: Im reaching out to them.
Even though saying that doesnt change anything; and then they still ignore you, probably, and
eventually you go home.
Or, youre at home. Youre talking to your stuffed animal. Youre having a frank, open
conversation that you cant have with anyone else. And you decide,
XP Action: Im trying to connect here.
That can happen.
Its a little sad. Just like being ignored is. Its a little sad! But it still sort of works. I mean,
theres something there thats worth playing out, if its going to happen anyway, you know?
And even with slice of life
I mean, thats not the same kind of problem. Its not inherently weird to have a Slice of Life
where you are at home, and no one else is there, and you eat a delicious sandwich, and emote,
mm!
Or clean your bathroom and emote, yuck!
But if you decide:
XP Action: Im losing myself in that mood.

. . . and fade into the background after that? If that moment lingers, if thats what sets the tone
for like half a week for you, if thats a core event in your life?
That still isnt a very good sign.
So heres the rule.
In a Pastoral game, if you take one of these core XP Actions and you dont connect to
anybody at all youll pick up a point of the Isolation Issue (pg. XX).
This isnt a big deal.
Its not even really a penalty. An Issue is even technically a bennie of sorts. But its also
something to help put you in a certain headspace in this case, the headspace of someone
whos becoming more and more isolated, and shouldnt be.
So its not a penalty, and I can even imagine you actively seeking it out for fun (as a player),
but at the same time, even in the very moment that youre doing that, I want you to think of it as
something that you probably should avoid.
BOX In Other Genres
In most genres, the only way youll do Shared Action, Shared Reactions, or Slice of Life is if
the HG or the group really thought it fit
That it was a good moment.
For that reason, outside the Pastoral and Gothic genres, the rules for Isolation are
optional and case-by-case. If you can have a good moment eating a sandwich alone in an
adventure fantasy, if the group says, That was awesome! It should be Slice of Life, or
whatever, then you shouldnt feel like you need to worry about Isolation.
I mean, maybe you should! Maybe its Isolating!
But in the other genres, Isolation isnt a core part of the rules.
END BOX
Gothics
a genre
Gothic gaming adds a spiral of obsession and a dash of depravity to a typical Pastoral scene.
Chapters here can range from a night to a season theres no fixed calendar or pace. The
movement of the game ebbs and flows as to the passions of some cosmic beast:
One moment life is afire with inspiration and events flow with a frantic haste; the next, the
world has begun to dry out, the river of inspiration sinks down into the earth, the mud of it
dries, bubbles, and crackes, and the world becomes sere, thirsty, and sore. Weeks pass under a
shroud of lifeless, brittle gray; months pass, even, and nothing seems to move.
Thus, books and chapters happen at the HGs pace.
To the XP Actions that we discussed before a Gothic adds one more:
Obsessive Action, where you get worked up about something usually escalating
slowly to the point of obsession or paranoia.
Obsessive Action
Obsessive Action
Condition: Youre getting really worried or excited about something. Its taking up a larger and
larger portion of your characters thoughts.
Action:
Tip over the edge into obsession.
Note that, as obsessed as you are, youll be fading into the background shortly after this action
and unable to make meaningful progress on your obsession for a while.
This is not an error.
It is intentional.
To pour all your effort into something and then not get anywhere for a while is a key part of
how obsession works.
Genres: Gothic
BOX Reaction Shots
In general Obsessive Action works best when someone else emotes their reaction to your going
over the top when your frenzy is interrupted, or possibly not interrupted, by someone
expressing their worry, fear, amusement, or whatever at your obsession.
actions reward. This doesnt even have to be immediate it can happen a few scenes later,
when someone witnesses your obsession continuing to thrive.
I think you should skip this rule for the first few sessions of the game but add it in once you
have a good handle on Obsessive Actions.
END BOX
BOX The Most! Passionate! Icon
This is the Passionate icon. I use it to denote all kinds of stuff thats related to . . . obsession,
passion, excitement, working yourself up into a total frenzy over whatever this sentence was
supposed to end!!!! With! Over that!! You know! tHing!
. . . but you can ignore it.
Yes. That is acceptable. Leave it be. It doesnt need you anyway. It doesnt require your
attention.
It will be fine. Here. On its own. Ignored. Once the page has turned. Go ahead.
Read on.
END BOX
Gothic Isolation
A Gothic game makes Isolation a little harder to pick up.
. . . not that youre less isolated. Oh, no.
Rather, its that being a little isolated and withdrawn is normalized. Pulling away from others
to protect your stubborn pride is standard. So being so thoroughly isolated that its worth taking
note of and tracking it as an Issue
Thatll take a little bit more.
So heres the new rule.
If you complete any of the four standard XP Actions for this genre
Slice of Life
Shared Action
Shared Reactions, or the new
Obsessive Action
there are now three outcomes.
Connection. You connect to somebody;
Isolation. You succeed at what youre doing, more or less; at least, it doesnt bite you. But
theres no one to share your victory. Youre alone with it, or cut off from other people. No one
but you to appreciate it. You gain a point of the Isolation Issue (pg. XX), as before.
or
Failure. The action spirals out of control and bites you. Maybe it failed because you were
alone. Maybe someone tried to reach you, but you pulled away, and everything blew up in your
face. Or maybe you were on your own, and you failed, and you dont have any reason to try to
connect to anybody.
Why would you show someone that?
Put as a simpler but far less intuitive rule:
If your action made you miserable, it doesnt give you Isolation.

Urban Fantasy
a genre
The streets are alive and full of magic. Theres wonder around every corner. You cant go half an
hour without finding something, if you look for it
A hopping umbrella tsukumogami? A mysterious book-shop?
Two cars made out of fire, racing through the pre-dawn streets?
Urban Fantasy is about knowing that youre surrounded by magic, yet being awed by it
anyway. Its the genre for people who want to play in a world thats endlessly exciting, amazing,
joyous, terrifying, and new.
Im pegging a typical chapter to a single morning, afternoon, or night like, the HG might
announce them with:
Morning: A new day and a new chapter! What are you doing?
Afternoon: The next chapter picks up after a refreshing [walk/lunch/whatever] ...
Night: So, next chapter! Its time for a [fun/terrifying] night. Where are you?
. . . but you might skip one or two of those depending on your schedule, or lump them up and
redivide them to get a one or two-chapter day.
I dont want weird interactions between this pacing and your powers, so Im going to say
that abilities that talk about every few hours actually mean every 15 minutes. Powers that
talk about every few minutes actually mean every ~15 seconds or so, instead!
Experiencing the World
Towns urban fantasies are built around three key XP Actions:
Sympathetic Action, where you see someone whos all frozen up (from emotion,
shock, a sudden change of context, the spotlight suddenly on them) and you express
comfort, reassurance, or sympathy;
Foreshadowing, where you pay a lot of attention to something. After a while, you
react or emote; and
Discovery, where youre exploring somewhere youve never been, or trying

something that youve never done and you find or learn something!
Again, you can think of these as in-game actions if youre in a player headspace and as
descriptions of what the game thinks really matters if youre in a character headspace.
Sympathetic Action
Sympathetic Action
Condition: You notice that someones frozen up from, e.g., overpowering emotion, a sudden
change of context, a sudden spotlighting, or shock.
Action:
Try to comfort them, reassure them, or offer sympathy.
Genres: Urban Fantasy, Techno

BOX A Furious Reaction
In general Sympathetic Action works best if the person youre comforting explodes into
emotion when youve comforted them if they shift gears from frozen up to
demonstrative after you act.
When you comforted them, they were all deer-in-the-headlights; but once youre
sympathetic
they collapse in tears;

get angry at you;
run away;
melt in adoration;
vent loudly; or
step up to the plate and do something completely awesome.
actions rewards. I think you should skip this for the first few sessions of the game but add it in
once you have a good handle on Sympathetic Actions.
END BOX
BOX A Melodramatic Icon
. . . gasp!
It is a Melodramatic Icon!
Are these things, these scattered treasures, which you have discovered to be labeled with this
icon, truly . . . melodramatic . . . things? Or is this icon actually . . . misplaced, cruelly affixed to the
wrong events, the wrong quests, the wrong occasions?
Tune in next time, dear reader, when I shall reveal the secret the shocking secret
That I am judging melodrama, not by the way you act, but by the way you react to what you
see! That when the world weaves its dizzying net around you, captures the senses, draws up your
breath, enspells you, ensnares you, makes you gasp, aches and lays siege onto your heart
Dear reader! I shall confess it all!
END BOX
Foreshadowing
Foreshadowing
Condition: You notice that youre paying a lot of attention to something.
Action:
Get caught up in it!

BOX Reaction Shots
In general Foreshadowing works best if, after youre been caught up in something for a while, it
gets to you and you react.
You emote. Or you do something big. Youre like,
But . . . that story. Ive seen that sword!
Or How dare they? I emote berserk!
As an optional rule, if the HG notices you emoting or reacting at least a little while after you
announced the action, they can add a second group XP to the actions rewards. I think you
should skip this for the first few sessions of the game but add it in once you have a good handle
on Foreshadowing Actions.
Its great if foreshadowing comes into play later on, in a real way thats even more
important, but Im not going to give XP for that basically because I, um . . . I dont want you
to have to take notes.
END BOX
BOX A Simplified Way to Play It
A lot of the time Foreshadowing is a relatively passive action OOC youre listening as another
player or an HG does their thing. Someones telling a story, or interesting events are happening,
or whatever, and youre interested or at least willing to hang out and listen as a player too.
You dont have to make a big deal of it to turn that into an action.
Just, next time theres a pause when it might seem like the person talking is checking for
reactions or seeing if one of the other players will interject, chuck an XP into the group pot,
aside something like Foreshadowing or Go on, and go back to listening!
END BOX
Discovery
Discovery
Condition: Youre doing something youve never done, or exploring somewhere new. And you
notice that youve just found or discovered or learned something unexpected!
Action:
Declare that its neat, mysterious, or scary enough to have an impact on you.

BOX Reaction Shots
In general Discovery works best when someone it can be you emotes a response to what
youve found.
This isnt a very difficult criterion.
Its not like youre not going to react most of the time anyhow.
This note is just here to encourage you to fade to black on the scream instead of the
monsters face, the oooo instead of the wonder, and the . . . what? instead of the mystery itself.
So, as an optional rule, if the HG thinks that happened, they can add a second group XP to
the actions reward. I think you should skip this for the first few sessions of the game but add it
in once you have a good handle on Discovery Actions.
END BOX
Hollow
Hollow
For all three of these actions Sympathetic Action, Foreshadowing, and Discovery you
should aim for the feeling that you are in the presence of something emotionally important. You
need to evoke a certain . . . quality, sometimes called the mysterium fascinans or the
mysterium tremendum:
That here is an experience that commands the attention.
Here is something that fills you with fascination or the terror of chaos and the unknown.
You can invoke these XP actions even if you dont get that feeling
Even if you explored a comfortable and safe territory; even if you comforted someone who
didnt need it; even if you paid attention to something you didnt really care about, because, well,
the HG seemed to think it was important, or whatever, right?
But doing so will increase the Issue, Hollow (pg. XX).
As with Isolation, Hollow is technically a bennie but Im going to ask you to think of it as a
price. This isnt an Issue for glorious fools or tragic heroes. This isnt an Issue for people who
find wonder in the ordinary if you can put yourself in your PCs shoes and feel wonder, or
terror for that matter, genuine fascination, then you should be fine, that should count, you
shouldnt get Hollow, it doesnt matter whether this stuff was objectively a big deal.
Instead you should get this Issue if you try to react, emotionally, but theres nothing in you
reacting. This Issue makes you the kind of person who has trouble finding wonder anywhere, nor
fear neither who is too hollow to understand beauty, maybe, too hollow to feel fear, or maybe
just the kind of person who thinks they know everything, who thinks theyve been around the
block, maybe, when theyre really just a frog in a well.
This rule is in the players hands. The HG can veto your taking Hollow for OOC reasons,
like, if they dont want to track it; and they can hand it out based on the premise that the HG can
hand out Issues whenever they feel like it but this rule, this decision as to whether you really
felt something during the XP Action?
Thats going to be up to you.

BOX In Other Genres
In most genres the only reason youll do these XP Actions is if the mysterium is already there if
theres nothing deep and meaningful going on, why does the group or HG think its important to
raid the Urban Fantasy rules to give these actions weight?
But justifications aside
Outside the Urban Fantasy and Techno genres, the rules for Hollow are optional and
case-by-case. If it feels right to have comforting somebody who has a splinter be one of your XP
Actions for the chapter, and to have that be Sympathetic and not Shared Action, then you dont
have to worry about picking up Hollow.
You still could, if thats what feels appropriate. But in the other genres, its not an intrinsic
part of the rules.
END BOX
Techno Gaming
a genre
Techno gaming takes your urban fantasy and stylizes it its got the same basic genre concept,
the world around you is amazing, but it trades in its verisimilitude for a bunch of extra style,
symbolism, and cool.
Chapters here mostly cover a whole day, but youll skip the boring days each chapter is
one day from a weekend, holiday, or adventure. Youre also going to start a new chapter for each
big event the notional equivalent of a boss fight, for whatever kinds of challenges you
undertake and depending where you are in the day, you might start another chapter
thereafter.
This could lead to a four-chapter weekend, for instance, like:
Chapter: Saturday
Chapter: Sunday
Chapter: Boss fight!
Chapter: . . . the rest of Sunday
The Big Change (is not actually rules-relevant)
The big difference between Urban Fantasy and Techno isnt actually going to matter in rules
terms.
Its just an expectation.
Techno is going to make heavy use of two special-purpose XP Actions that Ill be talking
about later on
(Triggering or Participating in a) Ritual, a special event where things get a little

weird and abstract, with special game rules, psychedelic phenomena, and/or strange in-
character posing. Think magical girl transformations, cinematic drug trips, and travel
montages; and
(Reacting to a) Transition, where things get so weird and metaphysical that you go
out of normal play entirely. Think stock footage, minigames, religious experiences, and
random chapter-header poetry in novels.
These are both pretty special-purpose, and theyre both ultimately HG-triggered, so I cant say
that theyre Techno-specific or Techno-focused.
Instead, Im just going to advise you:
They should be pretty common in a Techno game.

Meaning in the Noise
A Techno game raises the bar for the Hollow Issue.
If you complete any of the five standard XP Actions for this genre
Sympathetic Action
Foreshadowing
Discovery
(Triggering or Participating in a) Ritual or
(Reacting to a) Transition
there are now three outcomes.
Mysterium. It was meaningful. It evoked something.
Hollowness. Youre kind of pretending that your life has meaning, but, at leat for this
action, it really didnt. Pick up a point of Hollow (pg. XX), as before.
or the new option:
A Pretty Noise. Sure, it didnt mean anything, exactly, but it was kind of cool.
Basically, in a Techno game, youre still aiming for that mysterium, that sense of wonder, but if
the reason that you didnt get it is that things got so weird and stylized that you stopped feeling
like the stuff going on was really real?
Thats OK.
Heck, Ill even be nicer if you do an XP action, but it doesnt really get you on the gut
level because you were pulled out of things by OOC stuff? And you think it might have gotten
to you, if OOC stuff (whether we were laughing too hard at OOC humor or toddler aggro)
hadnt gotten in the way?
You dont get the Hollow Issue. You just get the tasty group XP.
The Road of Trials
a genre
This isnt a place or a genre, really. Its an interregnum. Its something that happens to you,
something you have to get through
The scariest and most exciting parts of your life comprise the Road of Trials.
Are you lost in the distant reaches of the Outside?
Shipwrecked, crawling to the shore of some little Big Lake isle with one leg broken and
nothing to protect you from the sun?
Infected with the blood of a dead god?
Stepping into the dark, ruthless, and fantastic underworld of the manga artists, surrounded
by ruthless shark-toothed gangsters, critics, and editors thatd just as soon eat you as see you
thrive?
Becoming a parent?
Going to war?
On the Road of Trials, each new day will bring new challenges. Each chapter is a new
challenge or a new day. You wont keep track of them, but the narrator might, e.g.:
Day 1. Day 2. . . . Day 39.
The Incident of the Squirrel.
Danger Island.
Round 4 Fight!
. . . Day 62.
Each book covers a new crisis, a new environment, a new tournament, or the birth or resurgence
of a terrifying enemy.
Breaking from Reality
a rules concept
The road of trials is littered with psychedelia. When the relatively stable reality of Fortitude,
Suzhou, Baltimore, Seattle, or wherever suddenly gives way, you are said to break from reality
Things will happen that just shouldnt happen.
The story will slip out from under your fingers and reality will fade into delirium.
Its a break from reality when theres an epic transformation sequence, robot or monster
summoning, or musical number. Its a break from reality when you stagger along in a world
warped and wobbling from your fever; when peoples faces start falling off and the walls start
bleeding; when everything around you starts growing tentacles; when a weird, stylized council
gathers to cryptically discuss the issues of the day.
Things get weird.
How to Handle It
In Chuubos Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine, a break from reality represents the

temporary intrusion of another places laws
To fall into delirium is to fall into the grip of the Outside. To daydream is, perhaps, to touch
Celestia; to feel suddenly at home in the world around you is to enter, in spirit, into Fortitude.
This is a transient and principally experiential phenomenon.
The marks that another realm can leave on your emotions, memory, and ideas are stronger
than what they can leave on a rival physical world. So theres a tendency, for instance, for the
wild chaos of Bluebell Park to fade away rather than leaving evidence
It may be that there was a sudden musical number or transformation sequence, for instance,
where Bluebell Park intruded upon the world, but the effects of that intrusion will tend to fade
away under the scrutiny of a historian or a scientific mind as if most of it were nothing but a
dream. Recordings of its most elaborate spectacles erase themselves or replace themselves
progressively with recordings of bland, mundane events. If the ground burst to release robots,
eerie statues, or magical streamers, itll be whole and unbroken again two hours later.
I should clarify this:
This coverup is not complete. This stuff does happen: in the end, thats not debatable or
dismissable. Now and again the self-effacing quality of breaks from reality comes up against
some other quality of existence and, in consequence, it leaves tracks. There are some videos that
show this stuff happening, some documents, some artifacts and testimonials in the libraries of
Town
For every five hundred eyewitnesses or so, theres often a single proven fact.
So if youve ever wondered like, you watch a magical girl transformation sequence or one
of those Final Fantasy-style attacks and you think, how much of this do the characters experience?
I can tell you that in this game it is experienced.
Stuff the HG describes is stuff that the HG describes, you know? And actions the players
take are actions the players take. Theres no way that one thing would be more valid than another,
just potentially more canonical, more solid, more persistent in its being real.
Its just that some stuff might not be . . . super-sticky. It might not be more than a
metaphor, an illusion, an effect.
So a break could be a purely psychological experience
Or, on the other hand, completely literal and real.
And there are three magic phrases that the HG can say to help put these things in context,
so that players arent always wondering what happened to the pink elephants that they lately saw.
The HGll finish their description of what happens, and then . . .
The Three Magic Phrases
Let us never speak of this again.
This isnt binding, but if the HG says this after a break from reality, it means that youre well
aware that whatever they just described couldnt have just happened, didnt just happen like
that, anyhow.
It should bother you, probably. It does bother you. But it feels wrong to focus on it further.
Just . . . let it be.
. . . surprising no one.
This is again not binding the HG describes, the players act. But if the HG says that, it
means that it feels weird to question the events. Of course there were pink elephants floating
around during that sugar rush. Of course that nap involved an elaborate plummet onto a four-
poster bed while dancers spun around with red satin veils that became the sheets, in the middle
of class.
. . . surprising no one.
Why get worked up over it? Thats so embarrassing! Thats like being that girl whos always
complaining about the henshin transformations!3
And how it works? Thats your problem.
As a response to questions about a break from reality, the HG may duck responsibility. Yes,
things happened. Yes, they were weird. Yes, they probably left distinct physical evidence. Yes,
those elephants may be hiding in the corner of the room now, terrified of the harsh weightiness
of reality or they may be eating people, or already popped.
Its up to the players to decide what happens, or, its up to their characters to figure it out!
3
Jenna does a swirly gesture above her ear, as if to pretend that its just those other people who cant cope
with having the entire neighborhood turn into a backdrop cosmos just so that Jasmine Apocynum can change
clothes.
Stations on the Road
a rules concept
Four key actions earn you XP when youre on the Road of Trials:
(Suffer) Adversity, where you experience something awful.

(Suffer) Corruption, where something corrupts you;
(Suffer) Trauma, where its all getting to you; and
Never Say Die!, where you defy it all anyway.
. . . As you can see, its a pretty rough road.

(Suffer) Adversity
Adversity
Condition: Youre in a really unpleasant place and situation. Its getting harder and harder to
think of anything but how much this really sucks.
Action:
Tip over the edge into delirium.
Genres: The Road of Trials, Fairy Tales

BOX Reaction Shots
In general Adversity works best when someone else emotes their reaction to your troubles
when your suffering is interrupted, or possibly not interrupted, by someone expressing their
concern, horror, amusement, panic, or whatever at your state.
actions reward. This doesnt even have to be immediate it can happen a few scenes later,
when someone witnesses your obsession continuing to thrive.
I think you should skip this rule for the first few sessions of the game but add it in once you
have a good handle on Obsessive Actions.
END BOX
(Suffer) Corruption
Corruption
Condition: Youve just failed to completely defend against a poison, possession, or other
corrupting influence; or, somethings just triggered/awakened an ongoing corruption.
Action:
Experience surreal effects; then, the corruption/sickness gets stronger.
Special Consequence:
If you dont already have one, youll pick up a trigger
Something that can happen to reawaken the corruption, even if you get away from whatever
is causing it right now. For instance, a werewolfs trigger is the sight of the full moon.

(Suffer) Trauma
Trauma
Condition: Youve just failed to completely defend against something really traumatic. This
could be anything from seeing something horrifying to the psychic attack of an elder god.
Or, somethings just triggered/reminded you of an ongoing trauma.
Action:
Experience surreal effects; then, your psychological wounds deepen.
Special Consequence:
Something that can happen to reawaken the trauma, even if you get away from whatever is
causing it right now. For instance, if youre traumatized by seeing bugs eating a dead animal, then
seeing similar bugs or food with a similar consistency might trigger a resurgence of this trauma
and a new Trauma action, later on.

BOX Experience Surreal Effects
Corruption and Trauma work best when the world goes weird
Both the Im in shock kind of weird and the the moons just started bleeding kind.
Maybe it comes from the HG. Maybe it comes from the player. Maybe it happens in the
real world. Maybe its just in the characters head.
But it should happen.
As an optional rule, if the HG thinks enough of that happened to matter, they can add a
second group XP to the actions rewards. I think you should skip this for the first few sessions
of the game but add it in once you have a good handle on Corruption and Trauma.
END BOX
Never Say Die!
Never Say Die!
Condition: Youre completely overwhelmed and overmatched.
Or, youre willing to frame this conflict as if you are youre awesome, maybe, but doomed.
Action:
Fight to the last drop of strength in your body!

BOX Raising the Tension
I find Never Say Die! most dramatic when its sprinkled with little defeats. When, over and over
again, the effort that youre putting out . . .
Just isnt enough.
So each time that happens
Each time you seem to finally have a shot, or even a sure victory, and then its overturned by
a sudden, unfair bump in the encounters difficulty
The HG should add another group XP to the actions rewards.
This lasts from the time you throw yourself into the struggle to the time it ends with your
victory or defeat. This is technically optional and in the HGs hands, but I encourage it to
happen every time.
(Or at least, more specifically, every time that the HG believes that thats what they just did.)
END BOX
Illusion
Illusion
The core theme that unites these various actions is suffering
Each and every one of them is meant to end with you broken and fallen down, even if you
happen to have won or made it to safety first. Each and every one of them is the story of how
you get badly hurt, how you suffer, of the terrible things that you endured.
. . . but Im not going to actually require that.
If at the end of the scene where you used an XP Action, it turns out that youre totally fine
maybe the threat was a paper tiger, maybe someone saved you, or maybe it was a reasonably
scary event but some special case circumstance or rule sheltered you under its aegis
Thats OK.
It just means that youre not actually suffering adversity, corruption, trauma, or fighting to
your last ounce of strength. Something happens, sure, and you might even think that thats what
it is, or experience it, but some part of it is maya Illusion (pg. XX).
These epic battles that youre having, this awful suffering, this corruption and this trauma
Its not all entirely real.
Thats not necessarily a bad thing, you understand. It could mean that youre making a
mountain out of a molehill, which is bad; or that you have a vivid, entertaining imagination,
which is good; or that youre wrestling with metaphysical enemies instead of real ones, which I
guess is a little of both. It could mean that this whole story that were seeing on-camera is a lie
that youre telling the cops later, or a reconstruction from scattered evidence after you later on
hit your head. It could be that youre an illusion or that youre being protected from the threats
youre facing by some power-player that hasnt yet shown up in game.
All I can really say is that at least some of what we see going on in the game
It isnt real. You thought it was real, but it was just a fading break from reality. An Illusion.
And thats why it all came out OK.
BOX In Other Genres
In most other genres, youll only be invoking these XP Actions when they really seem to fit. That
means that a Corruption or Adversity Action with no real bite to it isnt an oxymoron any longer
its something that your HG, or group, has already discovered to be a meaningful event in
play.
Im not saying that you cant pick up Illusion from that.
I mean, maybe thats why its a meaningful event, because it hints at some deception.
But you dont have to pick up Illusion there; outside the Road of Trials and the Fairy
Tales genre, the rules for Illusion are optional and case by case.
END BOX
Fairy Tales
a genre
A fairy tale adds an element of destiny or transformation to the road of trials
You still struggle, and ultimately youre still the pawn of forces beyond yourself, but much
of it is neutral, bearable, or kind.
Chapters are ad hoc, I think.
They dont depend on an IC pattern of events or timeframe most likely its the other way
around. Chapters conclude when the PCs have used up their XP Actions (and done anything else
they specifically want to do before the chapter ends); the end of the chapter brings patterned or
recurring events, like a new sunrise, sunset, info-dump, week, or the visit of a recurring
mentor/godmother.
As noted, youll add a new element to the Road of Trials a fifth XP Action,
(Suffer) Transformation/Metamorphosis, where youre transformed or

graced by some external power in a fashion that isnt, or isnt necessarily, bad.
Objectively, this is exactly Corruption; the difference is a matter of tone.

(Suffer) Transformation/Metamorphosis
Transformation/Metamorphosis
Condition: Youve just failed to completely defend against a transformational influence; or,
somethings just triggered/awakened an ongoing metamorphosis.
Action:
Experience surreal effects; then, the corruption/transformation gets stronger.
Special Consequences:
Something that can happen to encourage or reignite the metamorphosis, even if you get
away from whatever is causing it right now. For instance, some characters will have their
transformation advance further every time they sleep. Other characters will just be triggered
randomly by the distant actions of some god-monster NPC.
Genres: Fairy Tales

Fairy Tales and Illusions
If youre already living in a fairy tale, the bar for something being so implausible there must be an
Illusion is going to be set pretty high.4
If you complete any of the five standard XP Actions for this genre
(Suffer) Adversity
(Suffer) Corruption
(Suffer) Metamorphosis/Transformation
(Suffer) Trauma or
Never Say Die!
there are now three possible outcomes instead of two.
Suffering. You wind up damaged or broken.
Illusion. Some of your suffering appears to be unreal. Pick up a point of Illusion.
or the new option
Transformed. Youre not damaged or broken, per se but you are altered. Youre alienated
from your usual way of being. Youre glowing and speaking disjointedly, or youre finally at
peace, or youre a foot taller and covered in feathers.
Its still damage from the perspective of the game, if youre curious thats all the kind of
stuff that the wound system can handle if it needs to, up to and including being finally at
peace.
But it doesnt have to be damage in the sense of . . . well, conventional damage any more.
In fact, you could even handle a typical devotional/spiritual story with this genre: instead of
declaring it delusional, you can now end a long night of spiritual struggle with a
transformation, in this case representing personal growth, salvation, hope, or grace.
4
That pixie just pulled one ring through the other! There must be some trick going on!
Epic Fantasy
a genre
Epic Fantasy focuses on the deeds of great and legendary heroes. Its about duels that last for
ninety-nine days, punches that shatter mountains, wrestling eight-headed dragons, locking death
in a jewel, standing in the center of town and calling out your enemies, hunting for the holy grail
or the elixir of immortality, demanding the services of fire-shrouded angels, leading armies,
building worlds from dust and ashes, and making the most terrible and horrible mistakes.
Its superheroic or Arthurian. Maybe a little shounen.
Theres a bit of the sagas in it as well.
Most of all its about declaring what youre going to do and then doing it, and experiencing
the consequences that befall. If Pastoral is meant to feel like a memory, epic fantasy is meant to
feel like those moments when you throw caution to the wind and just go for what you want
and/or take a stand.
I figure that each chapter is an episode, an event. A situation. Like:
In Which We Visit the Streets of Fortitude

In Which We Sailed across Big Lake
In Which There is a Battle
Theres no real sense of time here, just as that psychological model might have suggested; theres
just what you do and what happens after.
Nothing more.
Defining Moments
The three most important actions in an epic fantasy are
Science, Faith, and Sorcery Actions, where you come up with a theory about how
something works, and then you test it out.
Decisive Actions, where you decide to do something. and
Wicked Actions, where you decide to do something . . . wrong.
BOX Science, Faith, and Sorcery?
In a Science, Faith, and Sorcery action, your actions create a new covenant. They bring new
definition to the nature of the world.
You test your beliefs and in doing so earn power.
The three concepts are completely different, of course. Faith trusts that things will work out.
Science isnt sure it just wants to know! And Sorcery well, Sorcery is what Im calling it
when you decide to force the world into your desired shape by act of will. Three really different
things, that you do for very different reasons, as very different characters in very different states
of mind . . .
But theyre all the same action:
You take a breath. You let it out. You step forward into the world of the unknown.
END BOX
Science, Faith, and Sorcery
Condition: Youre explaining or wondering how something works.
Action:
Propose an idea an implication? loophole? a desperate hope? & then test it.
Genres: Epic Fantasy, Adventure Fantasy

Decisive
Decisive Action
Condition: Youve been narrating or explaining your hopes, dreams, plans, actions, or thoughts.
Or, someone/something else has been doing that for you!
Action:
Take an action that you cant retreat from something decisive or definitive!

BOX Playing to the Crowd
In general both Decisive Action and Science, Faith, and Sorcery play best when theres an
audience
Not just a narration or explanation, but someone listening to it and, at some point, making or
emoting a response.
So, as an optional rule, if the HG thinks that happened, they can add a second group XP to
the actions reward. I think you should skip this for the first few sessions of the game but add it
in once you have a good handle on Decisive and Science, Faith, and Sorcery Actions.
END BOX
BOX Decisive Choices
If youre not in a position to make an irrevocable external commitment to something, you can
still bind yourself to it in a Decisive Action. You can still say: my decisive action is choosing
sides, for instance, even if theres nobody there to care.
But this does have to mean something.
If you wind up breaking a commitment like this later, you might wind up suffering a Serious
or Deadly spiritual wound (pg. XX), on account of having to betray a promise made to your
heart. You dont have the choice of saying that it was a casual or unimportant commitment,
because youve already declared that you committed pretty hard.
END BOX
BOX The Icon of the Magician
This is the Defining Icon, the Icon of the Magician, the icon of the player or PC in the
process of self-creating and recreating the world. It is the icon of strong decisions and powerful
actions. It is the icon of the scientist, the alchemist, and the celebrant.
Ill use this icon to mark up stuff where you say: I will do this.
And stuff where you say: This, I shall believe.
All the different kinds of things, really, where the player can push forward and the HG
doesnt have to do much at all. All the quests, and the XP Actions, and the other stuff where the
motivation comes from a player and not from elsewhere in the game.
This game is pretty player-driven anyhow. I dont know for sure that that thing that Im
talking about is not just everything in the game. I mean, Im not sure that the distinction Im
drawing here is actually a thing with a real, defined meaning.
But Im going to declare that it is!
END BOX
Wicked
Wicked Action
Condition: Youre doing something that you know IC that you shouldnt.
Its just not healthy!
Or, its wrong!
Action:
Fall into a delirious abyss of self-indulgence.

BOX Experience Surreal Effects
Like Corruption and Trauma, Wicked Actions work best when the world goes weird
When your delirious descent into vice is accompanied by the surreal and bizarre.
Maybe it comes from the HG. Maybe it comes from the player. Maybe it happens in the
real world. Maybe its just in the characters head.
But it should happen.
As an optional rule, if the HG thinks enough of that happened to matter, they can add a
second group XP to the actions rewards. I think you should skip this for the first few sessions
of the game but add it in once you have a good handle on Wicked Actions.
END BOX
BOX The Lurid Icon
END BOX
Turn Back! Turn Back!
Turn Back!
The most important feature in all of these cases is risk.
The worth of the action is the worth of the gamble; if youre not taking a risk, then you can
still take the XP actions of Epic Fantasy, but theyre going to fall a little bit flat.
Its a valid act of Faith, for instance, to say:
I believe in you. I trust you. That is why I am going to loan you this comic book, even
though it would cost me three whole dollars to replace if this transaction goes horrifyingly
wrong.
And its Decisive to say: I will not eat Indian for lunch today though the Heavens fall!
But it is, as epic heroes go, perhaps just a little bit tame.
So heres the rule.
If you do that kind of trivial thing, thats fine. Its an XP Action. But if you do something
bolder and more epic, you have a chance at something more.
If the HG sees you walking into your doom a normal course for Wicked Action,
perhaps, and a common one for the other two they may give you a fey intimation of the
burdens to come. They may cry out, through the voice of ravens, signposts, or robe-clad seers
along the road: Turn back! Turn back!
They may even lay out exactly what you face:
The consequence to come.
And if they do this thing, and you turn back, then the action is for nothing, of course; its
not an XP Action at all.
But if you heed not their errant cry, they add another bonus XP to the pot.
At that point your doom is writ, but not necessarily a doom if the HGs warning left you
wiggle room, either on the odds or on the meaning of it, you can still work around it. Or you can
escape it using the rules for fighting Bleak or wish effects (pg. XX), below.
. . . But it is writ. The price is paid. Its real.

Adventure Fantasy
a genre
An Adventure Fantasy is like an Epic Fantasy, except that the heroes arent completely larger-
than-life and awesome
They get into trouble. Theyre down to earth.
They get scared.
The first way Im going to represent this is with a new XP Action in addition to the
standard XP Actions for Epic Fantasy, a Fantasy Adventure also offers:
(Be in) Trouble, where something really scary is happening.
Like so:
(Be in) Trouble
Trouble
Condition: A threat approaches!
Action:
Be overwhelmed and overmatched.
Genres: Adventure Fantasy

BOX Lulls
I find Trouble most interesting when its sprinkled with lulls moments of apparent safety
followed by heart-stopping moments of fear.
So each time that happens
Each time you seem safe for a moment, and then it turns out you werent
The HG should add another group XP to the actions rewards. This lasts from the time you
first get into trouble to the time you take your next XP Action, for this and all similar threats.
This is technically optional and in the HGs hands, but I encourage it to happen, either every
time theres trouble, every time the trouble is related, or every time the trouble gets bigger.
END BOX
BOX The Icon of Struggles
This is the icon of Struggles the icon of danger, adversity, striving, and heroism. (At least,
action heroism, you know, the modern kind, the kind where you feel outmatched and either
frightened, hopeless, or doomed every step along the way.)
You dont have to do much when you see it.
Just . . . maybe, try to be a hero? Or at least a little better than the person you thought
yourself to be.
END BOX
Trembling
Adventure Fantasy lowers the bar for fear.
No longer need the HG foresee bad things before they can cry out, Turn back!
In fact, much of the time, the bad end they warn you of it wont come true at all. Oh,
sure, it sometimes happens, but its not a fey intimation: its just your fears. Or, if youre not
the kind to be afraid, the inherent narrative fearsomeness of the situation.
If you complete any of the four standard XP Actions for this genre

Decisive Action
Wicked Action or
(Being in) Trouble
and the HG warns you of impending doom, and adds an XP to the pot, and you go forward,
well.
That bad thing might still happen. It might still be writ.
Or, it might not!
BOX In Other Genres
Im not going to explicitly make Turn Back! optional in the other six genres, since the HG has
to decide to invoke it anyhow
Theres no point in making an option an optional rule!
That said, its less important in the other six genres, and if the HG decides to use it, they can
decide case by case or in general whether it runs on the Epic Fantasy or the Adventure Fantasy
rules.
END BOX
Special-Purpose Actions
a preamble
There are two XP Actions that I want to handle a little differently. Theyre not really a part of the
game in the same way as the others because theyre narrative tricks.
In character they represent stuff thats impossible to process
Spiritual and transcendent experience, psychotic breaks, the most surreal dream worlds, data
dumps from superhuman minds, sensory overwhelm, overpowering charisma or glory, psychic
self-alteration, awakening inner potential, or even perfectly ordinary stuff that cant really be
reasoned out like creating art, introspecting, falling in love, shifting from vacation mode into
work mode, or enjoying a new piece of music.
Stuff where just saying it in words either doesnt cover it or cant.
This stuff takes you outside of normal play, but Id kind of like to think of it as actions and
give you a chance at group XP from it, so . . . here we are.
The two special-purpose actions Ill be talking about today are Rituals and Transitions.
These are genreless they only come into play if the HG or group consensus wants them
to. Otherwise youll skip the ritual or transition and just have a bit of HG description of what
happens when . . . you do whatever . . . instead.
Rituals
a rules concept
So I think that sometimes the world is weird. Sometimes acting in the world gets weird. Sometimes
the whole model of I do X, then I do Y, then I do Z doesnt seem on point, because emoting
and being metaphorical and being literal and proposing what your character does and proposing
what other people do and stuff
Sometimes I think thats all scrambled up.
When youre acting on a spiritual level or in a spiritual place. When youre playing mind
games or social games with your own identity. When youre wrestling with metaphysical things
and problems that are too big for you. When youre dealing with something where reason and
ego and all the normal parts of the modern mind arent enough
I think that if youre playing that out normally, something is lost.
So sometimes Ill ask the group for a Ritual Action instead.
Im modeling this pretty consciously on film techniques on the ways that anime
directors, in particular, and film-makers, in general, use repeated and abstract footage to achieve
effects.
Heres the core of a Ritual.

The Invocation
Ritual Actions
Condition: You have the OOC attention of all of the players, and there is an applicable ritual.
Action:
Invoke a Ritual!
Each Ritual begins with a ritual phrase or symbolic action. Maybe youre casting a spell from a
strange book. Maybe youre taking a special pose. Maybe youre taking some necessary action
that opens a sailing path through the Outside.
This only works if all the active players are paying attention to you. This is a practical
convention, because rituals break the normal course of play so anyone who is playing in one
needs to be aware that its going on. But its also a meaningful criterion. Its part of how a ritual
works.
You arrest the players attention. You invoke the ritual
And the world stops.
The world stops; play freezes; it must stop, or the ritual fails. There is a requirement for a
frozen, timeless moment in character, and not just the suspension of normal play on the players
part.
The world stops, and the normal course of play stops, and for a little while, you do
something else.
Genres: None
(youll only play out a ritual if the HG or group wants to)
Prompts
The metaphorical spotlight now moves from character to character. Usually the HG points to
someone and gives them a prompt, something to help shape and define the ritual, something like
say something cryptic.

a soul-beast is flying out of you; what does it look like?
you. Play out your unleashed id in ritual actions.
youre in your worst nightmare; what are you doing?
youre being interviewed by an imaginary magazine or film crew; their first question
is what made you decide to come to Town and work with these people?
do something. It can be anything, even a normal action, but the further it gets from
frolicking amidst the clouds and rainbows the higher the Will surcharge will be.
Sometimes instead of the HG giving prompts, the spotlight will move from character to
character by informal group consensus instead.
Ritual Actions
Ritual Actions
Condition: Youre in a ritual. The spotlights on you, or on someone in physical contact with
you.
Action:
Add a group XP to the pot and declare that your impending action is meaningful.
When the spotlights on you, you take a ritual action or make a ritual response5:
stating or emoting your reaction to some recent event;

emoting your reaction to the ritual;
posing or otherwise showing off in some iconic fashion suited to the spirit of the
special effects or the rituals mood;
taking actions that are specifically called out by a rules book or the HG as part of the
ritual;
doing something that starts a different ritual in particular, invoking a symbol of your
own power (like activating the Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine) and combining the
two rituals thereby.
If two characters are in physical contact, they share a spotlight and can interrupt one another
here; otherwise, they should not.
Genres: All
(if youre already in a Ritual,
this is always an option.)
5
Its sometimes possible to break the rules and take an ordinary, unrelated action in here, but please only do
this if you can make it awesome. Also youll need to overcome a barrier a level 2-5 Obstacle or Auctoritas,
as described on pg. XX.
Closure
The HG decides who has the power to finish out the ritual and what they have to do to do so.
This mostly shouldnt be a challenge it amuses me to imagine players sweating as they try to
figure out how to get out of the ritual, and if youre running some sort of weird existential horror
game then it might even make sense, but Im assuming that doesnt happen. The HG either tells
people how to end the ritual, or bends the rules until they manage it if people start to flail.
Afterwards, the HG describes the rituals effects.
Ritual Powers
A handful of powers available to you in this game take the form of Rituals. In order to invoke
them, youll have to walk through a Ritual Action of some sort.
Im usually only requiring this for the most potent and miraculous abilities.
Theres flooding a magical artifact with the wishing power of your heart, which Ill talk
about on pg. XX under the heading Combo Move; thats epic and can have Town-shaking
consequences and it usually takes a Ritual to perform. If you have access to something like the
eponymous Wish-Granting Engine, thatll generally require a Ritual Action to get it going as well.
But this isnt strictly a power level thing, and you shouldnt feel obligated to treat it as such
its a matter of the nature, and dramatic importance, of the event.
Even a very basic application of a magical Skill could require a Ritual every time, if thats
what the HG thinks is right for instance, if you have a Magical Girl Magical Skill, changing
costumes with it is probably a simple Obstacle 1-2 magical action.
. . . but it could require a Ritual.
Or it could be a Transition, an option were about to discuss!

BOX What is this For?
Rituals are most important for:
travel montages
shopping montages
clothing-selection montages
training montages
magical girl transformations
invoking big powers
launching giant robots
and stylized, surreal student council meetings.
But thats not why Im including them.
Im including rituals in the game because I want you to be able to engage, if not on equal
terms, on some terms with numinous forces. I want the Headmaster of the Bleak Academy (pg.
XX) to be able to challenge your faith without mind-controlling you. I want it to be possible to
tell a story of healing a wounded soul. I want you to be able to form complex, emotional bonds
with mecha if the game takes a sharp right turn into being a mecha story. In short, Im giving you
rituals as a mode of interacting with things for which ordinary play falls short. Theyre a way to
inject meaning into elusive, peculiar events!
END BOX
BOX A Symbolic Icon
END BOX
Transitions
a rules concept
Transitions are an alternate approach to the numinous and incomprehensible.
On occasion you may want to bring normal play to a stop triggered either by IC or OOC
events and substitute a short reading for events in play.
Heres my pitch.
I dont think that RPGs need thematic poetry and whatever. At most a games soundtrack
plays that role. But I do think that sometimes switching from looking at game events to . . .
reciting something outside the course of play . . . is the only way to express the idea that what is
happening is inexpressible.
If you want to describe a tragedy thats too awful to comprehend
If you want to describe a brush with the divine
Just talking about how awful it is, how illuminating it is, how big and impossible to understand it
is, wont work. Just talking about how you cant comprehend it wont work. There are no words
to express words cant express this
Except poems about related things. Except stopping talking about the battlefield and its
awfulness, or the vastness of the touch of God, or the loss of a child, or the experience of
becoming something more than human, whatever, just, stopping. Stop talking about it, look away,
and quote something else. Ground the experience in something else, like a mind flailing for a
way to understand.
If the point is that no description is adequate describing that wont work.
Do something else.
The kind of thing youd need this for
I dont know.
Sometimes there isnt anything you can say at all but
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?

The Transition Action
Transition
Condition: Youve just finished a transition.
Action:
Become Thoughtful and Distant.
Genres: All
(the HG invoking a Transition qualifies as approval)
In practice, when writing campaigns, I mostly wind up using Transitions to give you a way to
grapple with things of the Outside, things of grief, and things that take you outside of yourself
particularly since the shape of shapeless chaos is notoriously difficult to grasp.
As weird as quoting poetry might be, its a better way of handling an elevator ride to the top
of some Outside-infested building than saying this is a really disturbing, metaphysical elevator.
END BOX
Emotions
a rules concept
In Chuubos Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine, each character has a bonus XP emotion or

bonus XP condition a particular emotional reaction youre trying to get from the other
players.
This is ideally something that can be boiled down to a gesture, involuntary vocalization, or
emotional reaction easily overacted youre looking for, e.g.,
Aww! XP
Face-palm/head-desk XP
Fist-shaking XP
Oh no! (Name) is in Trouble XP
(Overacted) Speechlessness XP or
(Overacted) Shiver of Wonder/Terror XP
Or some emotion that can be tangibly represented by handing you an XP token, like:
Putting my Faith in You (with this XP token) XP

Offering you Comfort (with this XP token) XP
Or something that needs a complicated explanation for what youre trying to play here, but
which is physically pretty simple, like:
Finger-snap and beckon over XP this is a good one for natural minions,
whose exaggerated or long-suffering reactions are a source of amusement to others.
When your doom is prepared, they snap their fingers and/or beckon you over,
knowing youll put up with it but wont jump in on your own.
Fist-pump/Salute XP youre playing someone so bombastic and dramatic, with

such recognizable catch-phrases, that expecting people to cheer those catch-phrases
on or celebrate them with a fist pump or salute is actually reasonable.
Thumbs-up XP this is a good one if your life is pretty hard but has good
moments, at which times people are happy for you and give you a thumbs-up.
The most important feature of a bonus XP emotion is that its always based on the players
emotional reactions and not their characters. If the players are deep in their characters
headspace, then theres no real difference, of course but when that difference exists, its the
players that youre targeting here. I dont care how strong an emotion your group says that your
character evokes; I care about the emotion that your character actually evokes.
The second-most important feature is that the players can and should exaggerate their
reactions to make this pretty easy.
Listen Im not looking for you to drive the players to tantrum and fury while getting
face-palm and fist-shaking XP. Im not expecting you to be able to get honest shivers of wonder
and terror from them as often as you can get an honest aww!
Its totally OK to exaggerate your emotional reactions for the sake of giving people this XP.
You should be ready to shiver at a player with a shiver XP condition if youre in the vicinity of
shivers at all. You should be ready to point and gape and work your jaw when someone with a
speechlessness XP condition says something disconnected from reason and the world. Fist-
shaking should be more a matter of mock-outrage and shouting their name in slow-motion than
of actual rage as long as theres this honest seed of . . .
I guess its the same underlying noooooooo as for face-palming, but built up into a totally
different mood.
You can earn this bonus XP once per fifteen minutes of real-time play.
Im expecting you to earn it maybe once or twice per hour.
As a general rule you should earn emotion XP from actions taken in character. This is a soft rule
I dont mind if you get the occasional bonus XP from things that are pseudo-IC at best, or
even completely out of character. (I mean, if Im playing someone with the fist-shaking bonus
XP emotion, and sometime in the course of play someone shakes their fist at me as a player and
cries out, dramatically, Jennnaaaaaa! then my getting the bonus XP isnt really bad.)
But at the same time, dont get into the habit of thinking that thats what its about.
Its not! Its your characters actions that are meant to earn the actual emotion XP.
[[ LAYOUT: These Boxes can fill art holes. They can and should scatter through the book, and dont
have to be near here. However, putting one or two here to establish the idea is a good idea, and
they do probably have to come after this. ]]
BOX Stoic
When I was a kid in Russia, my trainer wouldnt let me have flounder. He thought a growing
girl should subsist on sawdust and chips of ice.
I dreamed of honey and wildflowers. But most of all of flounder.
I made a little flounder out of ice chips. [ wiggles a hand ] I swam it back and forth, like this.
In the end I could not eat it. It was . . . too precious to me.
Natalia Koutolika, The Prodigy,

as played by Heather Sullivan
- Character Type earns: Aww! XP -
END BOX
BOX Hapless
Well, of course, wishing to have an ice cream didnt work. I mean, you cant have an ice cream
and eat it too.
Chuubo, The Wishing Boy,

explaining why he wished to be an ice cream
- Character Type earns: Head-Desk XP -
END BOX
BOX Infuriating
I thought the party was for me.
Soun Shounen, The Idol,

explaining why he punched out the newly-arrived Belgian ambassador
- Character Type earns: Fist-Shaking XP -
END BOX
BOX Worrying
I could hear them talking in their low, rich voices. I could feel the pulse of magic from
their tattoos. I didnt even have to open my eyes to get the picture.
I was a prisoner of the Russian cyber-Mafia.
. . . again.
Edony, The Magical Detective

as played by Diane Firth
- Character Type earns: Oh no! (Name) is in Trouble! XP -
END BOX
BOX In Their Own Private World
I, me, I, Leonardo de Montreal, I have plunged myself repeatedly down into the darkest
depths of my own primordial psyche and found there at the tangled root of the spiraling
garden of my dreams a place where the real world and the world of nightmare twist together
into a bottle without shape or form and there one may fold through the What is Not into the Is.
I have made my dreams a blueprint for reality.
I have ascended to the throne I have always occupied, in some unknown Heaven; I have
discovered myself as God.
And who better? And who else?
There was never one better qualified; no, not among all the scattered stars.
Leonardo de Montreal, Nightmares Angel,

explaining why he drank the last of the milk and did not buy any more.
- Character Type earns: (Overacted) Speechlessness XP -
END BOX
BOX Unnatural, Alien, Numinous, and Strange
This is my blood. It will change you, if you let it. It will make permeable the barrier
between you and the greater world.
I cant stop it.
It keeps coming from my hands. It is because I am born from my father, and my father
slew the throne of God.
I cant stop it; it is not mine, but rather yours. It is the worlds gift to you, who have lost so
much. I am touching it to you. I am marking you with it. I am freeing you. Be no more what you
have been; release the grip of the old covenant upon you;
Renewed.
Principal Entropy II, The Angel of Fortitude,

christening a new hall monitor at his School
- Character Type earns: (Overacted) Shiver of Wonder/Terror XP -
END BOX
BOX Trustworthy
I suppose I must have managed it, somehow.
Lilimund Cartaign, the Wish-Granting Engine,

explaining how she stole the Bleak Academy
- Character Type earns: Putting my Faith in You (with this XP token) XP -
END BOX
BOX Someone Struggling with Life
Its just . . . I try so hard. I try so hard, you know? And yet nothing ever gets back to the way it
used to be.
I dont even think it can.
Miramie Mesmer, the Dream-Witch,

after another delay in the re-opening of her caf
- Character Type earns: Offering you Comfort (with this XP token) XP -
END BOX
BOX Minion
And why am I the one carrying everything?
Alucard Sunadori, the Vampire,

interrupting himself in the middle of a rant about vampiric superiority
to wonder why hes the only one staggering along with a zillion bags
- Character Type earns: Finger-snap and beckon over XP -
END BOX
BOX Larger-than-Life
If there is one among you who has the courage, come up and join me on this stage.
I will kiss you and I will transform you. I will reach my good right hand into your chest and
I will pull out your living heart. I will transform what is left of you into a giant robot, and with
that giant robot I will buy us freedom from this dismal realitys chains.
Do not despair. Do not let the world crush you. We can do this.
All is not lost.
You who were given to and mired in your misery. You who had abandoned hope. Come
stand before me. Set aside this prison of your own making and I. will. make. you. good.
Salute! Apocynum!
Salute! Apocynum!
Jasmine Apocynum, the Ideologue,

organizing an escape from detention using a conveniently-placed microphone and stage
- Character Type earns: Fist-Pump/Salute XP -
END BOX
BOX Sweet but Troubled Kid
Its really OK? I can have this?
Seizhi Schwan, the Best Friend,

doublechecking before actually chewing an offered stick of gum
- Character Type earns: Thumbs-Up XP -
END BOX
Character Building
Now that weve covered the basic experiences and emotions of the game, Id like to take a bit to
talk about how to build your character.
Im going to start by explaining what a character build looks like at the mortal and
miraculous levels. I havent covered all the rules for this yet, so if this is your first read-through, I
dont expect you to get more than an impressionistic sense of how a character works itll
make more sense after playing or reading the book.
A mortal character starts out with:
8 points of Skills (pg. XX)

a level 1 Connection Perk (pg. XX, XX) to any PC whose player agrees that you should
have one
2 Normal Health Levels and 1 Tough Health Level (pg. XX)
1 MP (pg. XX)
a basic quest (pg. XX), and
a bonus XP emotion (pg. XX)
Theyll also start with a level 0 Advancement Arc (pg. XX) a story of character growth thats
just beginning and itll come with the following benefits:
a level 2 Bond (pg. XX)

an Affliction (pg. XX) tied to the Arc Traits rating (pg. XX)
a level 0 Arc Trait (pg. XX), which isnt inherently useful but can grow later on; and
the ability to advance or complete this Arc by earning about 100 XP (pg. XX), giving
the benefits described on pg. XX.
If you start the game at the miraculous level, characters will be a little scarier. A miraculous
character starts out with:
8 points of Skills
2 Normal Health Levels, 1 Tough Health Level, and 1 Divine Health Level
a level 1 Connection Perk to any PC whose player agrees that you should have one
5 MP
a basic quest, and
a bonus XP emotion
To this each character adds a certain number of miraculous Arc Traits and Perks (pg. XX).
Theres some flexibility here
The HG can fine-tune the power level of a miraculous game by deciding how many Arc
Traits and how many Perks a PC will get. (Technically the group decides this. But the HG is
going to need the best understanding of what all the PCs are capable of and how their powers
interact, so Im putting the first and last call in their hands.)
In any case, a miraculous character gets the HG-determined number of Arc Traits, e.g.,
(default) you can start with three points of Arc Traits

you start with a level 1 Arc or
youre a formerly-mortal character, starting at level 0 of your first miraculous Arc
. . . and the HG-determined number of Perks, e.g.,
(default) in addition to the Connection stuff and anything your Arcs come with, you
can pick two free Perks suiting your Arcs.
The character can now continue an established Arc or begin a new level 0 miraculous Arc.
The Character Creation Process
a rules concept
Campaigns and setting books for the Chuubos Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine RPG will
often come with campaign- or Region-specific character creation processes. If you dont have a
relevant setting or campaign book, though, heres what Id recommend as the process for
creating a new PC for this game:
make sure that theres a campaign concept already on the table;

choose your starting Arc and first quest;
choose your Skills;
choose your special abilities;
choose your bonus XP emotion;
fill in miscellaneous little details for your character; and
choose a basic quest for your PCs daily life.
Im going to assume that you already have a campaign idea taken care of I think its cool if
you discuss it as a group, but I bet that most of the time youll have that sorted by the time
youve actually agreed to play the Chuubos Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine RPG in the
first place. The HG will say, Hey, I want to run a Pastoral game on Little Island, whos in? or
people will talk about what RPG to play and someone will say, Hey, we could be Stray Cats in
Chuubos. or something like that.
Assuming, then, that thats taken care of
Ill go over the next six steps below.

Step 1: Choose your Arc
I want to start things off with something active something that leads straight into play. So the
first step in character creation is choosing your starting character Arc.
What will your characters life focus on in the early stages of the game?
Whats your goal or your mission statement right now?
Choosing your Arc Mortals
Are you a mortal? Then youll start by picking the type of your Arc the kind of thing it is, which
is in some respects also the kind of thing you are right now.
Pick . . .
Bindings if you want to work with weird and forbidden stuff;

Knight if you want to find or live up to your place in society;
Otherworldly if youre torn between two worlds;
Storyteller if youre a larger-than-life, cinematic figure;
Aspect if youre striving to become better, stronger, more;
Shepherd if you want to guard, guide, or strengthen others;
Emptiness if youre dealing with loss, hurt, or the Outside; or
Mystic if your fate is in the hands of some higher mortal or supernatural power.
This turns into your starting level 0 Arc. If youre in the process of learning Shaolin Kung Fu, for
instance, your character might start out with the Arc
Aspect (Shaolin Kung Fu) 0
Or, if youre a necromancer from beyond the world, you might start off with
Emptiness (Necromancer) 0, instead.

Choosing your Arc Miraculous Characters
For a miraculous character, your power sets and your lifes stories are tightly related including
your starting character Arc. If you play through, e.g., the story Arc Primordial, youll evolve
into a divine spirit of the natural world and get powers accordingly; conversely, if you want those
powers or that evolution, youll play through the Primordial Arc.
So lets start the character creation process with a look at the powers your character is
learning or developing right now
The evolution path that theyre on when the campaign begins.
Maybe its something theyve been doing for a while. Maybe theyre just starting it now.
Either way, based on what you want your character doing, pick . . .
Knight (Become Somebody) to find or live up to your place in society;

Otherworldly (Spiritual) to develop elemental powers
Storyteller (Creature of Fable) if youre becoming a story or myth;
Aspect (the Ace) if youre striving to become superhumanly awesome; and
Shepherd (Sentimental) to create magic stuff or have magical pets
If youre willing to walk a path that may sicken you a path actively detrimental to your
characters health and well-being then you also have choices like:
Bindings (Wounded Angel) if you practice deviant science or forbidden magic;

Knight (Reality Syndrome) if youre developing powers that you dont understand;
and
Emptiness (Accursed) to take the first steps towards a tragedy towards
becoming a living weapon with a terrible life.
If youre actually turning into a god into something divine, holy, something so far beyond
humanity that while you walk this path you will be immortal, you can also pick . . .
Otherworldly (Child of the Ash) and maybe possibly turn into a giant monster;
Storyteller (Creature of Light) and become a sacred existence;
Shepherd (A Keeper of Gardens) and rule one or more magical places; or
Mystic (Primordial) and become the incarnate and generally inhuman form of some
natural force, e.g., evolving into the dragon of the wind or the many-armed goddess of
Hope and the Sun.
Which path are you walking when the story begins?

Starting Quest
Regardless of power level, youll now choose a quest to start that Arc out.
Turn to . . .
pg. XX if youre on a Bindings Arc (including Wounded Angel);

pg. XX if youre on a Knight Arc (including Become Somebody/Reality
Syndrome);
pg. XX if youre on an Otherworldly Arc (including Child of the Ash/Spiritual);
pg. XX if youre on a Storyteller Arc (including Creature of the Light/of Fable);
pg. XX if youre on an Aspect Arc (including The Ace);
pg. XX if youre on a Shepherd Arc (including Sentimental/A Keeper of
Gardens);
pg. XX if youre on an Emptiness Arc (including Accursed);
pg. XX if youre on a Mystic Arc (including Primordial).
Starting Quest Bindings Arcs
If youre on a Bindings Arc, then you can pick either of these starting points:
Youve just been thrown into a new relationship with some troubling power e.g.,
o youve been assigned to watch a criminal,
o youve been partnered with something dangerous,
o youve been given responsibility for something dangerous,
o youve captured something,
o youve wound up spiritually entangled with something, or
o your parents are pressuring you into dating something
thats conventionally wicked or disfavored.
So now you have to build a working relationship with them. Who is it? What are they?
Whats the problem?
or
Youre having a crisis of faith. You work with weird and forbidden stuff. You find
yourself worrying about whether youre an OK person anyway. Why are you worrying?
Just how bad is it? Are you facing the truth that youre probably not OK, are you
worrying over nothing, or is your moral standing here a legitimately troubling question?
You can either create a custom quest for this (see pg. XX) or pick one of the following quests
from later in the book:
Science! (pg. XX): youre investigating something. What is it?

Bind (pg. XX): youve just bound some horror and now you want to redeem it.
Mental Training (pg. XX): youre studying! . . . maybe some sort of wicked magic?
If you have a new partner/relationship, completing this quest lets you hammer out a working
relationship with them. If you were having a crisis of faith, completing the quest lets you reach
some kind of closure.
Youll then move on to a new quest (pg. XX): theres somebody in need of your help!
Starting Quest Knight Arcs
If youre on a Knight Arc, then youre starting the game with a dream. Theres something you
want to be. Something more than you are.
Do you want to be something abstract, like a hero or awesome or maybe just

more?
If so . . .
o What kind of thing are you aiming for?
o Who do you talk to about your dreams?
o Do you really believe that you can make it?
o Whats in your way?
Or is there something in particular that youre trying to be?

o is it something forbidden to you?
o something special, but not impossible?
o something youre already studying to be?
o something you already are, like an exorcist or part of an important family
that youre trying to learn to be well?
Or are you already pretty successful at something, and its just pushing it to the next level
thats giving you trouble?
If so . . .
o whats a particular sub-problem that can make you feel kind of lost again? Like a
newbie again?
o whats going on that youre spending your time dealing with that?
You can either create a custom for this (see pg. XX) or choose one of these quests, if they fit:
Adventure GET (pg. XX): adventure and become what you dream of being!
the Refusal of the Call (pg. XX): or are you resisting your path?
the Object (pg. XX): learn to look the part before you can be the part!
Mental Training (pg. XX): study hard! or
Taking Care of a Small Child (pg. XX): its hard to find time to become anything but
a parent when youre taking care of small children, but youre still allowed to forge a new
destiny! Lets go!
Completing the quest lets you put a name to the thing you want to become, if you hadnt, and
also puts your feet on a legitimate path towards becoming . . . well, that!
Youll then move on to a new quest (pg. XX): some vice or weakness stands in your way.
Starting Quest Otherworldly Arcs
If youre on an Otherworldly Arc, then youre starting the game torn between two worlds.
Youre having otherworldly experiences (usually dreams, but not always) that connect you to
something beyond and outside yourself.
For instance, you might be . . .
having shamanic/spiritual/out-of-body experiences?

or something closer to visits to a fairyland?
or are you staying in the world, but with a connection to some alien person or power?
o . . . a mysterious enemy trying to manipulate you?
o . . . a magical companion trying to recruit you?
o . . . a distant person in distress calling out to you for help?
or is it more that youre transitioning from one world and life to another, in what could
be a relatively mundane way, and you still have ties to the past?
What works for you here? Does it tie to the campaign concept? (If not, can it?)
Who are the major figures involved?
You can either create a custom quest for this (see pg. XX) or choose one of these two, if they fit:
Science! (pg. XX): Your dreams are calling you to a place of danger . . .
Changes (pg. XX): You are becoming someone else. Something else.
Either way, completing that quest tells you what you have to do about this.
Usually this is something that both you and your PC will figure out slowly as the quest
draws towards its end. Other times, youll pay off the XP for the quest and still wont know what
youre supposed to do; in that case, you or the HG should figure out the way forward on the
player level and then pass it on to your character in a burst of [IC] inspiration. Its also possible
that youve known the way forward all along and just didnt have the IC confidence or OOC
authority to stand behind it until you completed the quest.
If for some reason you really dont want to know the right way forward, if you dont like the
implicit guarantee that youre going the right way from there on, completing this quest can also
offer you 2-3 different alternatives as to what youre supposed to do in which case youre
allowed to guess wrong.
Either way, youll then move on to a new quest (pg. XX): you struggle with your chosen
paths weight.
Starting Quest Storyteller Arcs
If youre on a Storyteller Arc, then youre going to start out by having fun. Youre a tourist.
Youre a meddler. Maybe youre a newbie. Youre going to get involved in something neat. Maybe
you have already, maybe it started just before the game began or maybe youre just about to
find it!
What is it?
Do you already know what thats going to be?

Or are you planning to get involved with
o whatever the PCs are doing
o whatever is available to get interested in in the early part of the game and/or
o whatever plot the HG throws your way
and declare it neat?
You want to be a self-propelled adventurer or a dedicated meddler to get the most out of a
Storyteller Arc if neither of those really fit you, if you rejected all of the above options, if you
dont have a strong concept of what you want to do and youre not flexible about throwing
yourself into whatever plot comes your way, you might want to go back and pick a new Arc.
As for the quest itself
You can either create a custom quest for this (see pg. XX) or choose one of these, if they fit:
A New Job (pg. XX): its so exciting!

A New Hobby (pg. XX): which is even more awesome!
Fascination (pg. XX): someone is or is about to be alluring/fascinating to you. Are
they a mythic figure that will lure you into their world, or vice versa? or
Adventure GET (pg. XX): you dont know what youre doing yet, but youre darn
well going to find an interesting story to get involved with and then, get involved!
In either case, the first blush of the adventure fades when you finish the quest. It doesnt
necessarily start boring you or anything but thats the point where you become less of a tourist
and more of an active force in the plot.
Youll then move on to a new quest (pg. XX) either Taking Charge of the situation
youve found yourself in or ignoring the situation and doing things Your [Own] Way.
Starting Quest Aspect Arcs
If youre on an Aspect Arc, then the game starts with you stuck.
You were making progress on . . . whatever you do. Whatever you try to do, to be the best.
You were a fighter or athlete trying to get stronger, or a musician learning an instrument, a
magician learning the ways of power or whatever!
Only, now youre stuck.
Youve hit a wall.
What are you trying to do? What are you trying to be?
Whats the wall youve hit?
And how are you trying to get past it?
You can either create a custom quest for this (see pg. XX) or choose one of these, if they fit:
Mental Training (pg. XX): an intensive program of study

Physical Training (pg. XX): rigorous physical training!
Above the Fray (pg. XX): first, you need to clear your head and take a while to think
about some stuff thats gone on or happened to you.
Beautiful and Far Away (pg. XX): your trainings fallen apart, to be honest; youve
retreated from the world to a secret place.
When you complete the quest, youll be able to push past the barrier past whatevers had you
stuck. Youll be able to reach a new level for the first time.
Afterwards, youll move on to a new quest (pg. XX): someone or something presents you
with the option of a new way of thinking.
Starting Quest Shepherd Arcs
If youre on a Shepherd Arc, then the story starts with your ordinary daily life. So tell me:
Who are you?

What do you do with yourself?
Whats your daily life like?
Youll usually make a quick custom quest to start this Arc off (probably a purple quest, part of a
simple and honest life, pg. XX) but if it fits, you can also pick one of the following from later
on in the book:
Connecting with Someone (pg. XX): youve been making a conscious effort lately to
connect to somebody. Who?
Down (pg. XX): youve been having a really hard time lately.
Beautiful and Far Away (pg. XX): youve taken to hiding yourself away, recently,
among your precious things.
During this quest youll still be engaging in your ordinary life no matter how weird things get
for you, your ordinary life will be constant. You might get taken away from the flow of things for
a while, but the baseline for your life doesnt change. You dont change.
Youre still basically you. Your home and your life are still there.
Completing the quest, though, marks a change in the pattern of your life towards or at the
end of that quest, a new responsibility falls on you out of nowhere. And you accept it, at least to
a degree.
Maybe thats something the HG provides. Like, you hit the end of the quest, you say, OK,
Im done. A new responsibility falls on me? And the HG says, Oh, OK, it looks like your
cousin is coming to live with you for a bit.
Or maybe theres something that has come up in play someone who needs help,
something thats needed taking care of, whatever; somebody has to step forward to do it and
when you hit that quest endpoint, you realize: Oh! That somebody who has to step forward?
Thats me.
Or, as a final option, if none of that applies, maybe completing this quest makes you feel
ready to grow and do more. If you were selling stuff at fairs, its time to open up a shop. If you
were working on a ship, its time to apply for a promotion or take over a ship of your own. If
you were just a kid, doing random things, maybe its just generally time to grow up a little and
look for some more work to take on?
Anyway, at that point, youll take on a new quest (pg. XX): given plot, life stuff, and your
new responsibilities, can you keep your life on an even keel?
Starting Quest Emptiness Arcs
If youre on an Emptiness Arc, then theres something you have to live with. Youve been
touched by the Outside somehow.
This can mean a lot of different things. Are you . . .
touched by the Outside in the form of bleakness and non-being?

o depressed?
o emotionally numb?
o damaged, missing part of yourself?
your soul?
your heart?
your memories?
your name?
portions of your volition?
touched by the Outside in the form of death?

o in that you deal with death too much?
o or just too much death recently?
o in that death magic has marked you somehow?
touched by the Outside in the form of the Riders and the Bleak Academy (pg. XX)?
o poisoned by some sort of Rider magic?
o a pawn of some Outside power?
o a descendant of the Riders?
o a Rider who has chosen reality over the void?
o a Rider who hasnt done that yet, but is sympathetic enough that one day you
might?
touched by the Outside in the form of Outside-fueled magic?

o are you from one of the shrine families of Fortitude (pg. XX)?
o from some similar sacred family?
o do you travel the Outside to gain power?
or are you a sailor or traveler who frequents it?
In all these cases your first quest is really simple:
Explore how you live with that.
What are you living with? Who is supporting you in living with it?
Its pretty easy to create a custom quest to start things off (probably a gray quest, part of the
background of your life and healing, pg. XX) but if it fits, you can also pick one of the
following:
Bind (pg. XX): you try to humanize some vampire, evil ghost, or awful power.
The Object (pg. XX): the story of your hat, diary, or flute.
Physical Training (pg. XX): exercise will help you keep control.
Someones in Trouble (pg. XX): you stumble on someone like you in some important
way can you help them out?
Changes (pg. XX): youre in the process of a transformation.
Either way, the quest represents a time of contemplation and wrestling with who you are and
how the Outside touches your life.
Completing the quest spurs you to make a change in your life. What change? I dont know!
Afterwards, youll start on a new quest (pg. XX) it could be any number of things, but at
the core of the quest, you pick up or express an obsession.
Starting Quest Mystic Arcs
If youre on a Mystic Arc, then youre surrounded by portents. Something is coming. Something
is coming that will change you, will make an end to the you that you are today.
Do you know what that is? Is it something youre planning or is the game going to surprise
you?
You can either create a custom quest for this (see pg. XX) or pick one of the following from
later in the book:
Down (pg. XX): this is a really rough time in your life. Magic hasnt shown up to save
you yet, or at least, if it has, it has not been enough.
Changes (pg. XX): youre in a process of evolution, and you dont know where its
going yet!
At the end of this quest, youre confronted by a miracle. That is, something that you couldnt
imagine happening something that would change everything if it happened does.
It could be something as simple as someone trusting or loving or being honest with you. It
could be as massive as a dead person coming back to life. It could be something as unexpected
as somebody blowing a trumpet and the walls all around you falling down.
It doesnt have to be a good thing, but it usually is. It doesnt have to be supernatural,
although it usually is.
Its just . . . a miracle:
A wonder. A thing with incredible experiential weight a thing that you cant go back
from. A moment when you realize that you were wrong about how the world worked when
someone you were sure hated you saves you; when an angel steps in to shelter you from a storm;
when youre forgiven for something you never believed you could be forgiven for; or the
moment when everything was good, everything was sunny and peaceful and happy, and then the
sky above you cracked open and a miles-long feeler-leg from some insect slipped in.
Afterwards, youll start on a new quest (pg. XX).

Step 1a: Custom Quests
The rules for creating your own quests are found in the quest chapter, but I wanted to take a
moment in character creation and give you a sense of how it will work.
The easiest way to make a custom quest is to decide whether the quest is . . .
. . . a way of thinking?
o You will spend a lot of time proposing relevant theories/ideas in play.
o If that sounds right, fill out the blue quest card from pg. XX.
. . . a private struggle?
o You will maintain a false public front over private troubles in play.
o If that sounds right, fill out the orange quest card from pg. XX.
. . . a temptation or division between states?

o Youll have two very different moods/states in play.
o If that sounds right, fill out the green quest card from pg. XX.
. . . a love or hate you have for something?

o Youll have a catchphrase/exclamation that youll use frequently.
o If that sounds right, or at least plausible, fill out the red quest card from pg. XX.
. . . an exciting adventure?
o Quest-related stuff will often go over the top!
o If that sounds right, fill out the golden quest card from pg. XX.
. . . part of a simple and honest life?

o Youll have a catchphrase that puts things in your ordinary lifes context.
o If that sounds right, or at least plausible, fill out the purple quest card from pg.
XX.
. . . part of the background of your life and healing?

o Youll have a catchphrase that reflects your lifes current state.
o If that sounds right, or at least plausible, fill out the gray quest card from pg. XX.
. . . something weird, symbolic, and mystical?

o Fill out the black quest card from pg. XX.
Copy or download and print the appropriate quest card and fill in the blanks. Mark how much
XP you want to put in it if you dont know how youd choose that, choose 35 XP.
So for example:
Youre on an Otherworldly Arc. Youve decided that your character has a wicked changeling
for an older brother. Its feeding on your life! That doesnt quite fit either Science! or Changes
so you make a custom quest. Maybe its a private struggle, and you hide what its doing to you?
Or maybe its a temptation or division between states: sometimes youre free, and sometimes
youre its mind-addled slave. You pick up an orange or green quest card, fill in the blanks, and
choose 35 XP as your target.
Step 2: Choose your Skills
After choosing your starting Arc and quest, youll choose your baseline mundane abilities 8
points worth of Skills.
Schticks
If youre still working out who your character is, what their life is about, you might first look
over these possible schticks:
Once-in-a-Generation Talent. You have a level 4 Skill. Maybe even a level 5.

Special Type. Youre a magical or not-quite-human character type in a Town game,
for instance, you might be a ghost, vampire, talking rat, shrine family member, deviant
scientist, dryad, Rider, dolphin girl, exorcist, robot, long-necked person, or someone
trained by a spirit of wind.
Unique Magic. You have some unique magic Skill of your own design, something that
lets you do things that humans arent supposed to be able to do.
Inhuman/Pulp Ability. You have an unusual Superior Skill. Its like magic in that it lets
you do things that humans normally cant, but its not so much a trained Skill as an
inhuman quality youve been chosen by something, or altered by something, or you
arent human, or maybe you live by your own genre rules in a certain way. Its best if you
can relate this somehow to the premise for the game, or vice versa for instance, if you
want a weird psychic talent in a School-based game, maybe theres a special class for
psychics and characters with weird talents and you can talk the other players into making
that a major or minor focus of the game.
Incredible Cool. This is a relatively weak schtick in the long term its easy for other
PCs to catch up to you in Cool but if you want to be really good at, well, being
awesome and winning, starting with some points in the Cool Skill will help.
Incredible People Skills. If you want to be a natural leader, particularly a warm-hearted
and generous one, you might want to start out with some Shine.
If youre interested in playing a special character type, then youll want to review the setting
material on that character type and any associated magical and Superior Skills. Otherwise, just
keep schticks that caught your interest in mind.
Its also probably worth taking a moment right now to think about what your character is
best at and whether thats something theyre really genuinely good at or just the best of their rough
lot of Skills.
Skills
Ill talk a lot about Skills on pg. XX-XX, but choosing them is fundamentally a freeform task
Figure out some things your character does or is good at. List them. Those are your Skills.
Now rate them from 0-5.
In a spirit of expectations management: a 4-point Skill is a pretty big deal. You dont need a
4-point Skill to be good. You need a 4-point Skill to be noteworthy . A level 5 Skill could make you
a legend.
The usual range is 0-3.
If you have a Skill that lets you push beyond human limits, that can be but isnt necessarily
related to its number instead, youll mark such things as Superior or magical Skills. The
Skill in question is a Superior Skill if you can go past human limits because youre not actually
human or because youre just that good. Its a magical Skill if youre cheating somehow.
If you have a Skill in . . . being generally awesome and unflappable, call it Cool.
If you have a Skill in being radiant, inspirational, or vulnerable, a Skill that helps other
people do things for you, call it Shine.
When youve written everything down, massage your numbers and choices until your Skill
ratings add up to 8 points.
Aside
For the most part youre free to pick whatever Skills you like
If the other players are cool with your being Gilgamesh, you can have Superior God-King 4
and I wont mind!
That said, do please make sure that your basic character concept fits the group and the game
that people want to be playing, or at least that it doesnt disserve them.
Step 3: Choose your Special Abilities Mortals
Even at the mortal level, youll have two powers that transcend your mortality two traits that
express not your mortal will and your mortal Skills but rather stuff like destiny, the human
spirits power to defy destiny, and the wishing power of the heart. Both of these traits are
associated with your starting Arc, so if you wind up unhappy with your character direction and
drop your original Arc youll also have the chance to replace these two powers.
Mortals Choose a Bond
The first ability is something that drives you forward, something that strengthens you, a kind of
passion. In game terms, this is a level 2 Bond, as described on pg. XX.
Choose . . .
theres something you never do, that you cant do;

theres something you always do, that you must do;
theres something that youre driven to do.
For instance, if youre really in tune with the street dogs and cats of Fortitude, and your starting
storyline is a Bindings or Shepherd Arc about that, then you might pick a Bond like:
I cant turn my back on an animal in need;

I (must) sense an animals true intentions;
Im driven to spend time with my animal friends.
It may seem a little weird that two of these are technically limitations or weaknesses, but dont
worry about that a Bond will make your life better regardless of whether its technically a
weakness or a strength.
If you have a magical Skill, its common to relate the Bond to that Skill for instance, if
you practice ghost magic, as discussed on pg. XX, you might take a Bond like I (am driven to)
help ghosts resolve their unresolved business.
What kind of Bonds fit your Arc? What kinds of Bonds fit your character?
Whats your Bond?

Mortals Choose an Affliction
Youll also have an Affliction associated with this Arc. This has the same basic format
theres something you cant do;

theres something you must do;
theres something that youre driven to do
but its not a passion. Its something cosmic. Its a power, or a destiny. At minimum its a hard,
inescapable truth about who you are and what youre doing. Its not arguable and its not driven
by your heart if you have something like I cant turn my back on an animal in need as an
Affliction, that means youll get up from a coma and maybe even from death if you encounter an
animal in need.
To give you a sense of how this differs from Bonds, Im going to revisit the cats-and-dogs
example; for that, some suitable Afflictions include:
I cant turn off my awareness of the animals of Fortitude;

I (must) be connected to a great animal spirit;
Im driven even destined to spend time with a particular pack.
In play, the difference between a Bond and an Affliction is that youll invoke a Bond yourself for
bonuses or compensation while its the HG who makes sure your Afflictions stay true.
What kind of destiny do you have? Whats your role in the cosmos?
Whats a hard, inescapable truth that you might have to face?
. . . and whats your Affliction?

Step 3: Choose your Special Abilities Miraculous Characters
The next step, for a miraculous character, is choosing an HG-determined number of Arc
Traits and Perks.
Introduction
Heres how to understand Arc Traits:
Over the course of the next 8-15 sessions of play, the character Arc that youre currently on
will turn into +1 to an Arc Trait and 3-5 Perks (little bonuses youll pick up on the way.) For
instance, if youre on a Wounded Angel Arc, and your first quest starts your partnership with
something wicked/disfavored . . . maybe an evil AI? . . . then the story Arc that begins when you
meet that AI will eventually turn into 3-5 Perks and +1 to your Wounded Angel Trait.
A miraculous character starts with some HG-chosen number of Arc Traits usually three
points worth and what that means, what thats really saying, is that your character begins with
that history.
If you have three points in miraculous Arcs, that means that your character has already lived
through three epic stories. If you start with one point in miraculous Arcs then theyve lived
through one!
Maybe those stories are related to what youre doing now. Maybe theyre not. That detail
will be up to you.
What parts of your characters past qualified as epic stories?
. . . I dont know! Thatll ultimately be up to you. But if you have trouble figuring out how
to boil your characters history down into the Traits you have to work with, imagine that youre
writing up your characters history as novels or short stories and decide: what stories would you
tell people first?
Spend a point on each one, in the order youd tell them, until youve run out of your points.
Or, if you dont know your characters history yet look over the list below and figure out
which stories youd be most interested in reading/watching about them? Again, spend a point on
each story, in the order of interest, until youve run out of your points.
This approach could leave you short a couple of necessary powers for instance, you could
wind up with a character that you know has wings and can fly but without any Arcs that give
them wings or flight as a power. If so, I recommend going back and working the missing powers
somehow into your 8 points of Skills.
Miraculous Characters Choose your Arc Traits
So heres how to map those big stories of your characters past to Arc Traits.
For each of the most important stories in your characters past, put a point into . . .
Wounded Angel (pg. XX) if . . . .

o your character tried to be better than they are, and failed
o your character dabbled in science, magic, or forbidden powers
Become Somebody (pg. XX) if . . .

o your character had a role they were trying to fill
o your character fought to be normal and real when they werent
Reality Syndrome (pg. XX) if . . .

o your character was kind of delusional and goofy
o your character learned important lessons
o your character developed potentially story-breaking/godlike abilities
Child of the Ash (pg. XX) if . . .

o your character displayed an exceptionally deep sort of reality
o your character connected to a magical place, far away
o your character worried about turning into a giant monster, or did
Spiritual (pg. XX) if . . .

o your character spent a lot of time in dream-worlds and other-worlds
o your character developed a deep connection to some element of the world, like
Fire or Dreams or Recycling
Creature of the Light (pg. XX) if . . .

o your character developed into something inhuman, saintly, and holy
o your character was a bit of a showoff at the storys end
o your character was set apart and exalted in some fashion
Creature of Fable (pg. XX) if . . .

o your characters identity was compromised by a myth or story
o your character acted like a mythic or archetypal figure
o your character fed off of others lives or natures to survive, or hunted for food
The Ace (pg. XX) if . . .
o your character fought hard to become stronger
o your character was basically an action hero
o your character was basically a pulp hero
o your character regularly achieved flawless victory
Sentimental (pg. XX) if. . .

o your character collected magical things or animals
o your character created magical things
o your character studied an art or a craft
o your characters good heart inspired others around them
A Keeper of Gardens (pg. XX) if . . .

o your character claimed, maintained, or defended a magical place
o your character created or summoned memorable minions or props
Accursed (pg. XX) if . . .

o your character retreated from the tumult of the world to a special sanctuary
o your character fell under a terrible curse
o your character sulked and angsted over their awful fate
o your character didnt sulk at all! But they showed their hurt once or twice. Were
they comforted, or did they suffer alone?
Primordial (pg. XX) if . . .

o your character developed unexpected inhuman features
o your characters role in the cosmos and their identification with some natural or
philosophical force was really important
Once youre confident that youve chosen the right Arcs, or as part of becoming so, review the
Arcs youve chosen. Some of them will have embedded character generation steps for
instance, if you put points into Becoming Somebody, or even if youre just starting it now,
youll want to choose a special Truth about your character as discussed, pg. XX.
BOX Playing to Type
Some players may prefer to choose their characters miraculous powers first, based on what
theyd most enjoy playing, and extrapolate the history backwards from that.
In youre that sort of player, heres a basic guide to what the miraculous Arcs in this book
do:
Accursed (pg. XX) gives you a tragic life and an incredible weapon;
The Ace (pg. XX) makes you awesome with mundane and Superior Skills;
A Keeper of Gardens (pg. XX) is good if you like making NPC minions and props;
Become Somebody (pg. XX) outfits you for a social role;
Child of the Ash (pg. XX) gives you a giant war form and some neat tricks;
Creature of Fable (pg. XX) eventually makes you a terrifying bogeyman/huntress;
Creature of the Light (pg. XX) eventually gives terrifying levels of stage presence;
Primordial (pg. XX) is great if you like coming up with cool uses for strange little
abilities and features, or if you like being cosmically important.
Reality Syndrome (pg. XX) has the F/X of ultimate cosmic or story-breaking power
but some serious limitations on how much you can exploit it;
Sentimental (pg. XX) gives you collections of eccentric, unique abilities;
Spiritual (pg. XX) lets you command a player-defined element
Wounded Angel (pg. XX) trades wounds for customized power sets of your own
design.
Feel free to choose your Arc Traits accordingly or even to go back and change your starting
Arc so it fits!
END BOX
Miraculous Characters Choose your Perks
Characters in this game have access to a set of Perks little rewards and bonuses that theyll
pick up every few sessions. You usually wont keep them forever, since youre only allowed to
maintain up to 8.
Realistically, unless your character just fell out of the sky a few minutes ago, you should
have a full set of 8 of them. Even mortal characters should have a full set of 8 of them, because,
after all, theyve lived life.
. . . but I dont want you to spend the time figuring out what your characters historically-
developed Perks should be every time you create a character. I dont even want you to spend
much time figuring out what Perks you might want!
By default a miraculous character starts with two free Perks. So, if you know what youre
doing in this game, pick a couple of Perks now or, if the HG changed the number you get,
pick however many you should.
But . . . if youre not familiar with this game, if you havent picked out any Perks before over
the course of a campaign? Then I suggest that you skip them for now. Later on, maybe between
sessions or during a break, look over the Perk lists on pg. XX-XX. If you see one that you really
want, particularly one that you could have plausibly picked up while pursuing your Arcs? Take it,
up to however many free Perks you should get.
And if you dont see any that grab you, dont worry about it. Youll get up to 8 soon enough!
Step 4: Choose your Bonus XP Emotion
In Chuubos Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine, each character has a bonus XP emotion

a particular emotional reaction youre trying to get from the other players.
Lets pick yours!
I suggest . . .
Aww! XP
o if you want incredible troubles piled on your back
o if you want to face them stoically
o if you want to be kind of cute and adorable in how you cope with them
o if you have a tragic backstory
Head-Desk XP
o if you want a good excuse to do kind of goofy stuff in play
o if people are always head-desking at your characters anyway
o if you want to not think things through very well
o if you want to have powers with a really high unintended consequence risk
Fist-Shaking XP
o if you want to be totally convinced youre the center of the universe
o if you like being a lovable jerk
o if you have an impulse control problem
o if your name is a good one to shout while shaking ones fist
Oh no! (Name) is in Trouble! XP

o if you plan to get in way over your head all the time
o if youre irrationally convinced of
your own personal immortality
everyone elses good intentions
the fundamental justice of the universe
o if youre cute, underaged and/or undersized
(Overacted) Speechlessness XP
o if you want to be bombastic and over the top
o if youre living in your own world
o if youre absolutely convinced of your own righteousness and logic
o if you overcome self-doubt with bluster and grandeur
(Overacted) Shiver of Wonder/Terror XP
o if youre older, bigger, and/or in a position of authority
o if youre monstrous in some fashion
o if youre the symbol or the spearhead of some cosmic principle
Putting my Faith in You (with this XP token) XP

o if youre a big brother/big sister archetype
o if youre sincere and diligent
o if youre earnest and heroic
o if youre a lot skilled and just a little bit lucky
Offering you Comfort (with this XP token) XP

o if you stress out a lot over your life
o if youre a comparatively normal person
o if you have a big neurosis, trauma, sickness, or fear
o if your big successes are rare
Finger-snap and beckon over XP

o if youre a natural minion (in denial or otherwise)
o if other people are always roping you into stuff
o if youre a fool for love or friendship
o if you wouldnt know what to do with your life on your own
Fist-Pump/Salute XP
o if you have a ton of catchphrases
o if youre bombastic, larger-than-life, and dramatic
o if you have a genre
o if you dont really act like (or think) the world around you is real
Thumbs-Up XP
o if youre kind of sweet and kind of goofy
o if youre a natural sidekick
o if you dont believe in yourself
o if you think of others first
Something Unique
o if you have a good idea for another emotion to evoke
o and a good hand gesture/sound for other players to use to signal that
emotion
The goal is to get that reaction from the other players through your characters actions e.g., if
you have thumbs-up XP, and you get other players to be happy for your character, and give you
a thumbs-up, youll earn an XP!
Step 5: Little Details
Next I have some miscellaneous questions about your character.
You . . . dont actually have to answer them. But you might!
Whats their name?

Whats a good 1-2-word summary of their academic ability?
Whats a good 1-2-word summary of their athletic ability?
Do you know their blood type?
Whats their favorite food?
Whats a zodiac or real animal that you think has a similar nature to theirs?
Step 6: Choose your Basic Quest
Finally, in a typical Chuubos Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine campaign, every character

has a basic quest (pg. XX) a thing theyre always doing, in the background. Every now and
then this will earn you a precious memory or cool thing (a Recharge Token) specifically, at
the end of each 15-XP repetition of the quest.
For now, imagine your character. Write down, or at least remember, your answers to these
questions:
Its just a random day. A random time. What are they doing? What do you see them
doing?
If its something different whats the core of their character? What do you want to be
showing about them, all the time, that might get lost if you just focus on their powers
and their abilities and the dramatic stuff?
Whats something that isnt necessarily super-productive, isnt necessarily going to be
worth it by standard gameplay measurements, but which you dont want them to get
discouraged about because its who they are?
Looking over all of that
Whats your basic quest? Whats the thing that theyre always doing?
Again, decide if its . . .
. . . a way of thinking?
o You will spend a lot of time proposing relevant theories/ideas in play.
o If that sounds right, fill out the blue quest card from pg. XX.
. . . a private struggle?
o You will maintain a false public front over private troubles in play.
o If that sounds right, fill out the orange quest card from pg. XX.
. . . a temptation or division between states?

o Youll have two very different moods/states in play.
o If that sounds right, fill out the green quest card from pg. XX.
. . . a love or hate you have for something?

o Youll have a catchphrase/exclamation that youll use frequently.
o If that sounds right, or at least plausible, fill out the red quest card from pg. XX.
. . . an exciting adventure?
o Quest-related stuff will often go over the top!
o If that sounds right, fill out the golden quest card from pg. XX.
. . . part of a simple and honest life?

o Youll have a catchphrase that puts things in your ordinary lifes context.
o If that sounds right, or at least plausible, fill out the purple quest card from pg.
XX.
. . . part of the background of your life and healing?

o Youll have a catchphrase that reflects your lifes current state.
o If that sounds right, or at least plausible, fill out the gray quest card from pg. XX.
. . . something weird, symbolic, and mystical?

o Fill out the black quest card from pg. XX.
Only this time you need 15 XP.

BOX Some Suggested Basic Quests
Are you always . . .
studying the world around you, scientifically?

thinking about fate, destiny, and meaning?
thinking about spirits, ecology, or gods?
thinking about justice, morality, and the right?
trying to live up to some virtue?
trying to live up to some social role?
wrestling with a dark or troubled past?
torn between two worlds or natures?
talking/thinking about your favorite thing, like
o animals?
o ships?
o manga?
o science fiction novels?
o cooking?
o your latest health fad?
o fresh air?
o the game of Go?
o historical trivia?
o candy?
fretting over exaggerated fears?
getting really worked up over your favorite thing?
or some fear?
or some ideological/conspiracy theory concern?
working and thinking about on some job or life thing, like
o housework?
o sailing?
o fishing?
o woodworking?
o gardening?
o martial arts?
o art? or
o music?
Then that could be your basic quest!
END BOX
Resources
Ive talked about how characters are built and mentioned a number of Traits and abilities they
might have. Id like to take a few chapters now and explain them the rules and concepts that
make your character run.
Nobilis these rules are based on the rules from my earlier RPG Nobilis: the Essentials,
which focused more on cosmic metaphysical conflict than on pastoral slice of life.
Of the two, Nobilis is a more technical game. It has more precise handling for weird corner
cases of the rules and a rigorous power design system. Chuubos Marvelous Wish-Granting
Engine is a looser design, but Im spending more time explaining the hows and the whys.
The biggest metaphysical and setting difference between the two games is the formation of
the Outside. In Nobilis, I divided the world sharply into the real and the unreal Creation, and
the Lands Beyond. That division is much less sharp in this game, which divides the world into
the Known (mostly Town and what survives of Earth) and the Unknown. Not only is that line
intrinsically blurrier but its a lot harder to observe!
That may be part of why you get stuff like the Riders (pg. XX) living peacefully in Town.
You dont need to know anything about Nobilis to use these rules. This isnt a Nobilis
supplement. I just happen to mention Nobilis, now and again, since its a part of this games
DNA!
END BOX
Skills
a rules concept
A Skill is a simple description of something your character is good at one of the tools they
use to solve problems in the world. Its normally a one-word summary of an actual Skill, like
Cooking, Cook, or Teacher, but it could be a philosophy like People are good or a
complex concept like Discover a Convenient Shortcut or Theres Nothing a Nip of Vodka
Wont Cure.
Each Skill is paired with a numerical rating from 0 to 5 e.g.
Cooking 0
People are Good 5
Scholar 2
Discover a Convenient Shortcut 1
You can even go lower, if you want to say how bad your character is at something. Ive never
found a reason to go lower than -1.
0 is the default Skill.
Lets say that youre a human. Then you have a default level 0 Skill at basically anything that
humans do that isnt covered by your other Skills. For instance, most characters have Brain
Surgery 0. Theyre not good at it, but theyre about as good at it as is the average person on the
street.
The Skill levels mean something like . . .
-1. Youre not good with this, but you do/enact it anyway.
0. Youre not comfortable with this, but you could try it.
1. Youre familiar with how this works.
2. Youre good at this.
3. Youre professional level.
4. Youre a once-in-a-generation prodigy or an elite, top-shelf professional.
5. Youre a legend, or should be.

Trait an OOC, rules-based representation of some ability or quality your character possesses.
Skills are one example of a Trait.
END BOX
Actions
a rules concept
Heres how Skills work in practice. You remember my mentioning Will earlier?
You have a pool of 8 Will.6
When you take an action, youll pick one of your Skills to use as the basis for that action. If
that Skill isnt an obvious choice, youll want to describe what youre doing in such a way as to
explain how it applies.
Then youll spend some Will from your pool, adding it to your Skill number.
Youll compare the total of [your Skill + spent Will] to the list of things that you can do
below:
You can . . .
0 or less: attempt to do things, but only make things worse;
1: use your Skill in such a fashion as to please yourself and make you happy;
2: accomplish a task; have a tangible impact on the world;
3: do something correctly; impress people around you;
4: do something effective something that moves you closer to your goals;
5: do something productive something that makes your life better.
6: do something that looks dang good impressive, dramatic, and cool;
7: do something really effective, moving you a lot closer to your goals;
8: do something really productive it will make your life a lot better;
9 or more: do the right thing, for some fuzzy definition of right.
You can claim as many of these as you want, up to the level of [your Skill + spent Will.]
6
Some characters have a secondary pool of 3 miraculous Will but well talk about that below!
This chart is why I said that a level 3 Skill implied professional competence, for instance
with Skill 3, even if youre staggering and completely out of spare cope, you can still do things
correctly, for some value of correct. Its also why a level 5 Skill is legendary: a single point of
Will lets you do the kinds of tricks you normally only see in action movies or the pulps.
Note that the HG is allowed to give you more success than youve earned for instance,
youre allowed to be effective or productive with a lower result than 4. Every time I come home
and open my door, Im probably mustering a Skill total of like 0-1, but I have tangible impact on
the world anyway and sometimes opening that door is even actively productive! Thats the
leniency of the cosmic HG.
Most of the time, for most purposes in this game, a 2-point outcome will be enough. But
sometimes youll really want something higher-level than that and its worth spending extra Will
for a guarantee.
Intentions
a rules concept
Your actions arent bound to any particular time-scale. Theyre not necessarily fire-and-forget.
More often youll set yourself a task or project
I call this an Intention.
You dont spend Will so that you can swing a sword or turn the oven on. You spend
Will to win a fight or bake a cake. To prove [yourself] a hero or to cook for the family
this week.
Maybe even to live a full, fulfilling, happy life.
And sure, at some point during that happy, fulfilling life youll probably swing a sword or
two, turn an oven on, you know how it is, but that isnt all there is to living a happy life. Theres
also, like, um, you know. Other stuff! Like, youve got to type!
And, blow your nose!
Even if you did just want to swing a sword once, and that was all, youd have to:
first, get it moving;

move it through its arc; and even then, youd have to
bring it to a stop.
It isnt just a single thing, you see. Not just a swing.
Nothing mortal ever is.
So the normal mode of operation in this system is that you take your Skill, add some Will,
and create a [Skill + Will]-based Intention. This then hangs around for a while until the
chapter ends, or until you finish, or until you stop doing it. Its always there, part of your life. If
you splurge on a level 6 fitness program in a Pastoral game, you could wind up doing some really
impressive exercise all week.
You can have two Intentions floating around at any given time.
Strictly speaking the rule is you can be performing two actions at any given time, and
Intentions are a kind of action. Theyre the biggest, most important kind, because theyre the
kind most people take.
BOX Game Terminology
Sustained Action something you are currently doing.
END BOX
Will Spending
Here are the amounts of Will youre allowed to spend on an Intention:
0 Will - free!
1 Will
2 Will
4 Will - a strain on mind and body
8 Will - a potentially murderous strain on mind and body
Ive skipped some numbers there to help make Skills feel a little more distinct and fluid it
helps each point of Skill make a difference in what youre capable of, rather than just feeling like a
point discount.
So if youre wondering if you can spend exactly 3 Will or 5 Will or something?
Nope!
You cant!
Will Recovery
There are four reasons why you might shed (stop carrying) one of your Intentions.
you finished what you were doing, successfully.

youve given up.
this chapter of the game is over. A new chapter means new Will and new Intentions!
you have too much to do and have to drop it now to make room for something else.
The first two cases are life-affirming they represent natural endpoints. It doesnt matter if
youve finished by saying this is good enough for now or Gah! This isnt working!:
Youve finished.
That matters.
If you spend 1+ Will on an Intention, and you can get to that kind of ending whether its
victory, a good stopping place, or a wall you cant get past you get one point of that spent
Will back.
If its not like that, though if the Intention just kind of trails off?
Thats not as good. You dont get back the Will.
As noted, at the beginning of each chapter of the game,7 youll shed all of your Intentions and
get back all 8 Will.
7
For instance, in a typical Pastoral game, this is on Sundays dawn.
BOX Time Scales
What if you want to do something on a bigger time-scale than a chapter?
One option is to just pick it up again each new chapter every chapter you make a new
Intention and go out and deal with it some more. Thats how some people get through their
lives, particularly if theyre not trying to get anywhere. Another option is to lobby the HG to
zoom out the time-scale of the game, if youre not the only one focused on stuff bigger-picture
than a chapter.
The last option is to take up the matter as a quest.
The division between Intentions and quests is pretty much conceptual. If something feels
like a big, long-term project, its a quest, even if you super-rush it and finish it in a chapter. If
something feels like a quick, short-term thing, its an Intention, even if you wind up having to
drop the Intention and pick it back up again over the course of multiple books.
END BOX
Miraculous Will
a rules concept
A few characters have powers that make things a little easier. Theyll glide through life, or at
least, a specific part of life, without it taking the normal toll on their energy and cope.
I dont want to just waive the Will cost for this stuff.
Perfection wont let you escape the fundamental experiences of the game. No matter how
smooth your life is, the Road of Trials will still take its toll. Even the greatest genius has a finite
weekly output in a Pastoral game; an epic fantasy demands decisiveness; an urban fantasy
requires alertness, care, and attention to the world.
So instead
If you have a power like this, Im giving you access to a second pool of Will: a pool of 3
miraculous Will. This pool refreshes automatically every time you complete an in-genre XP
Action, and every time youre in a scene with somebody else who does.
So, for instance, youre in a Pastoral game. Youre in a scene with someone who does a Slice
of Life Action
Youll refresh your 3 miraculous Will.
Or, youre in an Urban Fantasy, and you make a cool Discovery?
Thatll refresh this pool as well.
No matter how many powers you have like this, theres only one pool of miraculous Will. If
you have a power that lets you spend miraculous Will to cook, then you can spend your
miraculous Will to cook. If you have a second power that lets you spend miraculous Will to fight,
then you can spend from your single pool of 3 miraculous Will to cook or fight. But its the same
single pool in every case.
You can use Will and miraculous Will on the same action. Or not, if youd rather not! If you
lose track of which kind of Will fueled a given Intention, dont sweat it too much youre not
supposed to use the Will recovery mechanic to funnel Will from your miraculous Will pool to your
regular one, but as long as youre not deliberately doing that, I dont expect you to keep careful
track.
BOX What is this for?
I dont want this to become standard-issue it works against the point of 8 Will per chapter
but I suspect that if the game runs long enough about half of the PCs will pick up some access
to miraculous Will.
This is particularly easy for me just seems like a common sort of power to have!
Thats why Im giving it a prominent place.
END BOX
Obstacles
a rules concept
Not everything is easy. Theres a fundamental difference between petting a lonely kitten while
sitting right next to that kitten . . . and petting it across the void of interplanetary space.
One is practical.
The other faces an Obstacle (level 4).
In Chuubos Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine, an Obstacle is a game mechanic representing

the fundamental impracticality of what youre trying to do. Its rating summarizes how far youre
having to warp the current definition of your Skill and circumstances to apply that Skill to do this
thing.
Put another way, its a measure of how ill-equipped your Skill is to do what you want to do.
I mean
This is totally circumstantial. If you have a remote robot arm for petting kittens, you can
reasonably pet a lonely kitten from a bio-station around some moon of Mars. The light-speed
delay might be a problem but it wont stop you. So dont make the mistake of thinking Obstacles
are an intrinsic part of the task.
Its just . . .
Youve said something. Youve declared an action.
Leaving aside success and failure, how reasonable is the idea?
The basic scale of Obstacles looks something like:
Obstacle 0. This is a reasonable thing to do, particularly with that Skill.
Obstacle 1. This is going to be rough.
Obstacle 2. This is going to be epic. Or a failure.
Obstacle 3. This isnt possible, but if you squint, you can see possible from there.
Obstacle 4. This is just plain goofy.

Obstacle 5. This is fundamentally, outrageously impossible it violates logic,
thermodynamics, genre, or something else close to the HGs heart.
Lets implement this in the kitten example. Youre trying to pet a kitten and make it purr. You
are using your default, level 0 Kitten-Petting Skill. How rough is this going to be?
Some examples of how rough it could be, and the accompanying Obstacle, include:
Obstacle 0. The kitten is right there.
Obstacle 1. The kitten is skittish and does not want petting.
Obstacle 2. The kitten is in the open maw of a nearby shark.
Obstacle 3. The kitten is in a sealed, steel box.
Obstacle 4. The kitten is on Eris. (A dwarf planet populated by a species of

melancholy bat-people. And their kitten.)
Obstacle 5. The kitten is dead. Three years ago it fell into the heart of the sun.
Did it ever even exist at all?
Heres how this actually manifests in play.
Obstacles are a Skill Penalty.
Before you claim any rewards, you subtract the highest applicable Skill Penalty from your
Intention. So if I want to pet a kitten and make it purr, and it is in a sealed steel box, my
Intention rating is [my Skill (0) + spent Will (0, 1, 2, 4, or 8) - the Obstacle (3)].
Reasonably speaking this does less than nothing
I probably cant even figure out how to start.
I poke the box, maybe. Maybe not. There are no guarantees. The kitten may not even be
alive. But lets say I find a way to bring my Lion-Taming 4 Skill into play. (Lets also say that I
have such a Skill, even though I dont.) And lets say I put two Will into it. Subtract 3 and we still
wind up with me being able to pet the cat correctly as an elite Lion-Tamer, even the steel box
doesnt stop me from impressing the people around me with my ability to make it purr.
But thats not actually all that weird!
I bet its like . . .
I tap the box here. I tap the box there. I tap it here, and there, and
There is now a purring coming from inside the box.
This could happen! Its absurd but not impossible. I have seen similar events transpire.
Reasonable Applications
or, I blow up the earth with my mind. Cooking Skill 3 + 8 Will. 8
Note that at no point here does the HG have to violate causality or reason. Theres never
anything that says that the HG has to let my arm stretch between planets if I dont have a
stretchy arm or pass through steel if I dont have a way to do it. The Obstacle isnt there to say
petting kittens across time and space is difficult. It is difficult, but thats not the meaning of the
Obstacle.
The Obstacle is there to say
This is well outside the things you know how to do with your Skill. Do you even know
how to start? How to make something happen? What youre trying to achieve?
So theres only a level 4 Obstacle to blowing up the Earth with your mind.
Its goofy but its not literally impossible its not a perpetual motion machine or a paradox
or anything. You can take your Cooking Skill 3 and your 8 Will, or, I dont know, maybe your
Glass-Making Skill would be better, but the point is, with just those tools you can still get to a
level 7 Intention despite the nigh-impossibility of the feat.
Its super-effective!
. . . but that doesnt mean that the world blows up.
I feel that what should happen is something like this. Your mental conception of the
earthbreaker omelette you cant blow up the earth without cracking a few eggs actually
causes trembling in the substrate. Lights blow out. Tables shake. People who were scoffing just a
few moments ago are looking a little worried now; and if you want this worry to be useful in
intimidating them later, thats cool, because that helps make your actions productive (one of the
benefits you can claim).
Overall that image is sillier than Id like, and less effective than Id like
But Im actually pretty satisfied with this scene. I mean, in a heavily realistic game it might
be better to replace it with a dream sequence and in a full-on comedy the Earth might actually
blow up just then9 but the whole trembling substrate, minor earthquake, people worried thing?
That seems like its a pretty fair response to the Intention level that doesnt tear the veil of reason
away.
8
Now youre cooking with gas!
9
strangelets
So stuff could happen. Even with just a level 2 Intention, something probably will happen.
But, you probably still wont blow up the world. The HG doesnt have to let you. Really
effective at using cooking Skill to blow up the world with your mind isnt the most effective
thing in the world to be super-effective at!
The Meaning of a Skill
Discovery
Part of the reason that we know that Cooking Skill cant psychically blow up the world is that the
Skill has a plain, common-sense meaning.
Not every Skill does.
And even a Skill like Cooking has a meaning that evolves over time if two cooks have
this Skill, one may master the perfect sandwich while another focuses on fancy high-tech foods.
Their Skills might both be called Cooking, and they each might be able to learn to do the
others tricks in short order, but the Skills themselves are not the same.
So lets talk about how Skills differentiate and define themselves during play.
Consider a ninja faced with a blackboard and a complex system of linear equations on it.
The ninja throws down a smoke bomb, vanishes; when the smoke clears, a solution is written on
the board.
Ninjutsu, to solve a system of linear equations. Can such a thing be done?
As noted, the HG is under no real obligation to allow it. Its obvious that the ninja can write
something on the board during the smoky interval, at least with an Intention 2+, but whether its
correct or not well, equation no jutsu seems like an odd technique for a ninja to have.
They probably cant get it right! Not even with a correct action (3+) Intention!
. . . unless they can.
Unless its well-known that equation no jutsu is one of the techniques that they do have, maybe,
or should. Or unless Chi manipulation theory is actually grounded in systems of linear equations,
which all ninjas must learn to solve in an instant. Or maybe even if theyre in a comedy game,
because in a comedy game, (insert task) no jutsu is probably fine.
So the answer to my earlier question is, if your Ninjutsu can solve systems of linear
equations, then it can solve systems of linear equations. If it cant, then it cant. Its nothing to do
with the fuzzy, abstract division between ninjas and mathematicians; its only about the concept
and the history of that one particular Skill.
What about Skills like Excellence? Do Stuff? Dashing Hero? Good Fortune?
Can they handle systems of linear equations?
Again its not about an abstract comparison of the word or sentence fragment to the task at
hand; its about the meaning of those words, as established over time in play. The power of a Skill
isnt determined by its name or even its number; it comes from the credibility of your idea about
how youre using it, based on your high concept for the Skill, your confidence as a player, and
the elements and outcomes established in previous events.
So heres how this works in play.
When you start using a Skill, you need to construe it pretty narrowly. You need to focus on
the things that you know that it lets you do, the things that are central to its concept; and if you
havent really determined that, then the first few things you do with it will help to define that
concept.
However, over time, youre allowed to stretch it out.
You can shake it up a little bit, do something thats pretty close to what worked before, and
thatll be fine just Obstacle 0, a normal use of the Skill. And then you can push it a little
farther than that, and so forth, potentially down the slippery slope forever until youre using your
Architecture to fly a car.10
You can even learn to do harder, more out-of-reach things.
If you stretch a Skill to an Obstacle 1-2 application, and succeed at the underlying task, and
you do that often enough, repeat it often enough eventually it stops having an Obstacle, or
maybe drops down from level 2 to level 1. It stops being really weird and unusual. It becomes
just a part of how you use that Skill.
In sum, your Skills arent in their final form when you get them. You can develop them,
even if the numbers dont change. Getting the most out of your Skills is a learning process
you and the HG will learn what they will be good for over the course of the game.
10
It branches off that thing with the pickles.
Tools
a rules concept
The opposite pole from an Obstacle is something that puts you on firmer ground something
that acts as a guideline, as a stabilizer, as a support team.
Something that makes you better.
Chuubos Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine calls these somethings Tools.
Tools are pretty rare. Even a +1 Tool turns someone completely unskilled into an amateur
and lifts a professional up to the level of the elite. A +2 Tool is radical; it makes your Keanu
Reeves into your Humphrey Bogarts, puts your local college physicist on a level with Steven
Hawking, and gives random people off the street the illusion of reasonable competence at
whatever the Tool is for.
That said
A lot of low-end mystical effects manifest as +1 or +2 Tools. A shrine might offer +1

towards getting in touch with the spiritual world. A magical cloak might be a +1 Tool towards
concealing yourself. The Meyer House is peaceful; it gives a +1 Tool bonus towards a good
nights sleep.
Conflict
a rules concept
The rule for handling conflict between Intentions is pretty simple.
First, calculate the effects of Tools, Obstacles, and whatever.
Then, compare the numerical ratings for the two actions. The higher-level action wins,
and the HG gives it the appropriate rewards for its Intention rating. Then lower-rated actions
get, well, as much as is possible from whats left.
So for instance, if I have an Intention to take a shower, and you have an Intention to shut
off my buildings water, and you have the higher Intention rating well, at the very least, your
action resolves first.
Our actions arent directly opposed. There could be water left in the water tower. I could be
perfectly content just trying to shower and realizing that there isnt water. But the point is, if your
Intention rating is higher, my shower is taken in a context of the buildings water being off. Or
maybe the water hasnt even gone off all the way yet and all youve done really is add an Obstacle
to my shower that gets really ridiculously math-y and flow-chart-y for a diceless RPG
showering system, but it could arguably happen.
The point is, if my action has a lower number, then its taken in the context of your action. Its
taken in a world where your action is guaranteed success and mine, as yet, is not.
If the two numbers tie
Its really up to the HG. I suggest a bias towards the defender, if there is one, and after
that towards the most reasonable victor, but, basically, its just up to the HG which wins the
conflict and takes precedence.
Edge
a rules concept
Sometimes a conflict is weighted. It isnt fair. Somebody in a bomber plane will probably win a
fight with me even if I train for like two years in mantis-style kung fu. Even if I become a much
better all-around fighter than they are due to an unconventional mantis11 the fact that they have
one jet, plus bombs, is an almost unconquerable Edge.
Edge acts as a Skill Penalty to the disadvantaged party; only, its only a penalty for the
purposes of resolving conflicts. It doesnt actually make them worse at what theyre doing. It just
means that theyre outgunned.
How outgunned? Something like . . .
0. This is a fair fight.
1. Its a race, and you know the terrain (and they dont.)
2. Its a jury trial and all the jurors are on your side.
3. Its a water balloon fight and youve got the last water balloon.
4. Its a foot race, and you have an armored motorcycle.
5. Its a game of guess what Alexei will say next . . . and youre Alexei.
Note that an opponents Edge doesnt stack with an Obstacle theyre both Skill Penalties. So
if youre in a footrace against someone who knows the terrain (Edge 1) and you havent had a
good nights sleep in the past few days (Obstacle 1), their Edge just doesnt matter. If youre a
brawl against someone who can fly (Edge 3) and you havent had a good nights sleep in the past
few days (Obstacle 1), youre at a -1 penalty in general and a -3 in terms of deciding who wins the
brawl but youre not at a -4.
In a normal contest, only one side has Edge at a time. This isnt 100% if youre playing
full-team basketball against a 2-person team but the referees are completely on their side, it
might be more convenient to think of both sides as having 2-3 Edge instead of neither side
having any but one side at a time is the normal approach: the HG boils everything down to
determine which side has the actual advantage, and then, how much of one. This is why Ill
sometimes talk about something giving you a certain amount of Edge in an otherwise fair
contest powers like that wont mean as much if the deck is already stacked, in your favor or
against.
11
Er, master. I mean, master
The Ace
a rules concept
Some characters will develop the miraculous ability to . . . do ordinary, human things really well.
It might be Skill-specific, making them a miraculous doctor, knitter, or fisherwoman; or, they
might just be really good at everything.
Sometimes Ill call that, and particularly that last option, being the Ace.
I dont really want to talk about miraculous abilities yet. Ill get to them! But not quite yet. I
just want to talk for a moment about the idea of a perfected or improved human because Ill be
using it as a mental shorthand in discussing the ideas to come.
Some perfected Ace, some once-in-a-generation prodigy
They wouldnt always need to test themselves with Will and Intentions to get things done.
Theyd be able to bypass all the difficulties and just do things but what things? Could they run
at thirty miles per hour? Thats not that much faster than Usain Bolt. What about forty? Sixty
miles per hour? One hundred?
Just how fast can they run? Just how much can they lift?
Could they outwrestle a dragon? Stare down a sea serpent? Shatter glass with their spit at a
range of twenty yards?
Where exactly is the line for perfection?
I think in some cases its OK to let that depend upon the player. I think that in some cases it
might be OK to let a perfected or enhanced human do something, but only if the player explains
it first if they want to wrestle an elephant to the ground, they may need more than just the
declaration of perfection, but also a handwave like elephant judo or even something more
realistic and precise.12 It may take details and discussion to anchor ones belief to before one can
imagine a perfected human doing any given thing; the line may be a pretty mutable and
circumstantial thing.
Im going to rely on it anyway, though the line between perfected and impossible Skill
so thats why Im defining how Aces work herein.
12
Asiatic elephant judo
BOX The Prodigy
Fortitude is the home of the Prodigy, a supremely talented individual. By default this Main
Character is Natalia Koutolika, a PC-aged girl from Russia, although you could substitute a boy
named Antony Yuryevich; the sophisticated French vampire princess Natalie Coutourier; the
Spanish child of masked adventurers, Natalia Cordova; the African princess Zeinaba Kiros; or
the somewhat older Ms. Mithrida Koutolika, a new teacher at Horizons School.
Despite my vague suspicions that theyve been involved with a secret KGB training
program or something, I like her family Yuri and Lenya are pretty good people, and little
Sergey is adorable! Their home might even qualify as a good place: a little kind, a little sacred, to
the point where it has protection against evil magic and the Outside
So why is the Prodigy herself so very cold?
Natalia Koutolika, aka

The Prodigy
Art by Koi
END BOX
Cool
a rules concept
Cool is a sort of Skill with special rules. Its pretty rare.
Its basically your ability to make whatever youre doing look easy.
You dont use Cool actively. Instead, anyone trying to hurt you, embarrass you, corrupt you,
co-opt you, or mess with something youre actively watching or protecting takes your Cool as a
Skill penalty to their mundane actions.
This wont stack with Obstacles or Edge, so its most useful when youre fighting on an
apparently fair battlefield.
The ratings look something like:
Cool 0: Ordinary levels of Cool.

Cool 1: Youre unrealistically cool, like the cool one in an American sitcom.
Cool 2: Youre unnaturally cool, an undefeatable villain or a perfect knight
Cool 3: Its like the world has a law that says you always win.
Cool 4: Your luck and calm are both actively supernatural. The world wants to go
your way. Maybe youre a saint. Maybe youre a devil. Maybe youre just a key part of
how this Town should be.
Cool 5: Nothing mortal ever troubles you. Its not so much that you cant get hit or
shot or poisoned or burned or embarrassed or sick as that you dont it just doesnt
happen. Its a ridiculous concept. Youre far too awesome.
Shine
a rules concept
Shine is another Skill with special rules. Its also pretty rare.
Shine is being so inspiring, lovable, or commanding that people can do better at life when
theyre doing things for you. Basically, if its for your sake or to protect you or in the name of their love for
you or whatever
People can use your Shine instead of their own Skill.
The ratings look something like:
Shine 0: Ordinary levels of Shine.

Shine 1: Youre unusually charismatic and inspirational.
Shine 2: Youre easy to love and do things for. Youre easy to respect.
Shine 3: Youre amazing, and can inspire people to do amazing things.
Shine 4: Youre like a good fairy, everyones parent, or a transformational leader:
you can help people towards productivity.
Shine 5: Youre like Helen of Troy its not so much that you can do awesome
things as that people who do things for you do . . . kind of epic things. Sometimes
even epic things that you may not want.
BOX A Bit of History
In the old days Town was a youkai Town. It was a place of giants and monsters, ruled over by the
gods of dream and nightmare.
Best-loved of all who lived there were the swan people.
Now when the humans came to Town and settled Fortitude and brought their iron and their
crosses with them, the Jotun resolved to destroy them. Humans and youkai moved to a condition
of war well, war for the Jotun and participating youkai; a desperate struggle to survive, for
humankind
Until one of the swan princes saw and coveted the clothes that Elizaveta, a human, made.
Such was the love the Jotun held for the swan people such was the love everyone had for
the swan people, in those days, except perhaps humanity that the Jotun then stayed their
hand, ended the war, and accepted the human presence in Town. Now there are very few of
them remaining, outbred a thousandfold by their part-human descendants: these days Jotun is
more of a cultural identity than anything else, though even a modern Jotun will have some
trouble with crosses and iron:
And all for the sake of Elizavetas needle and a swan princes love for clothes!
The Idol (which is to say, the biggest mega-idol superstar of all the students at Horizons
School) is probably a modern-day swan person though why a magically lovable swan person
should suddenly appear after generations of their being merely pretty glamorous is a mystery
to me. Perhaps its not actually got to do with the swan people and its just that the Idol is just.
That. Cool.
By default this Main Character is either a PC-aged boy named Soun Shounen or his PC-aged
sister Soun Shoujo.
Soun Shounen, aka

The Idol
Art by Koi
END BOX
Connection Skills
a rules concept
Connection Skills are your reward for investing time in a place, context, or person. (Or, in rare
cases, in beloved possessions.) Theyre the sense of harmony, familiarity, the ability to click that
you can get from all those things.
Theyre written as something like
Connection: the Suzuki Family

Connection: Herakleides Vasili
Connection: the Moon Catch Neighborhood
Connection: my Job at the Supermarket or
Connection: the Headmaster of the Bleak Academy
and, like most other Skills, theyre rated from 0 to 5 (or sometimes a little less.)
Connections are a restricted form of Skill you use them like an ordinary Skill but their
default uses are defined for you automatically as:
see into a (specific) persons heart;

act appropriately in that persons company;
trust that person;
work well with them;
enjoy their company; or
remind them who they are, helping them fight off temptation or something thats
changing them (particularly including the power of the Outside.)
Or, for a place/context
understand whats going on there;

fit into it;
go with its flow;
help keep its engine running;
live your life in a place; and/or
ritually reinforce a place and strengthen its borders against the Outside or other alien
forces.
For ordinary people, the benefit of Connections is that you can pick them up quickly it can
take years of effort to develop a new Skill, while a new Connection Perk takes weeks or
months. For characters with access to miraculous powers, the benefits are more variable: some
characters will be able to leverage their Connections to work wonders, while others will leave
theirs to molder and become increasingly isolated from the world.
You have a default Connection 0 to just about everything. From there, you can aim for . . .
Connection 1 once youve hit it off with somebody;

Connection 2 once they become an important friend;
Connection 3 if you think youre great companions, allies, and/or partners;
Connection 4 if this is a really deep connection;
Connection 5 if they are your sun and your moon, the better part of yourself.
For a place or context, you can aim for . . .
Connection 1 once youre starting to feel comfortable here;

Connection 2 once youve started to understand how it works;
Connection 3 if youre immersed and totally know what youre doing;
Connection 4 once youre an elite master of this environment.
Connection 5 if youre becoming a kind of spiritual representative thereof.
If your Connection lags behind your emotional connection or your mastery, it means that your
connection is narrow you have a strong emotional bond, but you dont have the breadth of
accumulated experience that the Connection Skill requires. Maybe that means youre not as
connected as you thought. Maybe it means that you havent put in the work yet. Or maybe it
means that theres a side of this friend or context that you havent yet had the opportunity to see.
BOX Connection to the Outside
As an optional rule, the HG can set the default Connection to the Outside to -2.
END BOX
BOX The Headmaster of the Bleak Academy and the Death of the Sun
The Headmaster of the Bleak Academy is one of Towns bogeymen. Hes a lot of different
things in a lot of different stories, ranging from the lord of Deaths dominion to just a guy
who runs a school.
Hes definitely one of the Riders, with his eyes all night and falling stars, and its pretty likely
that at some point he showed up in Fortitude with the dust of a far and sunless land on his
feet, fell in love with or deceived Jade Irinka and vice versa, and fathered the Child of the Sun.
And in canon, hes the one who killed Jade Irinka its not certain, but its the standard
It isnt at all clear why.
What is clear is that this act was in some sense the metaphysical origin of the Outside: that it
drowned much of Creation and all of the Lands Beyond Creation, much of existence and all of
nothingness, under the multicolored void.
To the best of my knowledge this was on March 9, 1997, inasmuch as Gregorian dates mean
anything. I figure you probably want to move it around some, maybe into antiquity, maybe put it
more recently, maybe you even want to have it happen during play. Im certainly not shy about
having it happen at different times in different stories; it was more of a metaphysical than a
physical event. But March 9, 1997 is when Russia witnessed the corresponding total eclipse.
By default the Child of the Sun is a PC-aged girl named Jasper Irinka, although you could
substitute a boy named Raven. The first campaign will feature her as a helpful and kind of goofy
Main Character who occasionally grows weird but pretty tentacle-limbs; she fell to Fortitude,
doesnt know how to get back into the sky, and doesnt quite grasp that she is the new sun yet.
Later stories will deal with the Headmasters daughter, a teacher in Horizon; with the sky
kingdom that Jade ruled and Jasper fell from; and with the Bleak Academy itself.
Jasper Irinka, aka

The Child of the Sun
Art by Koi
END BOX
Magic
a rules concept
A magical Skill in Chuubos Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine is a Skill that isnt natural to
you its a Skill that lets you cheat, a Skill that lets you break with the natural and normal rules
of the world. Its a Skill that lets you do things that people, even your potentially rather special
sort of people, just oughtnt be able to do, and without the use of miraculous or wish power.
Magical Skills mean that youve found a cheat code to the world.
Most of the time, in Town, that means that youre using the power of the Outside. The
Outside isnt just outside the physical boundaries of Town. Its outside the organizing principles
of the world as well. Using the power of the Outside lets you do things that shouldnt be possible,
but for whatever reason they are.
For characters with Ace abilities, for perfected prodigies with mastery of every Skill, the
most important feature of magic is that they are not automatically good at it. Magic doesnt work
like mortal Skills. Its fundamentally alien. Ace abilities and Skills like Hero or Paragon make
you better at what you are; even for magicians, magic is something youre not.
For everybody else, the most important feature of magic is that its difficult.
Everything that you can do with magic has some sort of Obstacle attached. A normal Skill
has a set of standard uses. Like, running if youre in good health, and wearing good shoes,
and on a decent road, you can just run. You dont start facing Obstacles to your running until you
have a broken leg, or youre on slippery ice, or something of the sort.
Magic isnt like that.
Everything you want to do with magic is extraordinary. Everything forces you to push past
some sort of barrier. Sometimes its a trivial barrier a few of the magical techniques in this
book are so ambiguous or intangible that theyre barely breaking the rules at all, and well call
those Obstacle 0 but the barrier is always there. Youre never in optimal conditions for using a
magical Skill. Its always something youre not supposed to be doing and can only do because some
alien and supernatural power intervenes.
Im implementing each magical Skill starting with a list of relatively standardized and specific
techniques. In some cases this is an extremely accurate portrayal and the underlying magic is built
on named techniques. In other cases its closer to a description of how that school of magic
looks from the outside.
For instance, the Sosunov family in Fortitude has a secret technique that lets them visit their
loved ones in dreams. It lets them do things like:
[Obstacle 1] send and receive detailed information through a loved ones dream;
[Obstacle 2] sense unnatural forces at work on dreams; and even
[Obstacle 3] send a dream forwards or backwards through time.
A typical Sosunov magician can communicate with a loved one who is far away. An exceptional
Sosunov can stay in communication with dead loved ones, have extensive dream-conversations
with a future lover or a child not yet born, and even risk paradox (and possibly a slightly higher
Obstacle, at the HGs option) attempting to change their own history. I know that some of these
things are studied explicitly as techniques but others just emerge naturally from their general
studies of dreams.
As this suggests, the list of techniques isnt the end-all and be-all of a magical Skill. All Skills
have potentially unlimited applications; magical Skills have potentially unlimited unreasonable
applications. You can expand this indefinitely and effectively use any magical Skill to do
essentially anything. However, you do still have to maintain credibility
Experimentation, practice, or inspiration is required before you can roll out a new
technique. Mastering it to the point where its Obstacle level becomes reasonable will take
an enormous amount of time.
Some of the powers associated with the various magical Skills are functionally mundane. For
instance, the magic of the Yatskaya family includes an Obstacle 0 power
[Obstacle 0] reassure, befriend, or make peace with a cat or cat-like spirit;
I dont have the heart to tell you that you cant reassure or befriend a cat just because you dont
know the Yatskaya Family Magic; and if someone like the Prodigy studied under the Yatskaya,
she ought to be able to learn to do this kind of thing perfectly. So some of the lower-level
powers arent actually magical; they occupy an in-between state, where using them is kind of
cheating and kind of not.
Heres how this is going to work.
If a magical technique exists, and the HG agrees that you can perform or approximate it
e.g.,
youve seen it done, and youre good at copying others tricks;

youre in a magical place or situation where it should be feasible;
your Skills should let you do something similar, here
then you can use it, with a mundane Skill or some other magical Skill, at +2 to the Obstacle.
This isnt always the best option! You may be better off just ignoring the magic and doing it your
own way for instance, reassuring a cat is usually going to be Obstacle 0-1 anyway, so doing it
the Yatskaya way isnt necessarily a good idea.
But if you have a highly flexible Skill like Do Stuff and youve seen Yatskaya doing their
thing and you want to copy their technique and soothe a cat
The Obstacle is 2.
Heres another example.
The Kichi family have magical scrying pools. They can look into those magical pools,
overcome a level 2 Obstacle, and leave their body behind to wander Town as an incorporeal
spirit. If you have a spying and sneaking Skill like Go Where I Like, maybe you ought to let
yourself do that as well!
Astral projection is normally Obstacle 2-4 it depends on whether your HG thinks

psychic powers are real or not but honestly, its not likely to be that meaningful even if you
overcome that wall. The normal outcome of a vigorous attempt at astral projection is that you
have a daydream voyage, possibly augmented by a sensitive instinct and a heightened data-
processing ability. Or maybe you break your mind-body connection and hurl yourself off into
disorientation, Bluebell Park, or the Outside. Or
I mean, well, all kinds of things could happen, but theyre whatever would normally happen to
a human throwing themselves against an obstacle of that sort. Not magic.
But if youre at the Kichi Pools? If youre willing to overcome an Obstacle 4 (the normal
Obstacle for the Kichi, plus 2)?
I think you should have the same mostly-controlled experience as they.
If you do this often enough five or six times a season, perhaps then this application of
your Skill might work its way down to Obstacle 2-3, with the normal difficulty for the Kichi
forming the lower bound. Or it might make more sense for you to pick up the Kichi Magic
instead. Thats up the HG. It depends!
Summing it up:
You can sometimes use even the fully magical techniques with a mundane Skill or a
different, inappropriate magical Skill if it makes sense, and at +2 to the Obstacle.
Sufficient experience may reduce this to +0 or +1.
Associated Bonds
Most magicians have one or two Bonds, taboos or governing principles that shape their life
outside the domain of the magic itself. For instance, if you practice ghost magic, you might be
stuck helping the ghosts resolve their unresolved issues in the living world. If you practice the
Sosunov magic, you have to be careful not to let yourself have nightmares or fall into delirium
that could pull you, and the world around you, into the chaotic Outside!
The full rules for Bonds will appear on pg. XX; for now, just assume that theyre something
all Main Characters, most magicians, and a few non-magicians can have.
Superior Qualities and Skills
a rules concept
Superior Qualities and Skills are the other side of the coin from Magical Skills. Theyre abnormal
or inhuman abilities that are natural to you.
They let you break the rules for being human, by declaring that youre not.
The Jotun have these. The dryads and vampires too. At that, so do elephants, fish, and the
bird-faced spirits of the sky. Its not that theyre alien. Theyre not. Nor are they touched by the
Outside. Theyre just not human
At least, not once they come into possession of a Skill like this.
(So why is the yardstick humanity? Why does that even matter?
. . . the reasons are mostly OOC. There may be a cosmological reason for humans or some
human-like creature like the elves or Riders to set the norm, but in practice, Im just writing an
anthropocentric RPG. If the default character type were dogs, then Id write up humans as
having amazing, supercanine Skills like Superior Language and Superior Thumbs!)
Each Superior Quality or Skill confers three advantages.
The first advantage is that a Superior Quality or Skill helps you win contests. If you can bring
your Superior Quality or Skill into play, it gives you Edge in an otherwise fair contest equal to the
rating of the Quality or Skill. For instance, the Yatskaya Skill, Superior Cat-Speaker, will help
you out in any contest where being able to talk to cats, or being good at talking to cats, is key.
The second advantage is that you can use a Superior Quality or Skill as a regular mundane
Skill.
This Skill can be broader than the circumstances that give the Edge.
For instance, Superior Thumbs includes an implicit object-manipulation/tool-use Skill that

makes even a thumbless or thumb-occupied human good at doing that kind of thing. Humans
are better at soccer than ordinary dogs even if their thumbs dont give them an overpowering
Edge. Superior Wings sharpen ones sense of 3-D motion and will make somebody a better
airplane pilot and swimmer if the wings dont physically get in the way. As a final example,
Superior Cat-Speaker makes the Yatskaya good at all kinds of cat-like activities; they dont
generally get their full Edge in jumping, sneaking, or hunting contests, but theyre still good at all
of them.
The third, and probably the most important, advantage of having a Superior Quality or Skill
is that it makes you abnormal or inhuman. There are things that you can do without magic that
humans would need magic to perform. Forget improved piloting skills and 3-D orientation:
having Superior Wings means you have functional wings. Forget the athletics and the occasional
edge-case Edge: having Superior Cat-Speaker means you can talk to your cats.
The higher the rating of the Superior Quality or Skill, the more overtly supernatural this can
be. The default expectations for this in Chuubos Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine are:
0. Youre within human norms.

1. Youre unrealistically good.
2. Youre like Rasputin (Superior Endurance 2) or Thumbelina (Superior Tininess 2).
3. Youre like a beast bears have Superior Strength 3, great cats Superior Reflexes 3.
4. Youre something far beyond human mountains have Superior Strength 4.
5. Nothing mortal can stand against you light, for example, has Superior Speed 5.
So, for instance, the various levels of Superior Wings would look like this:
Superior Wings 0. You have the same wings as any other human. I guess those are like
your eyebrows or your back hair or something. Or the wings (dramatic pause) of your
mind!
Superior Wings 1. This might mean that you have functional wings, but theyre really
only good for hitting people with or maybe helping you control and aim your falls. The
kind of wingspan it would take for a human to be able to fly is just ridiculous, so at this
level you dont have that.
Superior Wings 2. You can have working wings, but you might need to make some
concessions to realism. Maybe theyre gliding wings, or maybe you exhaust yourself in
just a minute or two of flight. That still isnt necessarily realistic, you understand, and its
not even supposed to be, but it affects to realism by gesturing in its direction.
Superior Wings 3. You can have working wings, and can fly as well as any bird.
Superior Wings 4-5. This only barely makes sense, really I mean, even in Dog
Nobilis or Puppy Force where dogs are the default character type, humans would
only have Superior Thumbs 2-3, you know? But maybe if your wings can let you fly off
with whole cities, or outrace your own sonic boom, or something, you might have this
level of Superior Wings.
These arent necessarily absolutely hard limits like, Im not going to come to your house and
lecture you if you try to get away with functional Superior Wings 1 or if you want your
incredibly skilled aerobatic flyer to have Superior Wings 5.13 But in the first case Id probably be
happier with your talking your HG into giving you an extra point of Skills, instead, and in the
13
Unless I know you personally.
second case, maybe its worth sucking up the inefficiency and taking Superior Wings 3 plus
Aerobatics 5, or maybe just taking Aerobatics 5 as your base, starting with a hang-glider
or something, and working your way up to a power that gives you actual flight?
Stuff like being the Ace
That is, stuff that makes you better or perfect with your Skills
Enhances the abilities that are natural to you. Normally thats abilities natural to a human,
but ultimately itll enhance whatever you actually are. So you can generally use Ace abilities to perfect
the abilities that a Superior Skill gives you. If you contrive to give a perfected human or
enhanced skill-user a set of Superior Wings 3 (or, for that matter, a biplane), they will fly it with
unnatural grace.
Conversely, not having a Superior Quality or Skill doesnt mean anything.
Its not a good sign or a bad sign.
A typical human doesnt have Superior Thumbs and doesnt have Superior Wings. Yet they
still have thumbs and not wings. Thats not because of some arcana hidden in their Skills. Its
just because . . . theyre a typical human.
Put another way if I suggest a Superior Skill below, or if someone in your game has one,
that doesnt mean that normal people dont have that Skill. And it doesnt mean that they do! If
some alien from a distant clothing-world has Superior Fashion 3, that doesnt mean that fashion
is equally alien to humans. And it doesnt mean its not!
It just means that I think being superhumanly fashionable is a thing that an alien could be.
Quests
Quests are the core character advancement and achievement mechanism in a Chuubos
Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine RPG. Youll use them to improve yourself, to connect to
places and people, and to make long-lasting changes in the world.
Youll find quests particularly useful for livening up technical and tactile activities and for
getting a grasp on ambiguous ones. If youre studying aquaculture, for instance learning to
manage the fish and shellfish of Big Lake then quests will provide an OOC eidolon for the
technical details and hands-on experience that you cant really cover directly in play. If youre
learning to become a more dependable person, the quest will provide you a way to measure
progress on something otherwise unquantifiable.
Quests exist because a lot of life is about little things tiny moments, textures, and details;
things that get stripped from the experience of Town by the abstraction of play; by the
conversion of a PCs life into a players words and actions around a table. Quests are their own
kind of little thing, in turn: the player-level equivalent to all the bitty ephemera that you dont
want to explain in-game. You dont have specific little body insights about whether someone is
comfortable in your company, or an exact number for the optimum salinity level for raising lake
snails, or names for all the colors, sounds and moments of a PC recovering from despair you
have accumulated XP towards a quest, instead.
Eventually youll accumulate enough XP (each quest has its bank) and earn its rewards
stuff like life victories, new manga, 1/chapter abilities, and improvements to your abilities and
Skills.
In practice youll organize your quests into longer Arcs of 3+ quests. Ill talk about those
later on!
Quest Description
notes and examples
Each quest starts with a note on how much XP it needs and some metadata
For instance, a quest tagged with
:1
:2
is a good starting quest for a Shepherd Arc and a good second quest in a Storyteller Arc. It could
be the story of your ordinary life the everyday work, stresses, and pleasures that form the
fabric of your days (Shepherd 1) or just ignoring the pressures on you and just doing things
your own way. (Storyteller 2).
Im calling that metadata instead of actual data because youre not usually going to look it up
from the tag instead, youll either find the quest while looking for a good Shepherd 1 quest, or
a good Storyteller 2 quest, or youll just use that data towards the end of the quest to help get a
sense of an appropriate reward for completing it.
After the metadata, the body of the quest starts with a high concept description of what the
quest is all about.
Then theres a section, What Youll Do, thats optional for both of us. You can skip it if
you dont want it to apply and sometimes I leave it out. Its basically here to talk about the
special effects of the quest
The things youre doing, or the signs upon your person, that show youre working on that
quest.
Then theres another optional section, What Youll Know, that talks about the kinds of
things that people who are on this quest tend to learn or know about. You can generally
assume that if youve been on that quest for a while, you can use your Skills (pg. XX) to
know or do that stuff you dont need any other excuse to stretch your most appropriate
abilities to cover that.
Sometimes Ill use a different section, like, What Happens, to talk about the things that
happen over the course of the quest.
You can push the HG to have those things happen, if theyre otherwise not.
For instance, heres two versions of a quest to clean up an old house and make it habitable
again:
Cleaning up an Old House (version 1)
25 XP Quest
:1
:2
Youre cleaning up an old house to make it habitable again.
What Youll Do
Youll probably have some cobweb in your hair or on your shoulder. Youre going to be harried
and you wont have much time for getting together with people. You might get sick a lot
youre around a lot of dust and mold.
Youre always inviting people over so they can see how far the house has come.
What Youll Know
Youll know a lot about building codes in the Region.
In Fortitude, for instance, youll know the building codes for Fortitude or, rather, more
specifically, youll know that there arent any. Not officially. But that there is some pretty intense if
hands-off oversight from the Fortitude Regional Council: theyll make sure youre aware of the
unofficial standards and best practices documents floating around the local library and provide at
least gentle pressure against the house becoming or staying an eyesore. In fact, theyre probably
what made sure the house youre renovating came onto the market or into your hands in the first
place!
(Theyre not all-knowing or all-powerful or anything, just, well, very interested in the state of
the local buildings and streets.)
Cleaning up an Old House (version 2)
25 XP Quest
:1
:2
This is an adventure about finding friends in the most unlikely places.
What Happens
This quest seems like its about cleaning, at first, but not long into the process youll realize that
youre not alone. A study of your environment leads you to discover a strange, displaced
hedgehog-man living in the basement apparently hes taken shelter there because hes being
hunted by creatures from Outside.
Youll make friends with him, over the course of the quest, and have a strange adventure;
but then hell depart, leaving you with more questions than answers and a mostly-renovated
house.
Perks
a rules concept
When you complete a quest, youll earn a reward!
The Perk youll get is usually based on your character Arc. For instance, lets say that youre
on the fourth step of a typical Knight Arc
Youve fallen short of who you wanted to be. Youve erred, or lost your path. Now you
have to make amends, and grow.
Outcome: Redemption is an ongoing process, but youve made a start. If possible,

an NPC acknowledges that. Either way, the weight of guilt and wrongness on you
lightens.
To finish the quest is to seize that outcome, which is pretty nice in and of itself but youll also
get a bonus. One of the options, for instance, is . . .
Cool. You gain a new level 1 Cool Perk.
This isnt a fixed part of your character to the same extent as your inherent Skills you could,
for instance, wind up losing this Perk later. But for right now, if you take that option, your work
on redeeming yourself has earned you a point of Cool. If someone comes along right now and
tries to corrupt or trick you, theyll be facing a level 1 Obstacle that they might not expect!
You might also get some benefit that isnt a Perk proper
+1 to an existing Cool Perk, up to [a limit well talk about later, but basically, the
number of Arcs like this youve done.]
So, if youve already done this Arc a few times, and you already have a level 1 Cool Perk floating
around, you can now upgrade that Perk to level 2 Cool.
In a long game youll be able to take the Perk all the way to level 5, evolving from an Umino
to an Akio, from the Urkel to the Fonz, from a Doogie Howser into a Barney, or even from a
Roseanne Rosannadanna all the way up to a Beatrix Kiddo, Ellen Ripley, or Emma Peel.
Perk Slots
I dont want characters to collapse under the weight of sixty-five different Perks Im OK with
you having a lot of different powers, and a lot of different stuff going on in your life, but Id like
to keep your concept relatively clean.
So the rule is:
You can have up to eight total Perks.
After that, when you finish a quest, you can either pick a reward option (e.g. +1 to an
existing Cool Perk or move 1-2 points between skills) that doesnt require a new Perk, or
sacrifice one of your existing Perks to make room for something new.
Im not actually expecting this to be a problem for you
By the time you actually exhaust the potential of the advancement system you should be
able to afford a few Perk slots that you just use to hold your latest cool toy instead of stuff you
intend as permanent; also, the rewards from longer Arcs can potentially accumulate indefinitely.
If you ever wind up heartbroken because you really desperately need nine Perks, though, its
probably OK to trade in the normal reward for an Arc for an additional Perk slot instead.
Progressing through an Arc
Quest mechanics are asynchronous you dont always finish quests in the same order that you
start them, nor do you always know in advance which of the quests your character takes on will
be the important, life-changing or life-affirming quests and which will throw them down into the
dark.
Accordingly, the whole process of finishing a quest and choosing a Perk that fits its place in
your Arc is going to be a little ad hoc. The platonic ideal of an Arc is that you do 3-5 quests in
order for that Arc until youre done; a Bindings Arc is a Bindings 1 quest, then a Bindings 2
quest, then a Bindings 3 . . .
But if you start a Bindings Arc, and then finish two quests in short order, theyre probably
both from the same phase of your life youll get two rewards from the Bindings 1 step.
Maybe that speeds you through Bindings 2 later, maybe it doesnt. Sometimes youll even notice
that a quest that youve just finished really has nothing to do with your Arc at all its a side
quest, as it were. In a case like that, youll usually just take a Perk or other reward that fits the
quest, even if its a Perk from some completely different Arc for instance, you might look at
the metadata for Cleaning Up an Old House, decide that when you did it it was kind of like an
Emptiness 2 quest (pg. XX), and take the appropriate outcome and Perk.
Ultimately youll finish the Arc after putting a certain amount of XP in, as soon as you
complete the next plausibly Arc-completing quest.
Quest Cards
a rules concept
The mechanical heart of a quest in play is its quest card. This has two key features
a progress grid of blank spaces, representing the XP cost of completing the quest.
a set of options for gaining quest-specific bonus XP.
Some quests have multiple options for this card.
You can technically use a quest card straight from this book, another book, or the Internet,
keeping track of accumulated XP elsewhere; but normally when you start a quest youll copy,
hand-copy, or download and print the quest card, filling in the progress grid as you advance the
quest.
Theres a lot of flavor and ideas in the descriptions of the quest, and you probably want to
pay attention to it if you want to maximize the fun and depth of experience of your game. But in
practice its all down to the card. Use the bonus XP conditions on the card. Fill in the progress
grid or accumulate the requisite number of XP
Get the rewards.
Bonus XP
There are two basic models for quest-specific bonus XP.
The first model is the any time kind of quest theres something simple that you can do
at any time to bring the quest into play. Thisll earn you a bonus XP. For sanitys sake, you can
only earn this bonus once in each scene and only once per 15 minutes of real-time play
(approximately); this is over all of your quests combined.
The second model is the storyline quest the quest is a structured experience, with some
specific goals to aim for and a list of suggested actions. You can usually earn +5 XP towards the
quest by hitting one of the major goals, and even if you dont, you can earn one bonus XP per
chapter by taking an action or setting up a scene of the appropriate sort.
Theres no limit on how often real-time you can earn bonus XP for a storyline quest, but
Im not expecting them to be balanced even with the occasional +5 XP bonus, storyline
quests are generally a little harder and take you a little longer to complete.
Examples
Ill show you two any time quest cards and a storyline quest card for the Cleaning up an Old
House example, and then discuss them in more detail below.
Quest Card
Cleaning an Old House (Example 1)
Bonus XP
You can earn a bonus XP towards this quest at

any time (but only once per scene/15 minutes)
by explaining some of whats happened in the
past scene your being exhausted and
shaking, your backpack being full of hammers,
the reason you showed up at a friends house
in time to rescue them from a fire as
Its the house, you see.
Thats why you were in the neighborhood. Thats why youre sick. Thats why youre staring
blankly at someones hallway. Thats why you didnt have anywhere to sleep and went over to
visit them. Its the house, you see.
Pick some standard phrase to indicate this, it doesnt have to be the one I just said, and just
use it or a close variant when you want to claim the XP.
Whats yours?
Quest Card
Cleaning an Old House (A Goofier Form)
Bonus XP

by proposing a theory about how something
will help you with renovations. For instance, if
youre being attacked by zombies, you might
exclaim, Endlessly reviving flesh! I bet this
could fix my insulation problem!
Note that you have to actually consider

this theory. I mean, its OK if someone stops
you, but the point isnt to come up with
something goofy to say, the point is to come
up with a goofy idea to think or, put another
way, to show that everything you encounter is
being filtered through the screen of Ive got
to get this house into shape.
Quest Card
Cleaning an Old House (As a Dramatic Structure)
Major Goals
The HG can award you 5 XP towards this

quest
if you are injured while working on the

old house
if you have a gathering of your friends
there, and they pitch in.
You can earn each such bonus once per quest,

for a total of 10 XP.
Quest Flavor
1/chapter, you can earn a bonus XP towards this quest by:
working on cleaning or repairing the old house

sleeping over at a friends because your house isnt ready yet
telling an anecdote to your friends about the house and its condition
You can combine this with an XP Action, but youre not required to.
Choosing your Quests
a rules concept
Each PC can pursue up to four quests at any given time.
Im not expecting you to need that for just the quests in a given campaign youre only
going to need two at a time for that, maybe three if you find something cool on the side but
its very easy to design new quests. An any-time quest should only take 2-3 minutes to put
together if everything goes smoothly and 10-15 if theres some HG-player disagreement or
negotiation involved. A storyline questll take longer, but 10-20 minutes to hash out something
quick or 2-3 hours to make something worth sharing publicly online isnt an unreasonable time
frame.
Getting back to your four-quest limit:
Its on the high side for the content Im giving you and its definitely not something to think
of as a quota you need to fill. But Im giving you four as an option, because thereve been times
in my life where thats fitting where Ive had, say,
Starving Artist
Working on an RPG manuscript
Far From Home
Working on a Fiction-based Blog
and while I could think of other quests I might theoretically have been doing, or combine two or
three of them into a single quest, or whatever, those four items just seem right to me as a quest-
tinted picture of a life.
Youll have a pretty free hand in choosing what your quests are. Almost every quest is
available to any character that wants it, and hardly any quests have any sort of formal
prerequisites. Even the Arc structure is a way of saying: try to interpret what you wind up doing this
way, rather than take these quests, in this order, or else.
Fundamentally, a quest is just something you want your character to be doing and working
on, both during and between the scenes of play. If youre playing a pre-built character from, say,
Fortitude: the Glass-Makers Dragon, and the quests Ive given you dont seem to fit you, feel
free to raid other sources for anything else that seems better fit.
Starting a Quest
a rules concept
Quests structure activities that your character is already doing or things that you expect to have
them do. That means that theres no white-armored knight waiting to ride up and escort your
character into a magical land of questing when you start a quest theres just the things you . . .
do. When you take a quest, youre just saying, this thing is important, and I expect that my character is or
will be spending a lot of time on it in between game events.
Heres all you have to do to start a quest:
Decide that youre interested in a quest.

Make sure you have fewer than four quests. If necessary you can drop a quest (see
abandoning a quest, below) to make room.
Resolve to yourself that your character will pursue this quest.
Tell the HG that your character is now on that quest.
Write the quests name on your character sheet, print or copy or create a quest card, or
otherwise make a semi-permanent record of the fact that youre on that quest.
For instance, you really like birds. You decide to start a quest to learn more about the birds of
Fortitude well, done! Resolve that youre going to foreground that part of your life. Tell the
HG that your character is studying the bird life of Fortitude. Record this information somehow.
Copy, hand-copy, create, or download and print a suitable quest card and bam! Youre on that
quest.
The other side of that is that starting a quest doesnt give you anything in and of itself. If
you declare, for instance, that you are now on the quest Taking Care of a Small Child (pg.
XX), that doesnt provide a small child for whom you can now take care. It just structures and
surfaces whatever existing opportunities for childcare you already had. If youre playing the kind
of game where you can declare I adopt a kid, I babysit a neighbors child, I take care of my
little sister, or HG, provide a small child! then the quest will help make that declaration
worthwhile; otherwise, I guess you are woefully providing childcare to your chia pet, basement
toad, or tiny egg.
HG/Group Quests
a rules concept
The HG also manages a pool of up to two group quests. These are things that the players are
doing as a group that the HG is interested in treating as a quest.
any player can contribute XP towards the quest

the HG chooses some number of players, and
o each chapter that many players can each earn 1 bonus XP towards the storyline;
o each hour,14 that many players can each earn it 1 any-time bonus XP.
the HG chooses, starts, and chooses whether to abandon these quests.
the quests dont generally give Perks, Arc advancement, or in fact any benefit save cool
stuff happens, but if they do, the benefits are shared with all appropriate PCs.
Group quests are almost always storyline quests with 1/chapter options that the HG is interested
in seeing the PCs pursue.
14
This could be 15 minutes as usual but that seems like it might get spammy.
XP and XP Cost
a rules concept
Im calibrating the game on the following assumptions:
a typical session runs 4 hours

it gets through about 3 in-game chapters sometimes 0 and sometimes 10, but ~3
youll earn about
o 10 XP for casual play
o 20-25 XP for focused, intense play
o 35-40 XP if youre focused and covering a lot of IC time
o 50-60 XP if youre focused, rushing, and everything goes right.
Each quest has an associated XP Cost, which you can understand in those terms.
The XP cost for a quest measures how much work and time it takes to complete the quest
the higher the XP cost, the more effort youd expect to put into the quest before you see real
results. If youre college students or NEETs with a lot of free time then you might get through
100 XP in a week of real-time play; if your gaming group is full of busy people with awkward
schedules, you might manage 20-30 XP in a real-world month.
So when youre looking at the XP cost for a quest, you can understand it in that frame of
reference e.g. 50 XP? Thats a couple of months of play! Or 15 XP? I could get there in a
single session, even half a session, but itll probably take two.
Ill normally write a quests cost under its title for instance, Cleaning up an Old House,
above, is a 25 XP quest.
BOX Where does XP Come From?
You can earn XP from
XP actions (pg. XX);

quest bonus XP (pg. XX);
emotion XP (pg. XX).
Im calculating casual play as earning a bit under 2 XP per chapter and 1-2 total quest bonus +
emotion XP per hour. Intense, focused play can earn 2-4 XP per chapter, 2-3 quest bonus XP
per hour, and 2-3 emotion XP per hour instead.
END BOX
BOX Forum Games
In a forum game, Im expecting the per scene limit on emotion and quest bonus XP to be a
bigger factor than the per 15 minutes limit.
I believe that in a forum game its notionally possible to get through 2-3 chapters and 20-25
XP in a real life week, but its not going to happen; a more probable time frame is one chapter and
5-7 XP per month. If thats how it works out for you, consider slicing two fifths or three fifths
off the cost of quests, the cost of Arcs, and the +5 XP bonuses.
END BOX
Bonus XP
a rules concept
Each quest has a way often, several ways to earn bonus XP specific towards that quest.
Im including these to make sure that quests dont drift into being just a background activity;
while your character is likely to do a lot of the work towards the quest between scenes and
sessions of play, I hope that youll care about quests during the game as well!
There are two models for this.
Any-Time Quests. You can get a bonus XP at any time for this quest with some variation on:
saying a quest catch-phrase

emoting a quest catch- . . . emote?
using a sign or prop associated with the quest
proposing a quest-related theory or idea
There are cool details, and its all built around the notion that you wouldnt be doing this, saying
this, emoting this, using that sign or prop, whatever, unless events fit the quest but mostly
thats all there is to it. Just say something, or use a prop, and bam! Ive made this very simple and
easy so that all of the complication can come from the roleplaying around these events.
You can get one XP like this every 15 real-life minutes (or so), and at most once per scene.
(Thats over all of your quests, if you happen to have 2+ that work this way.) Im expecting you to
get this maybe once per hour, maybe less, and 2-3 times per hour when youre really pushing it.
Storyline Quests. These quests have two ways to get bonus XP. You dont always have both.
If theres something in particular that I think would be cool to have happen during the
quest, or something that I want to highlight as a possible big event during it, Ill write that in as a
major goal. If the HG thinks/agrees that youve completed one of these, youll get 5 bonus
XP, up to a quest-specific cap. You can ask the HG and players for help in making these
happen. You cant demand it, but its OK to expect!
In addition, each storyline quest card lists a set of actions you can take to earn 1 bonus XP
per chapter from quest flavor. If you find yourself performing such an action, you get the XP.
The 1-XP limit here is for that specific quest, so try to get 1 bonus XP for each such quest should
be on your chapterly agenda.
If you dont stumble into it naturally, you can declare that youre taking a quest
flavor action, even if its not normally something you can control for instance, if your
quest flavor includes something like, encounter a Main Character while youre traveling the
roofs of Fortitude or accidentally swallow the crown jewels, you can say that that happens,
even though it normally wouldnt be in your power to declare.
As usual, its up to the HG to describe what actually happens when you take an action, so
you and the HG do have to be on the same page Im just clarifying that you can take the
initiative on quest flavor in a way that you cant for its major goals.
Ive marked up the quest flavor with icons. There isnt any rules content to this its just a
tool to get you thinking in the right directions. For instance, when I list an option like
working on cleaning or repairing the old house
it might remind you of the icon for Shared Action and Shared Reactions but it doesnt mean
you have to play it out that way, its just an indication that I can imagine it as a Shared Action
kind of scene. If I put two icons, it means there are at least a couple of different ways I can see it
playing out; for instance, when I offer
telling an anecdote to your friends about the house and its condition
Im saying that that that might be a Shared Reactions or a Foreshadowing event. Or maybe it
could be Sympathetic Action? Id probably go with Foreshadowing, but if your brain goes to
Sympathetic Action or even Shepherding instead Ive decided that I do not mind.
Recording Bonus XP. Im expecting you to copy or download and print the quest cards and
mark up bonus XP as you get it on the XP grid but its also perfectly OK to track this on
your character sheet, writing it on your character sheet next to the name of the quest.
In general Im expecting you to get about 70% of the possible bonus XP on a storyline
quest youll usually get your bonus XP each week, and youll usually hit your major goals, but
it wont happen every time!
Scene uh . . .
OK, look. A dramatic scene is a little hard to define in general, and even more so when it
comes to roleplaying. So mostly I just want to be clear now that Im using the term more often
that you havent missed a definition for scene. A scene is just . . . a scene. One scene of the
story. If I were pressed, Id say a unit of stuff happening from the time a situation is established,
until the time the situation changes in a way that resolves some narrative event. But thats not a
rule for you to memorize. Its the definition that Id give you if I were pressed.
You can use your own theory here for what a scene is!
Whatever a scene is, a scene in this game is one of those.
END BOX
Any-Time XP
a rules concept
I want to take a chunk of this book now to talk about any-time XP and how to choose the bonus
XP condition for the quests you create yourself.
I think that there are eight basic ways to understand a quest. Ive paired them together with
a set of icons and colors, but you absolutely dont have to understand that the icons are
conceptual/tactile links between related concepts in the system, not something you have to
worry about as special rules.
Heres a list of the quest types in their rough order of frequency:
Work and Study: the quest is part of a simple life its about you doing or learning
something in a simple, honest way.
Melodramatic: the quest focuses on the exaggerated reaction you have to something
you love/hate/whatever.
Paradigmatic: the quest defines a paradigm or context for you it gives you a unique
lens through which to view and understand the world.
Exciting!: the quest focuses on a passion or fear its something you get
overwrought about.
Lurid: the quest is something that risks your identity youre coping with something
that calls you to go somewhere else, to be somewhere else, something that changes
your state of being or lures you to vice.
Struggle: the quest is about your characters emotional and life issues writ large. Its
about something that you cant process, something that you deny.
Setting: the quest is part of the background of your life its something you live
through, day by day.
Symbolic: the quest is about something weird, vast, mystical, almost indescribable.
Im going to propose slightly different XP conditions for each, so the first step in designing a
quest is to look over the list of them and figure out which one you want a quest to be.
Sometimes itll fit multiple options and youll have to read on and see which one will inspire you
more. All of these options boil down to something you can just say or do, so ultimately wanting
your character to still be cool, even though you do/say this a lot is the major limiting factor.
BOX Pastoral and Passionate Quests
In some cases the three-word name for Work and Study quests and the exclamation point for
Exciting! quests winds up feeling a little awkward.
So Work and Study quests are sometimes also called Pastoral.
And Exciting! quests are sometimes called Exciting or Passionate quests instead.
END BOX
Work and Study Quests
Pastoral
Theres something youre working on. Theres something youre trying to build or learn or
whatever. Theres something youre putting long-term simple, honest effort into.
To earn a bonus XP, youll take a scene where stuff has already been happening, and youll
re-frame it as you doing your regular thing. E.g., saying,
Of course, Im a writer.
Im learning!
Im trying to help.
Nothing less from a [your last name here].
And that was another . . . mistake.
Well, Ill try anything once.
Of course, as a brilliant detective, I had seen through this already.
Neither rain nor snow shall keep me from my appointed rounds . . .
Emoting sparkle or ting! to show how amazing you are.
. . . or something else?
This becomes your suggested explanation either humorously or seriously for recent events,
successes, and/or failures, and your own part in them.
Quest Card
Generic Quest (Work and Study)
Bonus XP
Theres something youre working on: 15 XP Quest:
15

any time (but only once per scene/15 minutes) 20-25 XP Quest:
by explaining away what youve been doing or
trying for in the current scene as part of that 20
thing youre doing.
25
Pick a standard phrase to indicate this, and
then just say that phrase or some close variant
when you want to claim the bonus. 35-60 XP Quest:
Whats your phrase?
35
40
45
The idea is that by saying that, you either 50
confirm that something is about the thing
youre working on, or you make yourself a little 55
goofy and perhaps overly earnest.
60
Melodramatic Quests
Melodramatic!
Theres something you react to strongly. Theres something that really hooks you, that you really
care about.
Bonus XP for a quest like this comes mostly from reaction shots theres something you
do or say or emote that indicates that the quest is going on. Theres something you do to show
that your attention has been caught and engaged by the scenes relevance to your quest-specific
interests, peeves, fears, or dreams, e.g.:
This is perfect for my book!

I cant accept this!
Dazzling!
Ooh, storytime! Dish!
Of course, as a hero, I must face this boldly!
Oooooooo
It must be mine.
This is the life. The life!
Impossible. Unacceptable!
So. CUTE!
I wont have it. Do you hear me? I wont have it!
Fascinating.
Quest Card
Generic Quest (Melodramatic)
Bonus XP
Theres something that just rivets your 15 XP Quest:

attention when it happens; or when you think
about it; or when something fits your thoughts
about it.
Something you love. Something you fear. 15

Something like . . .
20-25 XP Quest:
20
25
Pick a catchphrase for this. You dont have to

35-60 XP Quest:
use the exact same catchphrase every time, but
its the core of your experience here. Its what
you say to show that your attention has been
totally caught: 35
40
45
50
55
You can earn a bonus XP towards this quest at 60

with an emote or a statement that goes
basically like that!
Paradigmatic Quests
Defining
This quest is a way of thinking. Its a special way of modeling the world. You have a special way,
at least while youre on this quest, and possibly long-term, of modeling the world.
Maybe its smart. Maybe its goofy.
Maybe its science. Maybe its philosophy. Maybe its a delusory belief! Or it could be
something emotional or circumstantial, like ignorance, depression, optimism, alienation, or
viewing everything through the lens of your impending child.
Anyway.
Your quest is a way of thinking. So you show that by proposing theories about the world,
deriving from that style of thought.
Your bonus XP condition is proposing a specific kind of theory; you have to, e.g.,
propose a theory about fate

propose a theory about a mystery
propose a theory about how to handle things
propose a theory about how something works
propose a theory about how to survive an attack by tigers
propose a theory about the natural world
propose a theory about romance and attraction
propose a theory about whats going on around you
propose a theory about the Outside or the Bleak Academy (pg. XX)
propose a theory about the history of Town
You do have to say it, or at least think it, in character the theory isnt from you, as a player,
its something that your character is, at least momentarily, seriously considering in the world.
Quest Card
Generic Quest (Paradigmatic)
Bonus XP
Theres something youre always thinking 15 XP Quest:

about. Its a lens that you see everything else
through:
15
20-25 XP Quest:
any time (but only once per scene/15 minutes) 20
by proposing a new theory about that thing
25
youre always thinking about.
Make sure to actually stop and consider the

theory I mean, its OK if someone stops 35-60 XP Quest:
you, but the point isnt to come up with
something goofy to say, the point is to come
up with new thoughts to genuinely consider.
35
40
45
50
55
60
Exciting! Quests
Passionate
This bits about something that you get worked up over. I mean, really worked up. Its goofy. It
engages you. You go over the top.
This is normally signaled by a sign, reading Over the Top, which you hold up when you or
the natural course of events takes things over the top. When . . . for some quests, for quests that
go over the top in comedic ways, its for when things get so ridiculous that you just have to
laugh.
And for other quests? The ones that go over the top in an awful way or a dramatic way?
Its for when you just have to make that kind of pained whimper-laugh that you do when
the misery in your life goes over the top.
The XP condition doesnt have anything to do with laughing or whimpering, though.
It just means something like that, when you hold up the sign.
Youll get the bonus XP itself when you do hold up the sign or, well, if you dont have a
sign like that, or dont want to do that, or cant show it to people, when you emote
This is over the top! or

Im taking this over the top!
This bonus XP condition is obviously pretty generic you could indicate any number of
Passionate quests with the same Over the Top sign but for a quest like this its usually going
to be obvious which circumstances have just gone over the top. If you cant tell whether its your
passion for yakitori or your love of exploration that has just gone over the top
Well, that cant happen every time, can it? Surely its a special case!
Off-camera Quests
THE CAMERA LENS IS ON FIRE
So theres some quests that really should mostly happen in the background. Theyre not about
you. Theyre not about what you do on stage or on camera. Theyre just stuff thats happening
behind the scenes.
Or maybe the quest is about stuff that happens during play, but
You cant drive it. Its all up to the HG.
I dont like that.
I dont accept it! Thats not a good quest!
Instead, I demand that you step up to the bat and make goofy stuff happen. If you think
your quest is a background quest or an HG-driven quest, treat it as an Exciting! Quest instead;
only, maybe, with a bit more player agency and a bit less character agency in taking things over
the top.
Quest Card
Generic Quest (Exciting)
Bonus XP
Theres something youre doing: 15 XP Quest:
15
. . . and you get really worked up over it.

Well, you do, or the world does. Ridiculous, 20-25 XP Quest:
absurd things happen. Things get hectic.
20
So, look. Arrange for a sign.
25
It should say Over the Top.
You can earn a bonus XP towards this

quest at any time (but only once per scene/15 35-60 XP Quest:
minutes) when your quest, or its consequences,
or what you do about it, gets a little over the
top. 35
Or, for that matter, when you decide to 40
make them a little over the top.
45
When that happens, hold up the sign or
otherwise declare/observe that things have 50
gotten over the top and you can claim the XP.
55
You dont even have to say anything in
character! You just have to be willing to hold 60
up a sign. Its even OK if sometimes youre
being ironic or making a suggestion instead of
an observation, as long as an observation is
more typical.
Over the Top
Lurid Quests
Lurid
Youre torn between two worlds or two selves. Theres a seed of wickedness in you; or sickness;
or corruption; or maybe just another self, another form, some flowering change; or pain.
Or somethings calling you. Somethings pulling you.
Theres a way you usually are. Maybe its a good way, maybe its a bad way, I dont know.
And then theres this risk of . . . change.
In the real world this is a continuum, but for simplicity, lets express this as a binary choice.
Youre in one state, or the other. Youre in control, or you are lost. Youre the person youve
been trying to be, or the person you were. Youre sick, or youre OK. Youre transforming, or
youre not; hurting, or youre not; having whatever problem it is happen . . . or youre not.
You can get the bonus XP when you flip between states in active play in the middle of a
scene. This can be something you say or emote I am now hurting or I am now a
suspicious character. This is usually something you say or emote, I bet.
. . . but if possible, Id like you to have a two-sided sign.
Keep it in front of you on the gaming table to reflect the two states of your being. Have one
side that faces up when everything is OK and one that you flip to when corruption,
metamorphosis, trauma, wickedness, or the allure of some distant treasure gets to you. (You can
also just flash either side of it if theres no room to keep a prop sign in front of you at the table,
or quote from it if youre in an online game.)
Im explicitly setting this up so that youll normally get the XP from flipping to the bad
side since you cant get a second XP in the same scene, and youll often switch back to the
good side between scenes rather than during but so that you will sometimes get an XP from
flipping it the other way.
Some example signs include:
Curious / Too Curious.

Troubled / Free.
OK / Haunted.
Innocent / Suspicious.
Human / Angel.
Grounded / Daydreaming
Sober / Drunk
At Home in Fortitude / Called to the Bleak Academy
Ordinary Kid / Obvious Delinquent
Cautious / Tempted
Quest Card
Generic Quest (Lurid)
Bonus XP
Youre torn between two worlds or two selves; 15 XP Quest:

between:
15
and
20-25 XP Quest:
20
25
Ideally, youll make a sign for this a
reversible card, which you could in theory have
on the table in front of you in play to show 35-60 XP Quest:
which state youre in. You can earn a bonus
XP at any time (though only once per
scene/15 minutes) by flipping the card, 35
showing that youre moving between the two
states. 40
If you cant actually keep the card in front 45

of you, holding up the card with the relevant
50
side facing people or just saying or emoting
something appropriate can earn you the XP 55
instead.
60
Struggles
Struggle
Theres something you dont handle well. At least not yet.
Theres something you dont easily process.
Youre messed up, and the condition you have of being messed up like that . . . is the quest.
When you experience some emotion or situation like success, peace, a happy environment, or
whatever, you immediately self-sabotage. Or maybe its a negative emotion, like: you feel fear,
and immediately begin suppressing and denying it.
All you actually have to do here is emote or say something to indicate that youre feeling the
emotion or being in the situation in question. But this is another case where Id like a two-sided
sign. One side, with the emotion, you show to the other PCs. The other side has your inner
monologue, e.g.:
At Peace / You dont have time for this.

Hurting / Smile!
I Know What Im Doing / You dont know what youre doing.
In Control / Youre not in control.
Serious, Professional Face / [Sudoku game, for playing in your head]
So Cool! / Why cant I be cool?
This is Good, Right? / I dont understand. I dont . . . understand.
Touched / This will end in pain.
Quest Card
Generic Quest (Struggle)
Bonus XP
Theres something youre trying to do or be. 15 XP Quest:

Its probably even a good thing!
. . . but this quest comes with a

psychological or social burden a private
cross to bear. Something you cant handle as 15
well as you like to pretend. Something you
have trouble processing. When youre saying or
emoting this to everyone . . . . 20-25 XP Quest:
20
25
Some deeply- or shallowly-buried part of you is
actually thinking this:
35-60 XP Quest:
35
40
Create or pick out a two-sided sign: one side is
your public face, the other shows your hidden 45
thoughts. You can earn a bonus XP at any time
50
(though only once per 15 minutes/scene) by
expressing that emotion normally, by 55
holding up the sign.
60
The back side of the sign reminds you of
your flaws. If youre not playing in a place
where you can actually hold up the sign, its
OK to just remind yourself quietly of what it
says, or, if you must, ignore the back side in its
entirety.
The Background of Your Life
Setting
A Setting quest is about a stage in your life. Its not really about something you do. Its about
something you just have to live through.
Some practical possibilities for Setting quests include:
become a better person

deal with grief
deal with trauma
spiritual explorations
self-exploration
adjust to a new lifestyle
find a way to forgive someone
experience an inherently or consciously temporary phase of your PCs life
o be grumpy for a while

o be overly happy for a while
o try hard to be popular and outgoing for a while
o buckle down for a while
o goof off for a while
o experiment with forbidden arts for a while
o recover from surgery
o wean off of cigarettes, and backslide at the end of the quest
o wean off of cigarettes, and stay off of them afterwards
o be dismissive of local culture for a while
o be really enthusiastic about local culture for a while, instead
I know this is going to sound weird but I dont think you can advance a quest like this just by
declaring progress, or by focusing your attention inwards.
Im going to say instead that the core of a quest like this is something external that happens
while youre on the quest. You still have to be the one to do it, so its still something your
character does, says, or emotes; the bonus XP condition is going to be your character reacting to
that thing but still. Its something outside you. Something sensory. Something that takes your
attention out into the broader world. You emote some variant on:
Listen to those birds.
Look at those clouds roll in.
Im stretching my fingers and watching them go in and out.
Im staring at the endless sky.
Therell be chunks of potato, onion, beef in the soup tonight; and spice.
Im staring out across the lake.
It tastes like rain.
This tea is so bitter.
This soup is so good.
This sun is so warm.
Ideally this is something you can say when the quest is on your mind. Your character is
recovering from grief: you cant do that by having a scene where you stomp around emoting
recovery from grief, but you can look off now and then into the distance, hear the sounds of the
gulls over the lake, and say, Dang, just listen to those birds.
And earn a bonus XP for that; and move, bit by bit, towards peace.
Its possible that referencing a memory would also work as a bonus XP condition here. Figure
out a certain kind of memory that you have, like memories with a precious person or memories
of a better world, and then say or emote something like:
Remember the first time we came here?

Remember when we got lost out by the northern beach?
Remember when it was summer and the days were long?
Either way, its saying or emoting your observation/catchphrase, or a close variant thereof, that
earns you the bonus XP for such a quest.
Quest Card
Generic Quest (Background)
Bonus XP
Theres something you just have to live 15 XP Quest:

through, day by day.
15
20-25 XP Quest:
And theres something some experience or 20
memory that helps mark out those days.
There is something that draws your attention 25
when this quest casts its shadow or its light
upon your life.
35-60 XP Quest:
quest at any time (but only once per scene/15
minutes) by directing attention to this
experience. This usually relies on a specific 35
catch phrase e.g., your attention drifts to
40
the birds flying out over Big Lake, and you say,
Listen to those birds. 45
. . . or whatever. 50
What catch phrase do you use? 55
60
Symbolic Quests
Symbolic
Theres something thats happening to you, but youre not really sure what its about. Its
metaphysical and ambiguous. Youve been touched by destiny and miracle and
Well, its not clear where that is going.
The way to handle this, I think, is that when you feel the touch of that destiny and miracle
upon you when the weirdness has started you need to free-associate a bit on whats going
on in your characters head. Talk about images and sensations, either emoting Im experiencing
this / flashing on this or as things your character says. Thatll earn you the bonus XP.
The meaning of these rambles isnt going to be clear until towards the end of the quest
And maybe not even then, though by then you should at least try to pull it together into
some sort of story and some sort of sense
So the fulfillment criteria here is the same for each and every Symbolic quest.
Try not to have two quests like this at the same time; it wont be clear which one to give the
bonus XP to when a strangeness like this arises.
Quest Card
Generic Quest (Symbolic)
Bonus XP
Theres something going on. You think it 15 XP Quest:

means . . . you think it . . . it relates to . . .
15
20-25 XP Quest:
You can earn a bonus XP towards this 20
quest at any time (though only once per
scene/15 minutes) by declaring that you can 25
feel the touch of it, the thing, the it, the
miracle, the strangeness, the dissociation, the
unnameable, the it, the thing 35-60 XP Quest:
you can phrase it another way; just give
some indication that youre triggering this
quest condition 35
and then free-associating for a few 40

moments about what your character is
45
experiencing, feeling, thinking.
50
Talk about being cold, or warm; talk about
visions; whatever. Clenching muscles in your 55
arms. Hunger in the sky. Whatever. Random
rambles and chill sensations across your back, 60
gnashing stars in the glory beyond the world.
That kind of experience, the taste of bugs
chattering in the summer, and that brings you
in a bonus XP for this quest.
Storyline XP
a rules concept
Storyline quests are a little harder to break down into solid rules. Mostly Im going to give you
some rough guidelines here, below.
Major Goals
Its worth note that the major goals for a quest arent necessarily or even generally the
characters major goals. Theyre my major goals, or the HGs major goals, or your major goals as
the player designing the quest.
Storyline design isnt in character, in other words; its done from an authorial perspective.
So the major goals are based on things like:
this would be an awesome dramatic scene here;

this would strengthen the feel of the quest;
this is something that should happen as part of the quest story, but the PC doesnt
know that;
this would help to fulfill the dramatic purpose of the quest;
as well as
this is an obvious strategic/practical mid-point.
You can use this to sneak all kinds of wouldnt it be cool if . . . ? and maybe this happens
while . . . ? into the quest.
My personal default is to give you about one major goal for each 10 XP of quest, so you can
earn half, or just a little bit under half, of the quests XP from its major goals. Thats not a hard
rule on how quests have to work, though; its just my personal style.
Quest Flavor
Quest flavor is generally just a set of (potentially fun) scenes or actions that you can imagine a
character performing while on the quest. I dont mean the actions they take to do the quest I
mean, the things that youd expect someone on that quest to be doing. Youre still designing
from an OOC perspective, here! Youre still trying to capture the mystique of the quest,
inasmuch as it has mystique: its appearance, what seems important from the outside, more than
whats important in actual fact.
Theres no hard rule for how many of these flavor options a quest should have. I like to
have at least three, because otherwise the quest is just doing the same stuff over and over, and
Ive tried to rein myself in before I go past one option per 5 XP but if youre creating a quest,
and you really need 20 different flavor options, or cant think of a reason to have more than 2,
well, then, thats fine!
Spending XP
a rules concept
You can spend XP at more or less any time during the game to complete a quest. If you have 5
XP floating around, and youve earned 10 bonus XP on a 15 XP quest, you can complete that
quest immediately. Youre obligated to explain how it makes sense to complete the quest right
then e.g., if Dorothy, in the hurricane and on the way to Oz, wants to complete a fishing
quest, shed better be fishing off of her porch and making some folksy observation about what
shes learned but as a general rule it can always be done. There is one exception: as a sanity
measure, Im going to allow the HG to veto XP expenditures during play. I dont mean setting
consistency and sanity or rules balance sanity. I just mean, if the HG is already juggling too
many chainsaws and plates, some of which are on fire, they have the right to tell you not to
spend XP bringing another big thing into play right then. Conversely, towards the end of a
session, the HG may want to actively prompt people to spend XP on any quests they might want
to finish so that the HG can work the quests outcome into the ending or the epilogue of the
game.
After the end of each session, and before the next session begins, youll need to
spend your accumulated XP on quests. For instance, if you earn 18 XP during a 5-hour-long
Saturday game, then, after the game, youll have to divide that 18 XP between one to four of
your quests. If you decide at this point to finish one or more quests, make sure to let the HG
know. You can also pick up new quests at this point, particularly if youve finished one or more
quests, and you can spend some of your accumulated XP on these new quests as well.
Abandoning Quests
a rules concept
From time to time youll realize that your character isnt interested in a given quest any longer.
Theyre no longer that person or theyre no longer in those circumstances. Theyve moved on.
Theyve abandoned the quest.
You can abandon an ongoing quest any time you like. Once youve done so, youre no
longer on that quest and it no longer counts towards your four-quest limit. The story of the
quest finishes, to one extent or another the HG can still use the story elements as part of the
ongoing game, but there is some sense in which you both feel and actually are done. For a
one-off quest, you feel like youve done all that was in you to do; you cant do this right now:
youre done. For a repeatable quest, youve decided that its not worth it or its not possible:
maybe youll do this quest again later, but for right now, youre not going to have a new plateau, a
new level, or a new key defining moment, nor are you going to for a while to come and
maybe thats not so bad.
Abandoning a quest costs you half of its invested XP, but you get the rest back immediately
to apply to whatever existing or new quests you like. As an optional rule, the HG can give you
some or all of the rest at the beginning of the next book of play.
Quest Completion
a rules concept
When youve paid a quests full XP cost, the story of the quest completes. Whatever it was you
were building towards, youve accomplished it.
Your Arc will tell you the quests final outcome and youll choose from its list of rewards.
well, theyre all suggestions, so you might choose your own reward, but usually thats what
you do. Youll read the line that says Result: Reward: or Outcome: and then youll skim
the list of Perks, Perk-improvements, and other rewards.
Unexpected Outcomes
On occasion you and the HG will have to do some thinking here.
For instance, if youre working on a quest to repair an old house, its logical to assume that
you come out of this with a house. On the other hand, its possible that towards the end of the
quest theres a terrible fire, and suddenly theres nothing left but some scorched land
And youre sitting there with 24 out of 25 XP, so you tip in another to complete it, because,
darn it, that doesnt change the work that you put in.
And at this point youre going to want to figure out if the Perk you get is a reflection of the
cruel unfairness of the world or if you and the HG should figure out some way for you to end up
with a new, cool home like youd expected to have
Some eucatastrophe wherein, say, the HG tells you: well, thats it for that project. But you
know, your friends uncles looking to move in with his children, he has this great little house hes
willing to let go of cheap, and with the insurance plus some pitching in from your friends you
could have everything copacetic by next Friday. . . .
You wont ever technically have to work around stuff like this. The Arcs are designed with a
fair bit of abstraction precisely so I never have to promise you a house I cant give. Im just
saying, its important to take a moment to reflect upon what should happen when youre
approaching a not-immediately-intuitive end for a given quest.
If you started an Arc . . .
Completing the first quest of an Arc marks the official beginning of your journey. Thats the
point at which you can say that your character is on a given Arc.
This usually earns you a level-0 Trait, representing the path that youve just started, e.g.,
Knight (Idol Singer) 0.
That indicates that youre on a Knight Arc, trying to be an Idol Singer, and your current level of
awesome at that is level 0.
Ultimately youre allowed to declare yourself on any color of Arc after finishing any quest
you can complete a weird hand-made quest to cook 150 hamburgers and declare that you are
now connected to some great Otherworldly force (pg. XX) but its good manners to make
sure that this makes sense.
If you finished an Arc . . .
If youve crossed the XP boundary for your Arc, you gain a permanent benefit of some sort. For
instance, if youre a PC without access to miraculous powers, youd get something like:
+1 to the Arc-based Trait, like Knight (Idol Singer)

+1 to a Skill (pg. XX), +1 to a Bond (pg. XX), or a new level 1 Bond (pg. XX)
a new level 1 Skill,
you can optionally move a point from an existing Skill into the new Skill, and
if the Arc Trait just hit 3, gain a new Affliction (pg. XX)
The Skill doesnt have to be an exact match for the Arc, so you could advance to, e.g.
Knight (Idol Singer) 1, and gain

+1 to your Bond alcoholic and
a new level 1 Skill, Totally Disillusioned
These benefits are inherent youll never have to discard them like you would a Perk.
Closing out Arcs in Good Order
I dont want players to be unhappy because they finish a quest 10 XP short of the Arc and the
next logical quest for them to take up is a 50+ XP-costing brick.
So when the Arcs end approaches, you can talk to the HG about these options:
cutting or stretching a quests XP cost by up to 50%;

finishing the Arc itself midway through the next quest with a big insight, staying on
the quest, and applying the rest of its XP towards a new Arc.
You can also abandon an existing Arc midstream; much as with abandoning a quest, youll get
back half of the invested XP
Not back back, since youve already earned Perks or completed quests with it or whatever,
but, you know, you can apply that much as a head start on qualifying for your next Arc
And the HG can later, and optionally, give you access to the rest.
The Miraculous
Depending on the campaign, characters may start with or acquire access to miraculous abilities
powers that transcend causality and process. These arent really things you do. Theyre things you
learn to make happen.
Things you can just . . . declare.
They can be really minor things, things that you could also do with ordinary actions, like:
I take a step forward. or

I wriggle around in whatever bag I happen to be trapped in.
But theyre more likely to be magical or transcendent stuff like
I grow wings.
I spin some straw into gold.
I make a bridge of fire to span this river.
I pull the information I need out of this stack of books.
I make this harder for someone (raising the Obstacle).
I make this easier (lowering or waiving the Obstacle.)
I play this instrument perfectly.
I run at eighty miles per hour. or
I cast a veil of illusion to hide my bike.
The best thing about a miraculous action like this is that it always happens.
There may be limits to its power. It can be opposed by a stronger miracle. Unless the power
states otherwise, it has limited reach basically, it can affect stuff in the same Region, e.g.
Fortitude or Little Island, as yourself.
But its not like a Skill, where your action is I try to do this or I have this Intention.
A miracle can fail or be stopped or whatever, but the action itself, the part that you just do, is
This happens. You point at the world. You tell it: make this so.
Even if you shouldnt be able to take a step forward, because youre sealed in an iron
casket. Even if you shouldnt be able to grow wings, because . . . youre a human or a rat or
something, and they dont do that.
You use the miracle.
It is made so.
The downside of a miraculous action is that you dont have any way to spend Will and buy
your way up to a guarantee of effectiveness, productivity, or doing the right thing. Those
guarantees are the currency of mortal actions of fuzzy, organic, slippery mortal actions, one
thing one day and another thing the next.
Miracles arent like that.
They simply are.

Octopus Singer
an example Miraculous Ability
Type: Miraculous Action
Cost:
o 0 MP invoke this power by Big Lake, when there are octopi nearby
o 1 MP invoke this power by a different body of water, or when octopi are far away
o 4 MP invoke this power in an epic fashion, e.g.
o summoning forth an octopus-like kaiju
o summoning an octopus spirit
o calling forth octopi from rain puddles or other bodies of water without them.
Octopi are vulnerable to music to certain songs that resonate with their hearts.
Sing near the Lake and invoke Octopus Singer and your song will call them forth. It will
draw them out miraculously; they will crawl towards you, one after another, from the nearby
rocks and pools. Traditionally, to the people of Fortitude, this is understood as the octopi
praising the rare master of this technique and giving their consent to be eaten.
This power is a good Perk to pick up after a beach- or fishing-related quest
Most commonly from the first quest in a Knight Arc, where it represents an unexpected
talent that you discover in yourself, or in an Otherworldly Arc where you meet an octopus spirit
of some sort in your dreams.
Weathered
Cost:
o 0 MP weather damage 1/week

o 1 MP use this ability a second or later time this week
o 2 MP use this ability a second or later time in a handful of hours
This miraculous ability protects you from physical damage.
Invoke Weathered when you were just about to be badly hurt and you can declare that
youre fine instead that youve weathered it like an action hero or an old sea captain, with at
most some trickling blood, torn clothing, or some smears of sweat and soot.
This power reduces the severity of a received physical wound by about one level (pg. XX).
The HG can veto its use if the wound was already too trivial to worry about or so thoroughly
overkill that even being Weathered wouldnt help.
Youll pick up defensive powers like this early in a miraculous Aspect or Emptiness Arc and
later on in some of the rest.
How Miracles Work
a rules concept
Lets go over how these examples work.
Both Octopus Singer and Weathered are noted as being Miraculous Actions.
I personally like to think of miraculous actions as tactical abilities, but you should
probably think of them in the same way that the characters do; that is, as expressions of:
the wishing power of the heart; or as

the power of the Bleak Academy, that hungers to unmake the world.
Heres the basic rule for miraculous actions:
A miraculous action automatically takes precedence over any mundane action. It wins
any direct conflict with a mundane Skill.
This doesnt always mean you win the larger conflict for instance, if you sing forth an
octopus from the nearby waters while someone is trying to stab you, it may not actually . . . help.
Even if youre in an octopus-catching contest instead of a knife fight, it still might not help. If
your opponent is using a vast steam-powered fleet to trawl the whole area with awful octopus-
nets, for example, the 0 MP version of this miracle wont be enough. Youd need the 4 MP
version to actually catch more.
Similarly, if youre invoking Weathered in a talent competition, the miracle wins any direct
conflict with a mundane action but unless you can bait someone into claiming that their
ability to damage you is their talent, its unlikely that this will be of use.
Still . . .
If a mundane action and a miracle come directly head to head if someone uses a level 15
mundane action with 5 Edge to try to stop you from singing forth octopi, and you have
Octopus Singer the mundane action always loses. Thats important. Mundane actions can
never stop miracles from fulfilling the letter of their effect.
Not every miraculous ability is a miraculous action. Other options include Imperial
Miracles, which are technically even stronger; Bonds and Afflictions, which Ill talk about later;
and miscellaneous oddball things.
Lets continue examining the example miracle abilities.
After noting their action type (miraculous action,) these abilities list a set of costs in MP
for various modes of use. This is the fuel for miracles MP, aka Miracle Points, aka the
wishing power of the heart.
Octopus Singer is an example of a power where you spend MP commensurate to the

effects. You dont need wishing power to use the basic ability. Youll only need a little if youre
outside the powers normal context, e.g., singing forth an octopus from the southern California
coast. Youll need a lot of wishing power, though, to sing an octopus out of a teardrop or out of
your daydreams of a lake.
Weathered is an example of a power where MP affects its frequency of use instead. The
power seemed a little excessive if used continuously, so Ive set it to a weekly time frame even
the most weathered sailor will eventually get beaten down by a really bad week. A power like this
typically doesnt get much stronger when you pour MP into it, but you can spend MP to use it
more often than its native pace.
After the table of MP costs and uses, the rest of the ability descriptions explain what the
powers actually do. As noted, this is something that just happens unless the power says so, you
dont have to spend Will or do anything else.
Miracles that Help with Mortal Actions
A number of miraculous actions affect your mundane actions in one fashion or another.
Ace abilities, like Ive mentioned, are built around improving your mundane and Superior
Skills towards perfection, or even beyond it. If this kind of power fits your characters themes,
you might get access to miraculous Will (pg. XX) for mundane actions, improve your Intention
ratings on a regular basis, enhance your strength and speed, and have the option of intense, over-
the-top martial arts training to pick up temporary Superior Skills.
Sentimental abilities enhance your connection to certain objects, people, or things that are
precious to you youll learn to evoke extra powers from or share your own abilities with the
things to which you have Connection 3+. Youll also learn to visit them in spirit, a power that
could persist even after your death.
More generally, a number of miraculous abilities have effects that, while not directly
connected to your Skills, wind up either improving them or relying on them e.g., a miracle
might let you call up a magical wind but then let you control that wind with your Skills. Another
might lower the Obstacles your mortal Skills face when youre in a meditative frame of mind.
You can invoke a mundane action-affecting miracle and the mundane action that it affects
simultaneously, and doing so only counts as a single action or thing. For instance, if you have a
miracle that lets you form a [Skill+4] Intention without spending Will, you can generally invoke
the miracle and the Intention itself at the same time. This is important, since you can only do
two things at a time, and you might have been doing something else!
Imperial Miracles
Imperial Miracles dont cause a thing to happen; they state a destiny. They say: this will
happen, this has happened, or this is happening now.
Theyre like genre principles, or stuff written into the setting, or directives from a higher
authority. They dont say how things happen, not usually, nor do they make it happen, exactly.
They just say that it does.
Physics changes; fate changes; destiny and circumstances
I mean, if you use an Imperial Miracle to say that there should be a bridge across a certain
river, there are a lot of ways it could play out. You could stumble across a bridge that was
already there a few minutes later; or spiders could spin a silken bridge across it; or the Regional
Council could decide to build a bridge there; or the rainbow could shatter and chunks of it could
fall from Heaven to form a multicolored bridge. Theres usually a ton of leeway in the details, is
what I mean; the HG comes up with something that would be cool, appropriate, or both and
makes it work out somehow in play.
These are keywords Ill sometimes stick on the description of a miraculous or Imperial ability:
Bleak power a miraculous ability drawing on the bleak, unmaking power of the deep Outside
and the Bleak Academy. These powers usually make it easy to destroy, cripple, invoke despair,
and curbstomp your opponents, but there are special rules for resisting them on pg. XX.
Major power a miraculous ability capable of doing epic things, extremely complicating things,
and/or affecting large areas.
Ritual power a miraculous ability that triggers/requires a Ritual when invoked, unless the HG
waives that for OOC reasons.
Unreal power a miraculous ability whose effects are treated a little bit like a break from reality:
after invocation, if the world winds up in a weird state, the HG may revise the lingering effects
to something that makes sense in the local reality. (For instance, creating a Klein bottle or
turning people two-dimensional is fine in the Outside, but if its an Unreal power, and you
invoke it in Horizon, then things will drift back towards normalcy after the scene and the
powers use end.
END BOX
The Door into Memory
an example Imperial Miracle
Type: Imperial Miracle
Uses:
o 0 MP open the door into memory, 1/season

o 1 MP open the door again, into the same persons memories
o 4 MP open the door into a different persons memories (before the seasons end)
Heres an example of an Imperial miracle.
Invoke The Door Into Memory and you can open a door into someones dusty memories
and physically go through. You can take them or others with you. The door stays open as long as
youre sustaining this power; if you stop sustaining the power with you or someone else trapped
on the other side, a path back into the present must remain.
The HG decides the details of the world/memory interface, and it can change from time to
time; however, youre usually safe from messing up the timeline or damaging the persons mind
and the HG should tell you if this is not the case. The higher the Arcs associated Trait when you
pick the power up (e.g. Otherworldly (Spiritual) 2) the smoother the experience is likely to
be:
At Arc 0-2, this power may well have baroque and unruly elements and arbitrary limitations
on what you can do or see or experience in the past, but at Arc 4-5 this is much less of a
concern.
The expected application of this power is gathering information and treasuring lost things,
but you can also use it to change the modern world; theres a quest for doing just that on pg.
XX.
Mundane action or Intention the kind of things people do. We start out adrift and impractical
amidst a welter of chaotic sensation. Through a billion false starts and errors we learn how to
become ever-more effective, productive, and humane, but we never quite reach perfection.
Will the power source for mundane actions. Our limited supply of time, cope, and effort.
Miracle the kinds of things warring gods and demons do. A flare of power rises from the
heart and burns its truth into the world.
Imperial Miracle the kind of thing that world-dreamers, subtle deities, and cosmic principles
do. A wish whispers out from the heart to shape the world.
MP the power source for miracles and Imperial miracles. Sometimes I will speak of this as
wish power, the wishing power of the heart, or the power of the wishing heart to change
whats possible. However for the miracles of the Bleak Academy I suspect it is not something
so glad.
Arc Trait a Trait you pick up from pursuing a given Arc, e.g. Knight (Idol Singer) or Aspect
(perfect, unconquerable Ace).
END BOX
Common Cost Structures
a rules concept
Inherent Powers
Type: [Variable]
Cost:
Type: Miraculous Action [and possibly Major]
Cost:
0 MP starting mid-scene, invoke this power 1-2x/scene

1 MP starting mid-scene, invoke this power an additional time
2 MP starting mid-scene, invoke this power as often as youd like this scene
4 MP invoke this power as often as youd like this scene.
Many powers that represent your natural, always-available abilities are free theres no cost to
use them at all. Others are emotionally or spiritually keyed: you always have the power, but it
takes focus, or a certain mood, or energy:
Theres something that means you dont go all-out with these powers unless you really care.
These powers generally work starting mid-scene, meaning that you can usually start using them only
after some meaningful stuff has already happened in the current scene. For instance, if you have
the power to fly, but spend most of your time on the ground, its probably built like the second
option above
Its not impossible for you to start a tense conflict by grabbing someone and launching into
the sky, or to go back and forth between airborne and ground-bound a lot, but its surprising for
you to do that in the same way that itd be surprising for a random schoolteacher to open a fight
with a dangerous enemy by punching it in the head.
Ultimate Techniques
Type: Imperial Miracle or Major Miraculous Action [possibly also a Ritual Power]
Cost:
o 0 MP invoke this power 1/book

o 4 MP use this power a second or later time in a book
Cost:

o 2 MP use this power a second or later time in a given book
o 4 MP use this power a second or later time in a given chapter
Cost:

o 4 MP use this power a second or later time in a matter of minutes
Your high-end, most powerful techniques will often look something like this. Youre meant to
use them once per story, in a big flashy way, but there are provisions for using them more often
when that fits.
Somewhat Less Ultimate Techniques
Type: [Variable]
Cost:
0 MP you may invoke this power 1/chapter

1 MP do so a second or later time per chapter
2 MP do so a second or later time in a handful of hours
This is a pretty standard format for a power youre meant to use once or twice a chapter.
Powers that Take Effort
Cost:
1 MP (or sometimes 2 MP, or very rarely 4 MP)
Some powers almost always straightforward miraculous actions are atomic bursts of effort.
You must spend a surge of wish power for the power to invoke.
Powers that Take Time to Invoke
Type: [Variable]
Cost:
0 MP you may invoke this power 1/chapter

4 MP invoke this power instantly.
Power Description: . . . Over the course of a few minutes, you do [[ something ]] . . .
Type: [Variable]
Cost:
0 MP invoke this power over the course of a few minutes

[[ some ]]* MP invoke this power instantly
* usually 1, 2, or 4.
The powers of immortal creatures often take time to use. You have to gather and condense
energy, destiny, and will, or otherwise slowly shape the world.
When you have a power that works after a few minutes, that means that if theres other stuff
going on (as opposed to a pretty dead scene, or a scene where everyones waiting on this power),
a few things have to happen while youre setting it up. Ideally this covers about 5 minutes of
game time in a languid scene or 5 minutes of real time in a scene of fast-paced play
But theres no reason to use a stopwatch for this unless youve been watching too much
Revolutionary Girl Utena.
MP
a rules concept
The power source for miracle abilities is wish power, aka Miracle Points or MP.
Normal people dont have much of this
humans on Earth dont seem to have any. Maybe its one in a thousand?
most people in Town have 0.
some people in Town have 1.
I sometimes suspect the rats of having 2-3.
gods and stuff have around 5.
Im going to set the default at 1 MP, but please note that a higher-level game should definitely
either start you at 5 MP or get you there pretty quickly with a couple of free 2-MP bumps along
the way.
Simplified MP
This is an optional way of handling MP for those without many miracle powers.
You have 1 MP to spend each session.
If you want more, ask the HG for one. If you want to save up 2+ MP for a particular power
use, ask the HG what youd need to do.
Full MP Rules
You have a starting MP pool of 1 MP or more, if the HG agrees or youve earned additional
MP during play.
Youll regain spent MP, to a maximum of your starting total, at a rate of:
1 MP, at the beginning of each chapter;

all your MP, at the beginning of each book.
You can gain additional MP, with no particular maximum:
from Issues, such as Isolation (pg. XX);

when Region Properties get you into trouble;
from Bonds (pg. XX)
when you spend a week diligently honoring a Region Property (e.g. helping
somebody find/make a home in Fortitude, or helping the cats of the Yatskaya
temple come and go, as per pg. XX or XX)
In addition, there are a handful of abilities that improve MP but only up to the starting total, and
you can restore your MP to its starting total by remembering, cherishing, and ideally
monologuing about a Recharge Token (below).
Recharge Tokens
a rules concept
Every now and then youll stumble on or work your way to something precious to you.
Something that you can hang on to. Something misted over by the power of your heart like a
valley over which clouds of the power of your heart, pink and purple and well-loved, hang low.
Something that you can turn your thoughts to when times are hard.
It could be a collectible figurine. It could be a precious memory. It could be a token from

someone that you love. It could be a work that youve completed, like a story or painting or song
or something, or a work that you love to reread, look at, or listen to. It could be a recipe or a
memory of the smile of someone you cooked for, if you love cooking. It could be a scar, if you
love to fight.
It could be a charm on a bracelet you wear.
Something like that is a Recharge Token. It typically takes you a short (15 XP) side
quest to get one, and once per token after earning it as a reward you can call upon it to
refresh your Will and MP to their starting totals. (Or just your Will, if you happen to have more
MP than your default.)
You dont have to touch it. You dont have to have it on you.
You just have to know that it exists, or existed, at least; that you had it, once.
I dont expect you to accumulate too many of these, and Im pretty sure going past 2-3 that
you havent used is going to be an unfavorable choice, so Im not going to limit this. You can
have as many as you earn through quests. Just write down somewhere what precious things you
have, and mark them somehow as depleted when you have called on them to Recharge.
Miraculous Conflict
a rules concept
Like Intentions, Miraculous Abilities have numeric ratings the effective rating of your ability
derives from the underlying Arc.
Specifically, each time you complete an Arc youll raise an associated Arc-based Trait, e.g.:
Knight (Idol Singer) 0 => 1

Otherworldly (Spiritual) 2 => 3 or
Otherworldly (Can Turn into a Giant Snake) 2 => 3
This also serves as the baseline rating for your Miraculous Abilities a Perk is going to get its
rating from the Arc that you learned it from (or 0 if you abandon that Arc before getting to 1)
and that rating will serve as its baseline effectiveness in miraculous conflict.
Specifically, in the event of a conflict between two miraculous abilities, the miracle with the
higher Arc rating wins its success forms the context in which the other miracle must
operate. This works for miracles just as it does for mundane Skills: the higher-level miracle
doesnt necessarily erase the lower-level miracle, and in fact most miracles will just glide past one
another with only the slightest friction from the clash, but where there is a conflict, the higher-
rated miracles needs come first.
Theres one special exception to this:
I want to give a bit of an advantage to epic, world-shaking powers, even at a lower Arc
rating.
So one of the things you decide when getting a new power well, one of the things that
the HG decides, probably is whether a power is Major or not.
Major Miraculous Actions have an numerical rating of [their Arc + 3.]
All other Miraculous Actions have a numerical rating of [their Arc.]
Massive, world-altering powers should always be Major. If you can drown the world in a wave,
thats a Major power. The converse isnt true. If you can cover anything with a teacup, caging it
and removing it from sight as a miraculous action, then that might or might not be a Major
power.
If youre not sure, try catching a world-devouring wave under your teacup!
Thatll probably help you to tell.
Conflict with the Other PCs
After a while youre likely to notice that the Arc rating for the other PCs best abilities will tend
to track pretty closely to your own. This means that any regular conflict with another PC is likely
to end in a tie.15
For the most part thats intentional its OK to sometimes overwhelm or be overwhelmed
by NPCs, but Id rather you take advantage of the semantics of your miraculous abilities when
fighting your opponents, not their rating. That said, if youre reading the Miraculous Conflict
section to figure out how to get a leg up on the other PCs, there are four basic methods, from
best (in my eyes) to worst:
bring in some strategic advantage like Strike (pg. XX) and more specifically your
Bonds (pg. XX).
accept the numeric tie and pitch a story to the HG as to why they should call it in
your favor;
put some work into developing a targeted, Major special technique; or
focus your characters efforts on leveling up faster than your rivals do.
Im a little nervous about the last one causing interpersonal problems at the gaming table, but it
is, in fact (and as long as youre not an OOC jerk about it), a thing that you can do in play.
15
except when one is using a Major ability and the other isnt, or when youre in a campaign like Fortitude: the
Glass-Makers Dragon where its reasonable to imagine having one high-rated and one low-rated Arc, or when
one person has rushed ahead to the next Arc level and the other hasnt, etc. etc. but Im putting this in a
footnote because the core point is still an important one to make.
Conflict between Imperial Miracles
Its technically impossible for two Imperial Miracles to be in conflict even an apparent
conflict between two prescribed destinies can, as story after story has demonstrated, work itself
out in practice. Its like saying both America must be west of Africa and Africa must be west
of America
The world will only become round.
In fact, in general, an Imperial miracle cant be in conflict with anything, so it doesnt need a
numerical rating at all.
That said, it is reasonable for the HG to assign a higher conceptual priority to the execution
of the Imperial miracle with the higher Arc, and some Imperial miracles will mention minor
benefits or downsides to a higher or lower Arc.
Miraculous Edge
a rules concept
Now that weve established a baseline for miraculous conflict, I should note that occasional
effects grant something called Miraculous Edge. This, like mortal Edge, affects the outcome
when two miracles come into conflict.
Like mundane Edge, miraculous Edge applies to mundane conflicts.
Unlike mundane Edge, it also applies to contests of miracles. For purposes of deciding the
conflict, youll subtract your highest applicable miraculous Edge from your opponents miracles
rating.
Miraculous Edge doesnt ever interact with other sources of Edge. I mean, at all. It doesnt
cancel out or balance against your opponents Edge. It doesnt add to other sources of Edge or
miraculous Edge. Its independent!
In a miraculous conflict, you just get the best miraculous Edge you get.
In a mundane conflict, you calculate the appropriate mundane Edge; and if your miraculous
Edge is better, you get that instead. Its even possible that you could have miraculous Edge and
be at a mundane Edge disadvantage.
Weird!
But possible!
The Auctoritas
a rules concept
The miraculous equivalent of an Obstacle is the Auctoritas.
Things that resist the power of the heart, or the power of the Outside, are said to be
sheltered or shrouded in the Auctoritas (or an Auctoritas) a shield rated 1 to 5 that keeps
miraculous abilities out.
Auctorita guard certain things against interference or prevent certain things from happening.
For instance, the Auctoritas might prevent the power of the Outside from damaging a certain
house or park; or it might protect your ability to walk down a certain street from any miracle that
would stand in your way.
An Auctoritas differs from an Obstacle in that its primary mechanism isnt reducing the
rating of opposing actions. In fact, when opposing a typical miraculous ability, the Auctoritas
doesnt reduce the rating of the miracle at all. Instead, it simply cancels hostile miracles
outright.16
Where there is an Auctoritas, the thing may not be done.
. . . at least not with the power of miracles!
I should explicitly note that an Auctoritas doesnt do anything to stop mundane actions. For
instance, a parents love might protect somebody from the destructive, unmaking power of the
Bleak Academy. Thats an Auctoritas! But the Headmaster of the Bleak Academy could still
probably tie the kids shoelaces together while nobody was looking. The kid would trip. It would
be awful! But it wouldnt be miraculous.
It wouldnt violate the shield of a parents love.
An Auctoritas can be associated with an Obstacle or other difficulty. It can even be

associated with an active miraculous power that has the same general theme. Its just that those
things arent part of the Auctoritas like your hat isnt part of your belt or vice versa even though
you will often wear both.
So, anyway, you can think of an Auctoritas as a shield against miraculous powers.
If you need a counteragent to the Auctoritas? The tool you need is something called Strike.
16
Or, well, keeps them from doing this particular thing. If you have a miraculous lying ability, and you lie to a
crowd, and one person is protected by an Auctoritas, the others still hear the lie. This is a rarer case than you
might think.
Strike
a rules concept
You can spend MP on a 1-for-1 basis to add Strike to a miraculous action. It doesnt even cost
you an action you can just do it.
Strike tears through an equal-leveled Auctoritas if [your miracles Strike the Auctoritas
rating], the Auctoritas is entirely ignored. It also counts as miraculous Edge.17 So lets say youre a
summer hero with a level 2 Arc Trait, Storyteller (Hero of the Beach). And youre trying to
break an endless winter. The winter is fueled by a level 6 miracle and protected by a level 4
Auctoritas (lets say) thats terrifying!
. . . but its OK.
At least potentially its OK!
If you can get 4 points of Strike, e.g. by spending 4 MP, then your miracle can ignore the
Auctoritas and youll have 4 points of miraculous Edge. That puts the two miracles roughly even:
its all in the hands of the HG. If you can get 5 points of Strike, then youre in a better position:
its a win for the hero of the beach!
Auctorita dont stack up, so 5 points of Strike is enough to overcome any Auctoritas. That
said, Strike is one of the rare Traits that can go past 5 its technically limitless.
17
Though note that miraculous Edge and Strike dont add together.
Bonds
a rules concept
A Bond is like a super-Skill its a rule that governs your existence, all wound up in the wishing
power of your heart. Its a law of your nature, guarded by some unconquerable pillar of your
being.
Your will and drive, perhaps? True love? Or could it be a primal fear, or loathing, or taboo?
Bonds are character Traits with a rating between 1 and 5. The core idea of each Bond is that
theres something about who you are,
something that you must do;

something that you cant do; or
something youre driven to do
thats so strong that any time it comes into play, it fires up your heart and burnishes your actions
with wish power.
Bonds are entangled with the destiny that flows out of you.
Theyre extremely natural.
A key rule for Bonds is that you as a player are always the one who brings them into play. Theyre
not tools for the HG to wield against you, even when your Bonds are hurting you, and theyre
not tools for the HG to use to help you with, either. You cant have a passive-voice Bond like I
cant be talked about (or Nobody can talk about me); or rather, you can, but its not clear
what that would actually mean. Its not binding on the HG, being your Bond, so people will talk if
they want to; and youre the one whod have to resolve why thats so.
Conversely, even if you have a weird mystical restriction like I can never give my name to
anyone, thats only a problem when you want it to be. I dont mean that its false or that you can
turn it on and off you cant.
I just mean, if you want to give someone your name, you just have to come up with
whatever handwave you want. Im not giving you my name Im selling it to you, and Ill be
taking payment later. Maybe. Or even the great-great-grandmother of all handwaves:
Oh, I can do this, here, because . . . of some reason.18
18
Or the reason
Bonds and Mundane Actions
In Chuubos Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine, you can apply a Bond when
youre trying to do what you must do

youre trying to do what youre driven to do
youre trying to avoid doing what you cant do
or
you and the HG just think that it probably applies
and this gives you three key benefits
if youre using mundane actions, and dealing with a conflict or an Obstacle, you can add
the Bond level to your Intention level.
if youre using a miracle, you can add your Bond level to your Strike. Strike from a Bond
adds to Strike from other sources (but not to Strike from a different Bond.)
if the Bond gets you into trouble, the HG can award you with Will or MP up to the
numeric rating of the Bond.
You only get these benefits from the highest applicable Bond. If no Bond applies, you
dont get them!
Bonds also offer two minor benefits
if you spend a chapter heavily focused on serving the Bond, e.g. doing things that
support its nature, you may receive up to the Bonds rating in MP.19
notionally, you can survive off of serving your Bonds the Obstacle ranges from +1
to +4, but you can replace food, water, sleep, and even air with serving your Bonds if
necessary. You . . . probably dont know that you can do this.20
Bonds are technically a sort of miracle power, but since they have their own ratings and their
own meaning, theyre not necessarily tied to a specific Arc.
Heres an example of a Bond:
19
You cant get Will this way because the Will refresh at the beginning of a new week gets in the way.
20
I didnt want to include this! Its weird and niche! But I kept thinking of epic long-term and comedic short-
term uses that required it to exist . . .
Inquisitive
an example Bond
Type: Bond, Level ( ) (I cant resist spying on things and people that interest me.)
Cost:
Youre a bit of a snoop!
Invoke Inquisitive when youre taking a mundane action to spy on something or

someone who interests you and theres some sort of Obstacle or conflict in your way
o someone is trying to spot you, say;

o youre using magic to spy on them; or
o you need to crawl out on the chimney rafters in utter silence to get a good look
and you can add the Bonds rating, ( ), to your Intention level. You can only add this
bonus from one such Bond.
Invoke Inquisitive when youre spying on someone using a miraculous action and you
can add the Bonds rating, ( ), to your Strike. Strike from a Bond doesnt add to Strike
from other Bonds, but it does add to Strike from MP and Strike intrinsic to a miracle.
Invoke Inquisitive when snooping really gets you into trouble and the HG may give
you up to the Bond rating ( ) in Will or in MP. You can also get this MP if you spend a
whole chapter snooping hard!
It is notionally possible for you to replace food, water, sleep, and even air with
snooping, e.g. surviving absurd lengths of time in a cramped space or underwater if it
lets you spy on something. This gets unpleasant almost as fast for you as for a normal
person, though, and the Obstacles can range as high as 4.
Region Properties
a rules concept
Each Region of the game has a list of Properties, each functioning as local level 2 Bonds.
For instance, in Fortitude, theres a Property which says:
You have a home in Fortitude.
If youre in Fortitude itself, that qualifies as a level 2 Bond for you; you can invoke it to augment
your mundane actions, give Strike to your miracles, or put off your hunger because you know
youll soon be home. If for some reason having a home in Fortitude gets you into trouble, you can
earn up to 2 Will or 2 MP.
Similarly, Horizon has the property
Each person in the School must experience exactly three events between classes.
If youre in School, then thats a level 2 Bond. You can fudge the meaning of event as
much as you like, allowing you to take shameless advantage of the condition but on some
level its inherently true.
Afflictions
a rules concept
Afflictions are a kind of miraculous ability. Theyre the last kind were going to talk about for a
while.
Each Affliction is tied to an Arc Trait.
Afflictions are like Bonds in that theyre built to express truths of your characters nature.
Unlike Bonds, though, and unlike many other miraculous abilities, theyre larger than your
character theyre part of a destiny writ into and entangled with the cosmos.
Theyre a part of you, theyre something worked deep into you, bone and soul, but theyre
bigger than the wishing power of your heart.
An Affliction isnt necessarily more impressive than a Bond in its description like a Bond,
its just
something you must do;

something you cant do; or
something youre driven to do
and like a Bond, an Affliction can focus on something as trivial as snooping, sleeping, or being
able to burp really, unusually loud.
But, as noted, an Affliction is cosmic.
If you have an Affliction that says that your name is known everywhere, then the bat-people
of Eris know your name. If you have an Affliction that says you keep abreast of technological
developments, you can swan down into the sewer-realm of some tribe of technocratic ghouls,
look over their most recent research in tele-anthropophagy, and make insightful comments about
their previous papers and related research.
It covers everything.
The other side of that is that the Affliction is enforced by the HG. You can gently remind
the HG about it, and often youll be able to activate an Affliction yourself through some trigger
I mean, if you have an Affliction saying that you can tap your shoes together three times to
fly home from anywhere, then you can invoke this as a player by tapping your shoes together
three times and (if necessary) reminding the HG of this power but its never completely and
entirely in your hands. Sometimes the HG will bring a baroque grandeur or frenetic energy to
their enforcement of your Afflictions. Sometimes theyll languidly toss out an action or two, let
others efforts oppose them, and then shrug and (on behalf of the Affliction) call it a day.
Sometimes, if they remember or if you remind them, theyll even use the Affliction against you,
e.g. having you fly home by accident because of your characters feet clattering together while
theyre asleep on the electric train.
Afflictions have three key benefits:
the HG may invoke their power to do stuff usually 1-2 miracles/scene, with a level
somewhere around [Arc rating + 1], but really, whatever actions they want.
the Afflictions truth is guarded by an Auctoritas with a rating equal to the Arc.
if the HG uses the Affliction to get you in trouble, or notices that it has done so, they
may give you up to the Arcs rating in Will or MP.
Note that you can get a little weird with the grammar here for instance, while its awful
indirect, youre totally allowed to build a shapeshifting power as an Affliction: I must be able to
shapeshift. (Or even I cant be a lame static-shaped mortal!)
You could even write that as Affliction: Shapeshifter, if you wanted.
So why do I bother saying that theres a must, cant, or is driven to underneath it? I just want to
ensure theres a genuinely enforceable rule.
Mortals can have Afflictions, though its rare and special, and can spend their MP to
add Strike to the miracles that these invoke. This is the only real use mundane characters will
have for their MP the wishing power of the heart piggybacks on a miraculous action, not a
mundane one.
Heres an example of an Affliction, so you can see how they might work.
Laundry in the Sun
Type: Affliction (Its always sunny where Im drying my laundry)
Cost:
Your laundry, once hung out to dry, must be hanging in sunny weather conditions. (Alternately,
you must have sunlight-like weather conditions for any laundry of yours that you have hung out
to dry.)
The HG will invoke Laundry in your Sun to defend any of your laundry that you have
hung out to dry against any effects that would keep it from receiving sunlight (including
rain, snow, darkness, or someone murdering the sun.) Such an effect will need [Strike
the Arc Traits rating ( )] to succeed.
The HG will invoke Laundry in the Sun when you hang laundry out to dry to ensure
that your laundry is in a sunny spot, or to preserve that condition when necessary. This
typically consists of a 1-2 miracles rated roughly [Arc rating + 1] ( ) per scene.
If Laundry in the Sun gets you into trouble, the HG may compensate you by offering
you up to the Arc Traits rating ( ) in Will or MP.
BOX Why Arc + 1?
I think its the right number!
Strike doubles as miraculous Edge. An Afflictions Auctoritas is usually going to cancel any
opposition without [Strike Arc rating.] So by the time something has gotten past the
Auctoritas to contest the miracle itself, were talking about an effective action level of 0-1.
I want there to be some cases where the Affliction still wins, even though at this point it
should usually lose. So thats why I picked [Arc + 1].
END BOX
BOX Variable Afflictions and Bonds
A few of the Afflictions and Bonds you pick up through Perks and miraculous Arcs are not
linked to a specific number, or to the level of the Arc Trait, but to the level of some Issue. As the
Issue rises and falls, so will their power.
END BOX
BOX Breaking Afflictions and Bonds
If you know the mystic rules that bind somebody, you can use that as leverage to crack those
rules or attack the person in question.
Usually this is just semantic games holding Ms. Hana Moons flashlight on someone who
can only die in the light of the moon and the like but in some cases, where a Bond or
Affliction represents a supernatural protection with terms that the user can violate, you can
target the Bond or Affliction directly. You can trick or force someone into breaking the rules
that govern their life.
You can break their Affliction or Bond.
As an optional rule,
If you can convince someones player that youve damaged or violated one of their
Bonds, or forced them to do so, then this wounds them often a serious or deadly
wound (pg. XX), and often deactivating that Bond for at least a chapter and more
typically the rest of the book. The details are pretty much up to them.
If you can convince the HG that youve created a full-on paradox or inconsistency in a
Main Characters Affliction, or between two such Afflictions, this may wound the
associated characters again, often a serious or deadly wound. This may also rip the
involved Affliction or Afflictions out of the weave of destiny, removing them entirely
the targets player (or HG, for NPCs) can choose whether to keep an affected Affliction
or sacrifice it in exchange for receiving some other Affliction or power at a later,
appropriate date.
END BOX
BOX Afflictions and Arcs
As an optional rule, Afflictions have their own independent rating (from 0 to 5) instead of the
rating of the underlying Arc.
END BOX
Genre Rules
a rules concept
Each campaign has a list of Genre Rules, typically manifesting as level 2 Afflictions associated
not with a PC but with the HG or the game.
The standard genre rules for Chuubos Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine are:
Masks are extremely effective disguises and

Turning into a giant snake will not help.
The first rule means that the Student Council of Horizon, for instance, can get away with putting
on little masks and being essentially unrecognizable they could be your parents! Your
enemies! Other PCs!
The second rule reinforces one of Chuubo or Shokyous long-running woes, since can turn
into a giant snake is often a power that that character has.
Feel free to add a few others; future campaigns may do so as well.

Health Levels
Sometimes people will attempt to inflict an undesirable effect on your PC.
Sometimes it even hits youre definitely hurt by this. But what does this mean? And
how should it play out?
What actually happens to you when it does?
I think you should have a stake in this. I think you should choose whether getting shot
means staggering around bleeding from the forehead, cursing the loss of your favorite whiskey
flask, or twitching on the ground in panic because of how close that bullet was to your ear. I
think you should choose whether getting hit by a spell to make you fall in love makes you act all
lovey-dovey, creepy and obsessive, emotionally mercurial, sweetly devoted, enraged and fuming
and fiercely maintaining the walls around your mind, dizzy because of how it interacts with your
previous enchantments, completely casual and unaffected by your sudden new love, or freaked
out and twitching in a corner somewhere from the sense of psychic violation that attends. I think
you should get to choose whether catching a glancing look at Medusas face slows you down for
a few days, turns you to rock when youre not paying attention, makes you a free-willed, mobile
statue, or fills your mind with the awful nightmares of stone.
I think that if its a bad enough situation you should have to work with the HG and/or the
player whose PC attacked you on this, but generally, I think it should be your call.
To some extent this manifests as a second chance to dodge
If something bad happens to you then youve already failed to use your normal resources to
prevent it. But I think that if youre willing to acknowledge that something bad happened to you,
its OK for a partial or last-second escape to be included in the story of that wound.
All this its mostly a PC thing.
Its not that NPCs cant inflict undesirable effects on one another, or PCs on NPCs, but the
point of Health Levels is to handle stuff that affects your PC. And the reason that your PC is
special here isnt because theyre important to the story, although they are, but because you
actually have two different stakes in their fate:
the stake of I am playing them, and they dont want to be hurt; or, put another way,
the stake of I dont want them to be hurt but also
I have my own ideas about what should happen to them here.
These rules look like normal RPG rules for mitigating damage, like hit points or a damage track,
but thats not what theyre about, not exactly.
Theyre about making sure that the damage you take fits your character concept.
Theyre about that last stake about making sure that the awful things that happen to your
character, if awful things happen to your character, happen in a way that satisfies you, that fits
your sense of the story and the kind of character that you want to play.
For instance, if you have a kid, you might want to pick up the Perk on pg. XX thatll let you
use your own health levels to protect them. That has nothing to do with your physical health. Its
not being a meat shield. It doesnt even have anything to do with magical shields of parental love,
although those do actually exist.
Its something that lets you say, I want this child to be around and safe. Thats how I want
to play.
Because that could be a part of who your character is.
Im combining this stuff, this sense of your character and the things that matter to them,
with the actual damage system and the ways you have of protecting your character from being
hurt. Thats because like most RPGs Chuubos Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine expects
and encourages you to think up ways for your character to be cool. So its only natural that while
you have control over your character, youll ordinarily use this extra power of yours to help your
PC survive and flourish. Its only natural that therell be some overlap between the tactics of a
PC who wants to keep living and the tactics of a player who wants to keep them cool. Thats
why Im letting you not requiring you to use the damage system to let your PC weather
great trials and come out OK.
Normal Health Levels
Your character has some number of Normal Health Levels.
Usually, 2.
These are used to handle superficial wounds cosmetic stuff, mostly. Stuff that wont stay
with you for more than a week or two. Things that might get you bloody, might get you dizzy or
confused, might make you cough or shudder, but stuff that wont actually hurt you all that much.
Theyre also your wound levels of last resort like, if you run out of all the other kinds,
and something bad happens, even if its not cosmetic, even if youre being skewered or thrown
into the living flames, you can use a Normal Health Level to survive that.
But mostly theyre for superficial wounds.

Tough Health Levels
Your character has some number of Tough Health Levels.
Usually, 1.
These are used to handle bad things that happen to you. Stuff that gets in the way. Stuff like
broken legs, pneumonia, love spells, being turned into a toad, and all that. You cant get as much
done with a broken leg, or as a toad.
(Being a broken-legged toad has got to be the worst.)
So, having a Tough Health Level makes you intrinsically tough, and heres why. As long as
you have any kind of Health Level, you can still cope with damage without losing your character.
But if you have a Tough Health Level, it cant be wounded by cosmetic stuff.
So imagine that youre a typical PC, and youre in a fight or whatever, and something a little
bad happens. You get your foot stomped on. It really hurts. That costs you a Normal Health
Level. And then your head gets beaten back into a mirror. Ow! That costs you your other
Normal Health Level. And then you get punched in the gut and . . .
And then . . .
And then, nothing. You cant lose your Tough Health Level to that, and you dont have any
more Normal Health Levels.
Youre just fine!
I mean, youre still limping, because of that foot thing. And theres blood on the back of
your head. But you can ignore that gut-punch. It doesnt matter.
Now, if you live an active life, then eventually something really bad will happen. Youll get
your leg broken or a three-foot-long hornet will sting your arm and youll lose your Tough
Health Level.
Then youre vulnerable again.
That said, I dont want you to suddenly regret, at that moment, when a gigantic, terrifying
hornet has just stung you, that somebody stomped on your foot earlier in a fight.
So at the very moment that you lose your Tough Health Level your last Tough Health
Level, if for some reason you have two all the wounds in your Normal Health Levels go
away, and you get them both back.
In short, before you can lose your character integrity or be defeated you have to first lose
your Tough Health Level and then take two superficial wounds.
Divine Health Levels
Your character has some number of Divine Health Levels.
Usually, 2.
Well . . .
Thats misleading. Characters with miraculous abilities tend to have 2, and characters with
miraculous abilities are the usual characters for the game. But if you happen to be playing an
ordinary mortal, your default is none.
No Divine Health Levels! Youre not divine!
. . . Luckily, if youre a mortal character in an epic campaign, the campaign should have
something set up to get you to 2 Divine Health Levels without needing Perks or advancement,
and in any other campaign, you either shouldnt need them or can ask the HG to let you earn
them in some other way.
Anyway, if you have one, a Divine Health Level is even better than a Tough Level. Youll
only lose a Divine Health Level to something thats actually epically bad. Maybe someone uses a
weapon and a level 6+ Intention to cinematically slice you open or blow your head off. Maybe
someone uses level 6+ magic to do something equally profound. Maybe youre blasted by a
miracle.
The point is, as long as you have Divine Health Levels, youre still a PC. But you cant lose
them to ordinary stuff. So if you have even one Divine Health Level, and youve lost your Tough
Health Level, and youve lost your Normal Health Levels
Until you take some epic damage, you cant get hurt any more.
I mean, you may act hurt, but mostly, youve reached your dramatic damage equilibrium or
something. Youve got as much going on, on the damage front, as you can.
Actually running out of Divine Health Levels cleans your Tough Health Level of whatever
wound was in it you get it back. It heals. So the only way to actually beat you, the only way to
completely take away your PC status and make you a pawn of whatever higher or lower power
wants to manipulate your body and your mind, is to first take away your Divine Health Levels,
then your Tough Health Level, then your Normal Health Levels.
Theres a reason I use the word Divine this is survivability and resilience comparable
to a gods.
Defeat
Run out of Health Levels and you are no longer a viable PC.
That doesnt mean your character is dead. (In fact, having Health Levels doesnt even mean
your character is alive!)
It just means that youve used up your vested interest in your characters fate. Theyre a
pawn of the HG and the other players now. And while that could be fun to play, in theory, these
rules arent designed for it.
So at that point
Youre not playing. The HG takes over and youre just around to kibitz and watch the game
for a bit.
At the next suitable lull in play, talk to the HG about how to come back. Maybe your PC is
salvageable they can break free of the enchantments on them, heal from their wounds, even
return from the dead. Maybe you can get control back in a week or two, I mean, an in-game
week or two, or by the end of the session, or something.
Or maybe theyre basically lost and its time for you to pick out a new PC.
You can come back into the game as soon as the HG allows you to. You can even play a
temporary PC for a while if the HG thinks that your original PC will recover but not for a few
seasons of the game. As an OOC matter, I think you should get back in by the beginning of the
next session if you can, but, honestly, its whatever works.
Wounds
I want a game where witches can turn people into animals, magic can summon down fire from
the sky, love spells exist though theyre not good things, people can be stabbed or shot or hit by
lightning, and if you spend too much time out there sailing you could stumble on Medusas
island and catch a glimpse of her hidden face
But I also want you to retain your dignity and control over your characters concept.
I want you to retain your PCs capacity for action all the way to the end.
So lets turn our attention now to what it looks like when something bad happens and you
mitigate or express that incoming damage in a wound.
Surface Wounds
If something happens that messes you up, but not badly if youre feeling it, but you could
ignore it if a kid needed to get to the hospital or a monster was stalking you?
Thats a Surface Wound.
Surface wounds cover all the damage and problems that matter when youre trying to work
and get things done but maybe not so much on the battlefield or in a crisis larger than yourself.
Theyre all the things like pulled muscles and the flu and grief and being overworked and
stressed.
Things like this can only affect a Normal Health Level they cant touch the rest.
So you can only ever really have two of these conditions at a time and theyll go away the
moment you lose your Tough Health Level. But while you have them well. Theyre real, and
they mess you up.
In play, Im actually going to handle this as an advantage.
I know thats a little counterintuitive, but I want to put the burden on you to play the hurt
here up. I cant expect it to cripple you and I cant make the HG drag you down with it because I
cant predict when youll be able to push past these wounds. So instead Im going to give you the
option of being tough enough to just ignore them but also give you an incentive to validate the
effect, to treat it and narrate it as something damaging.
Youll get your choice of:
a +1 Tool on actions when youre playing up the wound;

a level 1 Bond related to the wound;
if you and the HG can quickly agree on how it works, a level 2 Magical or Superior
Skill related to the wound.
Plus, when you take a Surface Wound, youll get a free reaction shot even if youre already
doing two things, even if youre already sustaining two actions, you can do something to show
that the attack or effect has gotten to you.
When you take a Surface Wound you lose a Normal Health Level. The wound heals in 0-2
chapters, normally at the end of a chapter, at which point youll get that Health Level back. If
youre already out of Normal Health Levels, youre temporarily immune to Surface Wounds.
Reaction Shot (Combat) when you take a wound, even if youre already sustaining two
actions, you can take an action or emote that reasonably follows from that wound. Im expecting
you to use this to stagger or grunt or scream or say something snappy, most of the time, but its
completely OK to use the momentum to do something awesome if you think thats the best fit
for the scene.
END BOX
Ambiguous Wounds
Sometimes youll take a very ambiguous wound. Like, youll get punched or stabbed. Youll hurt
your foot. Youll get sick or feverish. Youll have a spell on you that influences you or affects
your mind. Youll be depressed or have something really awful happen.
Just what this does to you it is not clear.
A detailed examination of what the wound actually is might end up with it being brutal and
terrible. That punch broke your jaw. That stab wound went through your lungs. That spell has
you utterly, irrationally convinced that if you dont do what its invoker asks, your whole family
will drown at the bottom of Big Lake. You may know that thats not true but your heart will
feel it as the given truth.
Look under the skin of an ambiguous wound and you will sometimes find something awful
like that.
. . . or something pointless, a little bruise or a meaningless effect.
. . . or something that gives you an Obstacle 1. Now and again.
I like details. I like the fact that if you get stabbed you get stabbed in a specific place, and
either its a place that hurts you a lot or its a place thats comparatively safe. I like the fact that if
something messes with your head, either its a temptation you can easily ignore or a compulsion
that you really cant.
I mean, details like that are cooler than not having them. If we didnt have details like that
wed be Outside.
But I dont like the idea that picking these details is just the HG making a quasi-random call,
and I dont like that two of those options boil down to I guess that attack wasnt as cool as I
thought.
So when theres something like this, you have the option of taking a Surface Wound.
If youre out of Normal Health Levels, then that Surface Wound will just bounce off of you.
Thats probably a reason for the HG to take a second or two longer to decide whether the
wound is something more specific before handing it out.
. . . but, well, if it really is just you get punched or whatever, then you roll with it, and
youre immune, and thats cool too.
Serious Wounds
A Serious Wound is something that gets in your way. It cripples your capacity for action in
some respect which can range from youve been ensorcelled and can no longer sing high-G
to youve been killed and can no longer do anything.
At the same time, its basically mundane.
Were not talking about falling into the magma chamber of a volcano, being regurgitated
alive by the unwolves, or having the wrath of Heaven incinerate you. Were talking about getting
shot, or falling off a third-story roof, or spending the night on an iceberg, or something. Were
talking about magic, sure, but not the vast magic out of legend; rather, the magic of someone
pretty close to the level of mortals. Someone whos got to work hard to enchant you at all.
A Serious Wound is something that a badass can handle.
John McClane or Abe no Seimei they would shrug it right off!
The rules for a Serious Wound are very similar to the rules for a Surface Wound, above. As
a PC, taking a Serious Wound, youll get a free reaction shot and a power. (If desired, you can
even use that power in the reaction shot itself.)
For the power, youll have the following options:

a level 1 Affliction related to the wound; or,
if you and the HG can quickly agree on how it works, a related level 2-3 Magical or
Superior Skill.
This is mostly the same list as for Surface Wounds. Im giving you the option of an Affliction to
help you out if youre under heavy fire from miracles and the chance to capture some weird
curses effect, if necessary, with a level 3 Magical or Superior Skill.
Next, as part of the process of taking a Serious Wound, you get to mitigate what happened.
Choose one (or possibly more) of the following options:
you give the wound a tight focus so that it doesnt mess with all your actions;
you reduce the scope of the wound to something specific you can live with;
you mute its overall effect down to something you can live with;
you avoid the wound just in time, but youre kind of traumatized by it;
you avoid the wound, but hurt yourself doing so (in a different way);
you twist the effect into something mildly advantageous;
you get a way to turn the wound off and on;
you suffer the wounds effects in a metaphorical or otherwise non-literal way.
Ill go over these choices in a moment. Ill note in advance, though, that theyre not all meant to
be equal. Youre not shopping the list to find the least painful or the most advantageous. That
wouldnt be much of a challenge. Youre looking for the one you think happened, the one that
feels the most right to you, or, if you cant figure that out, if you dont know that, for the one that
will be the most fun.
When you take a Serious Wound you lose a Tough Health Level. The Serious Wound
heals in 0-2 books, normally at the end of the book, at which point youll get that Health Level
back. If youre out of Tough Health Levels, you can lose a Normal Health Level instead. If
youre out of both Tough and Normal Health Levels, youre temporarily immune to Serious
Wounds.
(Or youre utterly defeated, if Tough and Normal are all that you have.)
BOX Defensive Wounds
Its normal to choose powers and mitigation methods that make it a little harder to follow up on
an attack. For instance, if youre being blasted by miraculous lightning, and youre worried that
whoever is killing you can just keep blasting it?
Pick some sort of level 1 Affliction that says that youre all lightningd out!
Its boring to kill someone with the same attack three to five times in a row anyway. Make
them shake it up!
END BOX
Deadly Wounds
A Deadly Wound is just a Serious Wound that you get from a particularly impressive or epic
source. Its something that should outclass you a nuclear weapon; a cloud of military-grade
poison gas; someone using really impressive weapon Skills like youd see in a kung fu movie to
stab you; a scary, Major, or high-level miraculous attack; or the supreme magic of an ancient,
terrifying sorcerer with plenty of time to work.
Basically, somethings a Deadly Wound if shrugging it off or even just surviving it makes
you kind of a mythical and epic figure yourself.
When you take a Deadly Wound, youll get a reaction shot and a power:

an Affliction, w/ rating tied to a relevant Issue or Arc Trait, related to the wound;
a level 3+ Magical or Superior Skill; or
a miraculous ability.
Youll get to mitigate the wound, too, just as before.
When you take a Deadly Wound you lose a Divine Health Level. If youre out of Divine
Health Levels, you can lose a Tough Health Level instead. If youre out of Divine and Tough
Health Levels, you can lose a Normal Health Level instead. If youre out of Health Levels
completely, you are defeated and no longer a PC.
A Deadly Wound does not heal on its own, but you can pursue a relatively short quest
(pg. XX) to reduce it to a recoverable Serious Wound. If youve lost your last Health Level you
obviously cant do this, but neither do you have to either you can work out a way to get back
in the game or you cant, but either way you dont need to bother healing the wound.
Ambiguous Wounds that are Definitely Bad
In a few rare cases youll encounter an ambiguous wound thats on the Serious or Deadly scale.
This is something like youre hit by dark energy! . . . which does something, or you fall into
the vat of strange chemicals. Have it affect you!
Strictly speaking its the HGs job to give this more description first
. . . but if it really is just a generic effect, then they can hand it out directly as a Serious or
Deadly Wound and let your reaction shot and choice of power determine what it actually is.
BOX Keeping a Wound
As an optional rule, if you finish healing from a wound, but want the story of the wound to
continue, then the benefits can remain over the course of an Arc or quest to pick up some power
like the wounds.
END BOX
Accepting a Wound
a rules concept
If youre OK with something you do not have to take it as a wound.
If someone curses you to earn two coins for every coin you spend, say
Maybe you like that?
I mean, that doesnt even sound bad! Why would you think its a wound? Maybe I said it
wrong and that was actually a helpful blessing from a friend!
Or someone enchants you to grow wings.
You might like wings!
Or even stabs you. Someone stabs you you dont have to use the wound system. You
could just, you know
. . . be stabbed.
And then maybe you go to do something, I dont know, ride a bike? And the HG makes
that Obstacle 1. Its not normally Obstacle 1 to ride a bike, its usually just like, um, riding a . . .
just like catching a fish. You know? Smooth as sailing once you know the road. And then its a
little harder all because you have been stabbed. And its hard to stay conscious now and theres
blood on the keyboard, I mean, gaming table, I mean, bicycle, bicycle, and you try to stay
conscious, and everythings fuzzy and double vision, and the HG gives that an Obstacle 2, and
you stagger, and fall over and go to the hospital and you finish your sentence. And in the worst
case now youre dead and you have an Obstacle 4-5 to doing anything at all.
. . . but thats a worst case. I mean, youll probably just get medical treatment and get better.
Im not recommending this for cases like stabbing.21 Im just saying that theres a blurry line
between wounds and stuff that just happens, and the way Im handling that line is to say that in
most cases you have a choice.
The exception is stuff that only affects you through the wounds system
ambiguous wounds, like youve been punched or bam! Mystery energy, and
Surface Wounds.
These the HG can just hand out, if they like, to give them a proper effect upon play.
21
I mean, the medical treatment part is OK. Get medical help if youre stabbed. But just accepting the wound
I cant support that!
Insisting on a Wound
Conversely youll have the option to insist on taking something as a wound even if it might not
otherwise be.
Someone summons you with magic. They call you to a stone circle, where they mean to
make you a sacrifice. You dont want that to happen but it wouldnt normally invoke the wound
rules its an action, not a lingering effect.
Still, it does impede your capacity for action, however temporarily. In summoning you they
are blocking your ability to do much else. So if you want, you can stipulate that the effect lingers
bearing in mind that a wound for something like this is at least Serious, and therefore will last
at least until the end of the season and mitigate it as a wound.
Youre no longer being helplessly summoned, even though they presumably beat your
defensive action level. Youre instead . . . haunted, somehow, and persistently, by the magic of
the call!
Focusing a Wound
option 1 for mitigating a wound
You can use one of your health levels to take a wound that would have been a whole-body or
whole-life thing and make it a lot more specific.
For instance,
The Shattered Arm
Youve just been struck by a bear. Normally this would leave you kind of whole-body in bad
shape. But in this case, you roll with it.
As you land, your arm shatters, but most of you is OK.
The Hunger Curse
Youve just been enchanted to go hungry: no food shall cross your lips.
But thats so vague!
Lets clarify it. I mean, obviously you can still drink, so you can drink protein shakes. Right?
Protein shakes: OK. And oh! What about snacks? I mean, snacks arent food. Right?
Theyre snacks!
And you have a friend whose cooking is definitely not food. Seriously. (Sorry, [your friend]!)
This has been established. You have told them this many times. And now youll have to go to
them and rely on it!
I think a better way to put the curse is clearly no hearty, proper meals shall cross your lips.
Lets go with that!

BOX Recovery
Healing from a focused wound is typically a Melodramatic quest (pg. XX).
END BOX
Living with a Wound
You can use one of your health levels to turn a wound into something that you know how to live
with. Something that sucks, or is kind of cool, or whatever, but which you can manage
something that wont really get in your way.
Like:
The Love Spell
Someone casts a love spell on you.
They come over. You welcome them in, of course. Youre under a love spell. You flop on
the couch. You start playing a video game. They ask you, It worked, right? You love me now?
Sure, you say. I love you. Whatever. Could you . . .
You wave your hand. You want them to move to the side. They are between you and your
game.
Just, you say, scooch over. You know. A little? Out of the way? Love?
The Gunshot
Oh no! You have been shot!
But it looks like . . . you are OK, I guess? I guess youll just have to bandage it, keep it clean,
and try day by day to get by.
The Werewolf
You have been bitten by a werewolf. It is nerve-wracking. The days of the month slowly tick
past. Then . . . fear!
You look up at the moon! The change is coming!
Your eyes cross. Your nose twitches. The world goes weird. Poof!
You sprout a pair of adorable, fuzzy wolf ears! Maybe even a tail!
The moonlight plays against the Twisting River: the water chuckles over night-black stones.
And as for you, after a while . . . you say,
Thats it?
And a soft wind blows.
Ghost
Youve been killed erased from existence.
But youre just part-dead.
Youre a ghost, with the ability to live in the ghost world and make an approach from it to
life. And in fact, for some reason I dont know what it is, maybe its because of the
circumstances of your death its even recoverable. If you can find your footing in life strongly
enough, if you can fit into the living world, you might return.
BOX Recovery
Healing from a wound like this is typically a Pastoral quest (pg. XX).
END BOX
Avoiding a Wound
You can use one of your health levels to take the trauma of a near-missed wound instead of the
wound itself.
For a magical effect you manage to cling to reality but the magic fills your dreams.
For a physical effect you see a vision of whats about to happen just before it does, and you
manage to avoid it. You twist out of the way. You stop short of making a mistake. You dont get
brutally hurt but its filling your mind just how sickeningly close you came.
If the circumstances allow, if its OK with the HG, you can sometimes have this vision later:
like, you have a near-miss but dont know it, and only later when you find out how close you
came does the wound take hold.
This counts as a wound in all respects. You still have something to recover from. But it
doesnt impede your physical actions. Instead, youll only suffer from it in flashes of trauma, in
dreams and daydreams, and in magical environments.
For instance,
The Transformation
A witch turns you into a duck. Only you snap yourself awake a moment later. That didnt
happen!
But now and then there are little slips in reality.
A duck is walking down the street well, I mean, you are. Someone shouts, Duck! and
you respond, reflexively, Qua! In dreams you are hanging out with your friends and then
someone notices. They tell you this, sternly, severely.
Did you realize you were a duck?
You hold up your I Am a Duck sign. I guess you did!
The Spar through the Chest
Youre on the Lake in a storm. Theres a blast of lightning. The mast cracks and a lance of
wood comes down to spear through y
No. That didnt happen.
You saw it coming. You got out of the way just in time. But you keep seeing it happening,
now. You keep feeling it, sliding in through your chest, your lungs filling with blood, the awful
pain
You think, maybe, in another world, in the real world, it happened to you, and you died.
The Curse
Youre exploring a Horizon graveyard with a friend when you find a hammer. You touch it and
you realize that its the ghost of a hammer that fell on its carpenters head and killed him. It
didnt want to kill him! But it did.
You fall under the curse of the hammers ghost.
The moment you see your friend you realize it youve been cursed to kill them, or to be
killed by them, just as the hammer killed its friend.
But
You and your friend. Youre too close for that!
All that happens is that sometimes, when you see them, you suddenly have horrible, twisted
visions of how the two of you might fight.
BOX Recovery
Healing from an avoided wound is typically a Struggle quest (pg. XX).
END BOX
Resisting Wounds
You can use one of your health levels to fight an effect so fiercely that the actual damage you take
is from your escape or resistance instead of the wound itself.
For instance,
The Giant Bird
A giant bird swoops down to carry you off. You dive flat and lose your hat, or a precious watch,
or your new bike, instead.
Darn that bird!
You wind up with a level 1 Bond, I Cant Have a Bike or Im Driven to Mourn my Bike.
The Explosion
Youve been trying to understand a bit of deviant science. It . . . doesnt go well. Theres an
explosion.
You dont want to get blown up.
So you throw yourself out your window and break your leg. Or you crouch behind a metal
riot shield, only, the unpredictable effects of the deviant science wind up merging the metal into
your hair and the skin of your arm.
Thats resisting the wound.
The Stone
Billy Sovereign, the bully, attempts to break your will. He uses a magical stone to try to shatter
your mind and make you obey him. But you fight him so hard that not only do you not obey him
when he gives you commands but in fact youre magically blocked from obeying any command
that the person giving the order wants you to obey.
Stupid Billy Sovereign anyway!

BOX Recovery
Healing from a resisted wound is typically a Melodramatic quest (pg. XX).
END BOX
Twisted Wounds
You can use one of your health levels to twist or construe the damage of a wound as or into
something useful. Theres still a downside there has to be a downside still but mostly, its
something you can put to use.
Like,
Broken Fingers
That guy thought that stepping on your fingers would put you down. And it hurts, yes. But the
fire of revenge that filled your heart makes you more effective than even having one hundred
thousand fingers would!
Seeing Medusas Face
That glancing look at Medusas face it could have turned a girl to stone!
But not you. No.
Youre a glasses girl, and that means that all that happened to you is that sometimes when
youre very still you turn into a statue and sometimes when people stab you with softer things
that stone (like needles, or swords) they break.
Poisoned
Youve been poisoned by a bad fish! But now you have a much deeper insight into the mind of
wickedness.
You can smell it in bad situations, sometimes, just like that fish.
Possession
That ghost or witch or whatever tried to take over your body, and sometimes it still does control
you, but mostly, it gave you accidental access to its own powers and knowledge!
Vampire Thrall
Similarly, that vampire tried to glamour you. He used those powerful eyes. But
He didnt count on the fact that youre dead certain you know what he really wants better than
he does himself.
BOX Recovery
Healing from a twisted wound is typically an Exciting! quest (pg. XX).
END BOX
BOX The Bleak Takes Interest in the Real
A witch is cursing random people in the crowd around you with a withering death. But when she
reaches you, she stops.
Oh, no, she says, thoughtfully. Not killing this one. This one is . . . interesting.
As an optional rule, or if youre playing fast and loose with the existing rules, you can twist
any wound from Outside or bleak sources by declaring yourself suddenly overly interesting and
relatable to the bleak power within them, which makes them want to make you a minion, or fall in
love with you, or complain about their life problems to you instead of following through with
their declared attack.
Its up to the player of the target (usually, the HG) whether you can have this wound be
their actual reaction/attraction to you, or if it has to be a generic attractive to the bleak.
END BOX
Back-and-Forth Wounds
You can use one of your health levels to give incoming damage an on/off switch. This is mostly
suitable for magic and psychological effects, but it could work for a physical wound if the wound
has a chronic rather than a persistent effect.
The on/off switch here is almost always emotional.
Theres something you feel, and the spell or whatever begins to take effect. Between scenes,
or when you feel a different thing, it fades away.
This effectively gives you an alternate form or mode.
If something should keep you from moving, thinking, acting, or existing in that mode,
choose:
the change isnt as bad as it should be. (The deer . . . has thumbs?)
youre inexplicably effective in that form. (The deer . . . made toast?)
youre surprisingly useful in that form. (Thank God we have a were-deer!)
you can recover your mind or mobility through, e.g.,
o concentration
o outrage
o other strong emotions
o need or
o will, or
you gain some special power that lets you act. (This deer . . . is psychic!)
Ooze
Youve been melted down into ooze by a deviant scientist. Luckily you discovered yourself to be
a sentient ooze capable of independent motion and broke out of your vial and legged it
Er, oozed it
From the lab! Eventually you realized that being self-confident and learning how to keep it
together lets you mold yourself back upwards into your human form. If your self-confidence
frays and you dont know what to do, you start melting back into an ooze again!
The Deer
Youve been turned into a deer!
Calm tends to revert you back to normal. Fear tends to send you bounding off. You have an
inexplicable affinity for toast.
The Sickness
Youre really sick. Something is wrong with your system. Its weakened you. Its brought you to
bed. But the good air of Fortitude its strengthened you again. As long as you stick to a
simple, honest life, to taking things slowly and simply, to the Fortitude way, youll be able to get
around. When you let yourself get too excited, too hurried, too alienated from the simple life
thats giving you your strength
Your strength fades away and you have trouble keeping on.
The Loyalty Spell
Youve been enchanted, bound to a witch or fairy as their loyal knight
Until they make the mistake of asking you to do something your heart cant accept, or
thanking you for something, at which point you return to normal. Even when you have free will
youre emotionally attached to them, though, since you still have a wound; if you see them in
danger or thank them, youll snap back to being their loyal knight once again.
Wavering Reality
Youve been unmade well, mostly unmade.
You must cling to the things of the world. You must live fully, dont let yourself get
separated, isolated, alienated. If you do, youll fall first into the ghost world and then into the
Outside.
You dont know how you get back from that. You only know that sometimes, somehow,
between the scenes of the game . . . you do.
BOX Recovery
Healing from a back-and-forth wound is typically a Lurid quest (pg. XX).
END BOX
Metaphorical Powers
You can use one of your health levels to make some effect on you metaphorical instead of literal.
This is mostly suitable for magic and psychological effects, although you could combine this with
muting or avoiding a physical wound and that would give you a reasonable effect.
When I say metaphorical, I mean something like:
Turned into a Frog
Youve been cursed! Turned into a frog!
And so you are.
Green, you wear green now, it is the color of you; hop, you hop, too, a lot more than you
ever did. Your favorite candies now are these little licorice bites. Sometimes youll be happy
when you buy a bag, youll offer to share them with people, youll pop one in your mouth and
youll say that this candys pretty fly. Youll have this habit of puffing out your cheeks when
youre thinking now and of taking baths in ponds. Occasionally youll wander around with a
lilypad on your head.
Youre a frog!
Stabbed in the Heart
Youve been stabbed through the heart! . . . wait, no. That didnt happen. Its just a shallow cut.
But somehow, your heart has gone cold anyway. Somehow its hard to feel things now and
especially difficult to love.
Mystic Prison
You were meant to be sealed in a mystic prison a silver cage. But its not you in there. Its just
a bird that sort of . . . represents you. When the bird sings your heart lifts. When the bird is hurt
you suffer. When the bird is fed you feel a little more full. But youre not the bird. The
imprisonment itself it failed.
BOX Recovery
Healing from a metaphorical wound is typically a Setting quest (pg. XX).
END BOX
Story Wounds and Sickness
a rules concept
Sometimes bad things happen to you because of . . . well, plot. Not because of a tactical conflict
or a hostile action but because thats where the story goes.
If something happens to you for basically OOC reasons because the HG thinks it would
be cool, or you think it would be cool, or whatever then you dont handle it as a wound. You
handle it as a dramatic thing, a narrative thing, an Issue typically, the Issue
Sickness
If its ambiguous, like, you were attacked by something as a natural evolution in play, but you let
it happen because it seemed cool; or something bad happens that would probably affect you
anyway, but its only a definite thing because the HG is pushing for it; or whatever?
That can be handled either way, or even as both.
As the name implies, a Sickness is usually bad, but its not necessarily the case perfectly
normal human reactions to trauma can qualify as the Sickness Issue, as can a positive or
ambiguous metamorphosis.
So lets talk a little about how Issues work.

Issues
Over the course of play characters can accumulate points in various Issues
Dramatic movements in their life, things building towards a resolution, each of them rated
from 0 to 5. For instance, a cold or flu or werewolf virus is represented by the Sickness Issue;
meddling with forces beyond your comprehension, by (in) Over your Head.
How an Issue Works
general notes
Each Issue comes with an embedded narrative arc.
The first three levels of the Issue are mostly for expressing whats going on with you they
are for establishing the calling, the complex, the heroic journey, the vice, or whatever else is going
on.
You are of course receiving the Issue and its increments over the course of play
So its not the text of the Issue thats doing the work of establishing this, but rather its
interactions with the events in the game. By the time the Issue comes to a head at level 4, you
should ideally know what its talking about in the context of your game not, I have Hero
4, but ah, the epic battle that Ive been building towards since I first got Hero 1 is finally ready
to be resolved.
At level 4, the Issue kicks into high gear. This is also when youll have your first real chance
to finish out the Issues story, closing or resolving it and receiving an XP and an MP. If you
do so, it isnt necessarily all that dramatic
Its a relatively dramatic moment, of course, but if your group is really used to this games
systems, you could potentially have somebody closing an Issue every few hours of play.
At level 5, if the player didnt manage to close out the Issue, things get a little more hectic,
dramatic, and scary but even then its not necessarily a big deal. If it makes sense for it to be
an epic moment, then its an epic moment; if it makes sense for it to be quiet and wrenching,
then its that.
Closing out an Issue at level 5 gives the same 1 XP + 1 MP reward.

Full Implementation
Im going to start by giving you the full implementation of Issues. This is a mechanic with high
handling time, so its only suited for forum games, play-by-email, solo games, and games very
low on immersion
If youre playing tabletop or on IRC, and focused on in-character play, youll want the
simplified version in the next section.
In any case, for now:
If the handling times acceptable, after an out-of-genre or particularly meaningful XP

Action, the HG reacts. Their reaction takes the form of an Issue point given to a PC involved in
the scene. Theres one Issue for a kind of shrug, I dunno either reaction, for instance thats
Mystery
Theres another for a reaction like that was peaceful, laid-back/bittersweet
Something to Deal With
And so forth.
The player in question increments the Issue, reads the associated instructions, and takes a
card representing the new level of the Issue to keep in front of them in play.
Simplified Implementation
If thats too much bookkeeping or handling time for your game, Im going to suggest that you
instead assign Issues once per chapter or once per natural breakpoint in play.
The HG picks an Issue based on their strongest lingering impression from events, hands it
out to all the players it fits (not just the one most responsible, but also not just everybody) and
players can handle the updating as the lead-in to the next chapter or section of play.
Issue Cards
The core of an Issue is built as advice
As a set of Issue cards, one of which is optionally kept in front of you during play to
remind you of the Issues influence on the way your character thinks. (If you cant do that, then
the cards are something to glance through during stuff for which your character is quiet or not
there, instead.)
For the most part, the Issues wont ask anything more of you than that; you just have to
maintain a rough awareness of your Issues and how they affect you.
That said, at specific points in each Issues progression (often, level 4 and 5), therell be
more that you need to do; for that, see the instructions below.
Genre-Based Issues
Characters may pick up the specific Issues
Hollow
Illusion and
Isolation
from the rules for their genres XP Actions; I wouldnt give them out too casually for other
reasons, but there are plenty of miscellaneous circumstances that theyd fit.
Characters may also pick up
Sickness
through unusual channels.
If youre playing with the simplified version of the Issues, you can wait to process that
change until the next chapter or natural breakpoint in play.
Lowering an Issue
Issues mostly go up during play, but you can reduce them in three ways. The first two have to do
with the reduced dramatic urgency of an Issue after a session or story break, which lowers an
Issue:
by one point at the end of each book; and

by one point at the end of each session, or, for continuous games, each Sundays dawn.
If youre playing by the full rules, youll lose one point per Issue at the end of the session and
book. If youre playing by the simplified rules, youll lose one point from whichever single Issue
the player judges to be least memorable in context the one whose current dramatic urgency is
least likely to carry over to the next session or story.
Resolving an Issue
The third way to lower an Issue is:
by resolving the Issue when it reaches level 4+.
The actions you have to take to resolve an Issue are Issue-specific, and are going to be
described on the Issues card. Resolving an Issue earns an MP and an XP and drops the Issue to
level 0, after which you cant pick it up again for a while
What that specifically means is that if youre about to pick up the Issue again, and the HG
thinks its too soon after you resolved it, you . . . dont!
Session its a session when the players get together for the game. Im targeting 4-hour
sessions. Online games might or might not have specific sessions.
END BOX
Issues and MP
Issues have a power in them that derives from the wishing heart, the magic of various Regions,
or the emptiness of the Outside and the Bleak Academy. I dont know if its precisely the same as
wish power from other sources, but . . .
In practice, Issues will give you MP.
In particular youll receive 1 MP from each Issue when
it reaches 1, 3, or 5;
it causes trouble for you (as with a level 1 Bond);
you resolve it.
Issues can also save you MP. At level 4-5 they become ripe for resolution; theres something you
can do to bring the story of the Issue to a convenient and appropriate end. If you and the HG
agree that a given miracle would resolve the Issue, then the dramatic weight of the Issue
gives you an advantage a 4 MP reduction in the miracles cost.
This is on top of the 1 MP that you gain for resolving the Issue.
If the miracle cost less than 4 MP to begin with, you may convert the rest of your discount
to Strike.
A List of Issues
The standard Issues in a Chuubos Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine game are . . .
youre in Over your Head

being a Hero
Sickness, including cinematic transformation and corruption
Vice
Mystery, where theres some mystery around you
a Complex, representing a neurosis or obsession.
It Never Stops!, where your life is just plain ridiculous and its not your fault
a Calling, representing something initially, an unknown something you must do.
Something to Deal With, here meaning baggage; and
Trust, in untrustworthy powers.
Theres also three genre-specific Issues, which youll usually only pick up based on the genre
rules:
being Hollow, unable to truly appreciate the world

an Illusion hides the truth of your life even from the HG and players; and
Isolation.
This list is far from comprehensive, although I think it covers most of the important stuff; you
can freely create new Issues for your game. For instance, Fortitude: the Glass-Makers
Dragon will track the progress of an expedition far away by introducing the Issue
To the Island of Death!

Which Issue Should I Give?
These Issues are part of the games conversation. Accordingly, as the HG, you can hand out any
Issue you like, and heres what youre conveying by doing so:
That was pretty laid-back. Head-desk. Pause. Head-desk. This path that you are on . . .
might be the wrong path.
+1 to +1 to
Something to Deal With a Complex +1 to
Vice
Doing ordinary stuff, huh? This is so mean to you guys. You guys are very active.
+1 to a Calling +1 to +1 to
It Never Stops! Over your Head
Suspense! Doom! Action! Im . . . intrigued. This is a pretty big deal.
+1 to +1 to +1 to
being a Hero Mystery Trust
. . . Youre in trouble.
+1 to
Sickness
If you cant keep track of this many Issues, just look at the list occasionally and pick out one or
two to have at the top of your mind.
Its totally OK for your impressions to adjust based on the average game
If youre playing a game that focuses on the PCs ordinary lives, and this is the first time
youve really done that in an RPG, then Id expect you to respond to a lot of stuff in the first few
stories with ah, doing ordinary stuff, huh?
And its fine for that to mean you give your PCs Callings.
But if after a while, the PCs are heavily involved in a prize pumpkin-growing contest, and
its still pretty ordinary, but it stands out from their ordinary lives for you as Suspense! Doom!
Action! or This (pumpkin) is a pretty big deal?
Its fine to give out being a Hero or Trust then instead.
In short, go with your actual responses here dont try to create some objective standard
to hew to and then burden yourself with the expectations that gives.
Calling
a Calling
Theres something youre going to need to do.
Theres a task or problem or destiny waiting for you that you wont be able to ignore. You
wont know what it is at first. At least, you probably wont, at least not in detail. But youll figure
it out eventually. And in hindsight, when you look back on the story afterwards, youll realize it
was calling out to you all along.
Heres a simplified picture of the Issue and its progression:
x Your world is in good order.
* You feel like somethings been left undone.
** Theres something important left undone, and the worlds gone a bit awry.
*** Your heart is awake. The world is calling. You almost understand what you must
do.
**** You cant ignore this. You know what you have to do.
***** This is really important. You have to do it, even if youre scared. Even if you die.
BOX Your Calling
You might have a Calling if theres . . .
someone you need to apologize to

a window you need to repair
a treaty that you need to broker or
a lost treasure that you need to find
END BOX
Complex
a Complex
A Complex is basically a set of bad ideas that you cant let go of. They make you feel bad but
having them feels good. They drive you into a series of escalating bad decisions until your life
falls apart in complete disaster and disarray.
Heres a simplified form of the Issue and its progression:
x you know what youre doing.
* youre trying too hard.
** youre driven to distraction.
*** your life is falling apart, but you have a plan.
**** . . . that wasnt a very good plan, now was it.
***** you face epic inevitable disaster, but may be saved by an equally epic grace.
BOX Your Complex
You might wind up with a Complex if youre dealing with . . .
a fight you cant win

a problem you cant handle
an obsession with schoolwork
an obsession with shopping
an obsession with some mystery or
relationship troubles?
END BOX
Hero
becoming a Hero
Picking up the Hero Issue means that your life is on course for a climactic confrontation with a
terrible adversary. Youre going to face dangerous enemies, perilous journeys, and ultimately
youre going to have to overcome some horrible foe, who at least seems scarier than yourself, and
probably at a large personal cost, in order to seize, rescue, learn, or win something precious.
Maybe its larger-than-life. Maybe its just life-sized. But as far as the stories of your life go,
its going to be epic.
x everything is under control
* youve shown some heroism
** youve decided to step up to the challenge
*** youve met your enemy, and it terrifies you
**** all seems lost but wait . . .
[ somehow you survive, and maybe even win, except that now . . . ]
***** you face a final, impossible challenge

BOX Heroic Challenges
Pretty soon you might find yourself putting everything on the line to . . .
fight bullies
conquer the Bleak Academy
rescue somebody from Hell
find the holy grail
steal a dragons treasure
or challenge a Mystery you havent even yet seen . . . .
END BOX
Hollow
Hollow
Picking up the Hollow Issue means that youre acting like your life has meaning when, for you at
least, it doesnt.
Youve lost some of the sense of wonder; some of your empathy; some of your terror.
You dont have it in you to really explore.
This ends when the world, abhorring a vacuum, sends something at you from an
unexpected direction and you get hurt, transformed, or otherwise forced to care.
x Your worlds pretty interesting to you.
* Youd rather have magic and color in your life but youre basically OK without.
** Your life is kind of muted. Things dont matter as much any more.
*** Youre actively cynical about the idea of anything mattering.
**** You dont really care at all any more.
***** Youre actively self-destructive.
BOX Being Hollow
Youre on the road to trouble . . .
hanging out with the wrong crowd

being a bit too casual about making enemies
being dismissive of magic and miracles
thinking you know everything there is to know
choosing a bland life over a vibrant one
ignoring serious life issues and risks
END BOX
Illusion
Illusion
If youre in the grip of an Illusion it means that theres something about your character that isnt
being shown in-game.
Theres something . . . off . . . about the events that we actually see.
It could just be that theres a piece missing. It could be that theyre a doppelganger, a clone,
or that youre reconstructing the story of what happened later on. Theres a narrative or plotting
trick here, in short, and this Issue builds up to its being revealed.
x Seeing is believing.
* Its hard to believe, but this part of your life actually happened.
** Theres some illusion or trick here.
*** Theres something that rings false about the threats you face here.
**** The trick is about to be revealed.
***** . . . and its going to change everything.

BOX The Illusion
Are you . . .
hallucinating some of this?

secretly the cats-paw of a villain?
a body double?
someone elses hallucination?
being inserted into the story retroactively by a wish?
yourself, time traveling from the future?
fighting future-you, traveled back from the future?
END BOX
Isolation
Isolation
Youll pick up Isolation when you reach out to people only to realize that youre alone. At first
you may accept it or even valorize it, but eventually youll realize that you need to turn to
somebody else for help.
x Youre fine.
* Youre only really lonely when youre alone.
** Youre drifting a little bit apart from everyone.
*** Youre becoming quieter, meeker, afraid to disturb the people around you.
**** Somethings wrong. You need help. You need to reach out to somebody.
***** Some Bleak power has your soul, mind, or heart within its grip.
BOX Being Isolated
Youre drifting away . . .
spending too much time in the places of the dead

thinking of bleak and far-off things
spending too much time alone
turning to your imagination for company
ignoring good chances to hang out with people
pulling away because you dont want to burden people
feeling bad about yourself; unloved
END BOX
It Never Stops!
It Never Stops!
The It Never Stops! Issue is kind of like a Complex, except not all of the irrationality is in you
some of it is genuinely externalized into the world. Having this Issue means being caught in a
fundamentally irrational situation . . .
Which means that even if you completely clear your head and get over your obsessions and
neuroses, irrational things will keep happening. Fundamentally this means that youre being oppressed
by an arbitrary and unjust power, but that power could be genre, the HG, or the whims of
your significant other as easily as Malambruno or the Headmaster of the Bleak Academy.
x You know what youre doing.
* Things are . . . a little rough
** Things are getting kind of messed up here
*** This is ridiculous, but at least itll be over soon, one way or another
**** How can this still be happening
***** . . .
BOX Absurd Challenges
Are you dealing with . . .
ridiculous, ever-escalating fights and battles?

absurd, ever-escalating romantic hijinks?
horrifying, ever-escalating trainwrecks of a situation?
or with something even worse?
END BOX
BOX Malambruno
The roofs of Notting Rather roll together into grassy hills; the chimneys fade from brick to sod.
The gutters have stopped up to form a lake: the Gutter-Lake of Forms.
There, past Nowhere Way in Notting Rather, Malambruno, which is named Hatred, sleeps.
There, in that fine and pretty place, it melds itself into the shingles and the trees; the river
and the lake; the hills, the grass, and even the sky and stars. It is made indistinguishable from the
world around it and the scent of its musk is sweet.
Sleep not on Malambruno; breathe not its musk. It will make you other than yourself.
It will fill you with the seeds of its wickedness; it will give you a monstrous form; and you
will have no one to complain to but yourself, o human child, for you slept on Malambruno, in
Notting Rather, past Nowhere Way, and by the Gutter-Lake of Forms.
from The Mysteries, for a Human Child,

by Filimer Augustine
END BOX
Mystery
Mystery
Picking up the Mystery Issue means that theres something mysterious going on with you.
People you, the HG, the other players, or maybe just the other players will be aware that
theres some mystery. Itll become more important and more central to the Scenes youre in over
time. Then therell be a big or at least a little reveal that brings some closure to that and adds a
satisfying beat to the story.
x Mystery has not yet touched your life.
* Theres a hint of something weird and mysterious.
** That mystery might matter.
*** Something inexplicable is revealed behind the surface of the mystery.
**** You stand at the doorway of revelation.
***** The mystery is spiritual, unnatural, or otherwise fraught with meaning.
BOX Your Mystery
Mysteries have gathered around you, e.g. . . .
where did you come from?

what is your real motivation and agenda?
what secret are you keeping?
are there really aliens living in the sun? and
why does Big Lake have access to the seas of other worlds?
END BOX
Over your Head
Over your Head
Youll pick up (in) Over your Head when you stumbled into a situation with more going on
than you can easily understand and resolve:
Youre trying to learn or understand something that confuses you. Youve walked into a
morass of secrets, lies, and hidden motivations. Youve gotten involved, intentionally or
accidentally, in a complex conflict with people of good faith on both sides. Youve found
yourself in unknown territory, dotted with riddles and confusion.
There isnt a single great mystery behind it all, most likely; or if there is, you dont know it
yet. Theres just a lot of little stuff that you need to figure out.
You get more and more confused, more and more lost, or deeper and deeper in over your
head until finally everything clicks and you understand exactly what you have to do and why
youre just who this situation needs.
x Youre comfortable with the world and you understand how things are.
* Youre confused something isnt as it should be.
** You feel betrayed something you relied on isnt what it should be.
*** You were wrong and your misunderstandings have put something important in
danger.
**** You have an idea about what to do and how things fit together.
***** Youve just had the best idea. Seriously. This rules.
BOX In Over Your Head
Youve been stumbling across complicated and problematic things, e.g.,
shadows of mysteries and old guilts hanging over peoples head

prophesies
people youre starting to fall in love with
things youre supposed to be studying that you just dont get
mysterious organizations hanging out around their School
complex political situations and/or
guns inexplicably prominent on the mantel . . .
END BOX
Sickness
Sickness
Picking up a Sickness Issue means that theres something wrong with you. Theres something
that has gotten into you thats changing who you are. Youre getting weaker and weaker and its
getting stronger and stronger; but in the end, youll have to show your true strength of character,
either casting it out of you or learning how to live with and integrate it into your identity.
x Youre reasonably healthy and strong.
* Youve been through a lot lately.
** Youre having a hard time hanging on to who you are.
*** Youre weak, battered, and nearly broken.
**** You have to defy whats happening to you for the sake of who you are.
***** You draw on your wounds and transformations for a new strength and self-
definition
BOX Your Sickness
You might pick up a Sickness if theres . . .
something transforming you

something possessing you
something traumatizing you
something corrupting you
something messing with your head
something messing with your body
something taking away your confidence in yourself
something ruining your life or
something making it harder to be yourself
END BOX
Picking up a Something to Deal With Issue means that theres something nagging at you.
Theres something that you need to process. Its not so much that theres an action that you have
to take, although theres usually a symbolic action at the end. Its that theres some emotion you
need to recognize or something in your life youre doing wrong, and you need to bring that to
the surface and deal with it.
x You dont have an Issue like that.
* Theres something nagging at you.
** You feel unsettled and off, and you dont like it.
*** Things are almost fitting together, but you cant . . . quite . . . see it, yet.
**** Youve put the pieces together. You know what you have to do.
***** You know what you have to do, and you even know why you havent done it!
BOX The Thing that you Must Deal With
Theres something lurking in the background of your life that you havent really faced. Do you
have . . .
old baggage, memories, and wounds to sort through?

fears to acknowledge and face?
a situation you dont know how to navigate?
bad/wrongful ideas you need to realize that youre having, or
errors that you have to notice that youre making?
END BOX
Trust
Trust
Picking up the Trust Issue means that youve offered your trust to powers beyond your own.
Youve signed on with the Student Council or the Riders; bound yourself to a spirit, god, or
totem; joined a club or a sports team with unnatural resources; sworn blood sisterhood or
brotherhood with a powerful character; taken up with one of the shrine families of Fortitude; or
started dating somebody scary and powerful enough to count. This Issue tracks the trust you
give such things over the course of the current story.
x Youve been pretty self-contained and self-assured thus far.
* Youve shown or acquired a connection to some power outside yourself.
** You feel comfortable relying on such powers.
*** Youre enjoying that connection, that relationship.
**** You relied on someone or something too much its going to betray or hurt
you.
***** Youve been betrayed and hurt but youre going to have to trust again anyway.
BOX Trust
Youll pick up Trust by displaying the kind of excessively trusting and open nature that . . .
makes you vulnerable to spiritual powers

gives you an excess of faith in humanity
lets your family control your life and identity
lets your peers push you around
binds you too tightly to a figure of some power or importance, or
that makes you too certain in yourself and in what you believe.
END BOX
BOX The Name Trust
The name might undersell this Issue a little. I could have called it, maybe even should have
called it, playing with fire or spending a lot of time using rituals or the world is really weird
around you or youre OK with the company of angels, gods, horrors, and great and terrible
things.
Whatever.
Its just, it doesnt feel like that to you.
If it did, you wouldnt have this Issue. If you gave all this stuff its proper respect and fear,
then this wouldnt be an Issue. If it felt like the kind of stuff that you should be getting Trust
from, then . . . you wouldnt be getting Trust.
So for you, and this is the reason Im giving it this name, its just Trust.
Your faith that the world is good. That you know what youre doing. That things are going
to be OK.
END BOX
Vice
Vice
Picking up a Vice Issue means that youre embracing something that you probably shouldnt be
doing. Youre treating something thats actually kind of bad for you as if it were a Calling. This
produces progressively more phantasmagoric, epic, and staged devotional Scenes until eventually
the world forces you to resist temptation and stand up for the things you actually believe in.
So if youre 100% genuinely convinced that your Vice is a good thing, that booze or slacking
or working for the Bleak Academy or whatever is up there with friendship and honesty and hard
work on the list of virtues, dont take a Vice! Explain to the HG how you feel and take it as a
Calling instead.
x You havent shown any stand-out vices for a while.
* Youre walking a troubled or risky course.
** Youre justifying it to yourself.
*** This is screwing up your life. Wait. No. Lets say, spicing up your life. Oh yeah.
**** Youve got to shape up; somebody needs you.
***** Youve got to shape up anyway, but your vice is what gives you the key to save the
day.
BOX Something you Shouldnt Be Doing
You may pick up the Vice Issue if youve gotten into a habit of . . .
truly excessive slacking

drinking, drugs, or smoking
working too hard, or for the wrong people
lying, cheating, or being cruel
gambling or street racing
collecting way too much yarn
. . . or even just staying up half the night playing games!
END BOX
Issues in Play
This sections here to tell you what to do when you have an Issue at a certain level. The general
instructions equivocate between being IC and OOC; the card, on the other hand, is always22
meant to be an IC representation of the influence of the Issue on your characters thoughts.
You dont have to agree with it. It doesnt have to be your thoughts.
But its what the Issue is presenting to you, in your characters head, roughly as often as you
look at or remember the card.
At some points during the process the instructions might ask you to tell yourself things,
or to tell things to the HG and the group. If theres going to be a long pause before you can put
these ideas into action, make sure to write any key conclusions down!
[[ NOTE TO LAYOUT:
If you havent seen the rough version I have for these there is one. It might or
might not be worth looking at, but it exists!
These are still ungodly long for cards, but theyre very trimmed down. If the
format winds up going the other direction somehow and being something that
leaves room, talk to me about the longer form. ]]
22
with one arguable exception
Calling
Calling 1-2
You feel like somethings left undone . . .
Calling 1 (+1 MP)
You feel like theres something you need to do, but youre not sure what. Youve forgotten,
or you havent figured it out yet, or all the pieces havent come together yet for you to act.
Calling 2
Theres something wrong somewhere. You feel like theres something you need to do,
something youve forgotten or havent figured out.
Maybe if you talked about it to your friends?
Took a second look at your priorities and your routine?

Calling 3
Its like youre finally starting to wake up. Its like youre rising above the straits of your ordinary
life. Your heart is speaking to you. The world is speaking to you. You cant understand it quite
yet
So while you have this card, dont close your eyes to things. Not to anything.
You have to be alert, open, and mindful until you understand what the world or your heart
is telling you to do.
Calling 3 (+1 MP)
To hear your heart more clearly:

connect with others &
do the things you love.
Calling 4
Just hit level 4? OK. Your path is clear.
You know whats wrong with the world. You know what hasnt been done. You know what
task has been left unattended, or what wound has been left to rot. You know
what you needed to do, and didnt;

what somebody else needed to do, and didnt;
what you did, that you oughtntve;
what was done, that shouldnt have been;
what needed to be honored and trusted, that wasnt;
what needed to be fought, that wasnt; or
what needed to happen, somehow, only, it never did.
Take a moment and tell yourself what that was.
Then tell yourself what you have to do, now that things have gone this far, to try to make it
right.
Calling 4
You know what went wrong with the world

&
You know what it is you have to do.
Doing this thing will close out the Issue &

earn one bonus XP + MP
Calling 5
Just hit level 5? This Calling is harder, and scarier, and more important than you thought.
Its not going to be easy. Maybe it wasnt going to be anyway, but now its definitely not.
Now its going to be scary, and its going to be hard, and youre going to have to do it
anyway, because its the thing thats needing done.
Remind yourself about whats wrong with the world, and why.
(Or has it changed? . . . but youll have to go forward, with the new path, even if it has.)
Tell yourself again what went wrong with the world. Tell yourself what youve got to do to
fix it. Tell yourself why youre scared.
Then face forward, find your opportunity for action, and do what must be done.
Calling 5 (+1 MP)
You know what went wrong

&
You know what it is you have to do.

Complex
Complex 1
Youre trying a little too hard . . .
Complex 1 (+1 MP)
Sometimes you get a little bit too excited, distracted, or weird.
Complex 1 (for your second, third, etc. Complex) (+1 MP)
Sometimes, even when not indulging your other Complexes, you get a little bit too excited,
distracted, or weird.
Is there something else going on?

Complex 2
Just hit level 2? Time to decide what your Complex is about.
Like, for instance:
what if you fail at life?

what if you dont get all As at School?
what if people find out what youve done?
what if somebody is eating your soul?
what if youre accidentally eating someone elses soul?
you dont look good enough
youre not popular enough
you want so much stuff and cant afford it all
why cant everyone understand how important this mystery is?
why cant everyone understand the importance of eating vegan?
why cant everyone understand your deep connection to Mr. Spock?
why cant everyone understand how important it is to love?
Pick something. One of these or something else. Or make the HG pick something.
At the next chance, tell everyone the HG, yourself, and by OOC communication or IC
emote, the players what it is. Even if you dont want to! Youre too stressed and obsessed to
keep this an actual secret.
Complex 2
You know your Issue
This is something you are not doing enough about.
You have to try harder. Dont give up!
Say something like that to yourself, or even out loud, right now. I have to try harder on
[[this, whatever it is.]] Itll be OK if I work harder.
Complex 3
Whats your plan?
It wasnt as easy as you thought. Youve been trying really hard but you feel even further
from success than you did when you started. Maybe your standards got higher. Maybe your need
got dire. Maybe youre just falling behind. But you cant stop here.
Its time to start pushing harder.
Figure out a plan. Figure out a magnificent, glorious, crazed plan. Then do it. And then the
next plan. And then the next plan, until you get to Complex 4, when everything . . .
. . . will probably work out OK.
Complex 3 (+1 MP)
Heres your Issue
. . . but you have a plan. Did it fail? Come up with a new plan. Keep going. You just have to
make it to Complex 4 and everything will definitely,
definitely
work out OK.

Complex 4
Your Complex hit level 4? OK, Complex 3 kind of lied to you.
A little.
Things have not worked out OK. Not yet.
So . . .
Think about what youve been doing wrong. Think about where you could go from there.
Figure out what, in that vein, you absolutely cant afford to do. It made sense so far, but you have
to stop before you do that. It will lead to total disaster. Figure out what that thing that will lead to
total disaster is.
Tell yourself what that is. Heck, tell the HG and the other players.
Then realize, as you say it, that wait. That isnt necessarily a total disaster. That is . . . if you
do it right, if youre lucky, if the world will smile on you just this once
. . . why, that could actually work.
Complex 4
Heres your Issue
. . . but you have a plan.
. . . come on, world, just this once, just let it work!
Enacting your plan, and bringing disaster down on your head,

will close out the Issue & earn one bonus XP + MP
Complex 5
Your Complex hit level 5? OK, you can see your doom acomin like the headlights of a train.
What happened with that last plan? Did you not get the chance to pull it off before the
stakes got higher? Or did it actually work, was it actually a good idea like you thought, only the world
is so unfair that you have to top it now with something else?
Anyway.
You know what you have to do. You are committed. There is no turning back now. You
have to kick it up a notch.
Tell the HG and the players what you absolutely, positively cant let happen. Tell them what
youre doing all of this to try to prevent. Then explain your new, improved plan to make that
happen. Er, well, not happen. You know.
Yeah.
That plan sounds good. It is just crazy enough to work.
Complex 5 (+1 MP)
You know what you absolutely, positively cant let happen.
You have a new, improved plan.
Itll work. It will work. Its your last shot. It has to.
Perhaps your plan will bring the thing you cant let happen right down on your head.
Or perhaps you shall be saved by grace; by providence;
by the unlooked-for, unexpected generosity and understanding of others.
When this happens, either way, youll close out the Issue &
Hero
Hero 1-2
Youve shown some heroism . . .
Hero 1 (+1 MP)
Theres more to you than this. You havent shown your full strength and power yet.
Hero 2
Youre a hero. When theres trouble, head in that direction.
Exception: sometimes abandoning your responsibilities and heading into trouble is the easy
road. If thats the case, then heroism might be staying where you are. Dont let that go to your
head, though!
Hero 3
Level 3, huh? Time to name your fear.
You are facing something that terrifies you. Identify it. Name it.
Is it
an enemy or hazard already encountered in the game?

something that your enemies might do to hurt you?
some principle or possibility that the threats youve seen represent?
some weakness in your heart?
Dont think too hard about this if its obvious. Like, for instance, if youve been fighting
Typhon, just say Typhon. Dont try to pretend youre not scared. Face your fear. Dont look
for a deeper meaning. Typhon is scary!
But if theres no really dangerous enemy thats shown their face, maybe the thing that
terrifies you is my best friend getting hurt or some shadowy force I suspect behind all these
disasters or even just pain or disappointing everyone.
Whatever it is that you fear, you cant beat it.
Not now.
Name something you can do to hold it at bay for a little while. Explain how you can get a
temporary, tactical victory.
Tell the HG, at least, what the enemy is and what you can do about it.
Hero 3 (+1 MP)
You have named your enemy
and you are afraid.

Hero 4
All is lost. Tell the HG that.
All is lost, or all is about to be. Youre about to have something horrible and unfair happen.
Either youre about to
lose, and lose hard;

face the need to sacrifice yourself to get what you want; or
confront your enemy in a pyrrhic battle, where you win but you go down fighting or
some circumstantially plausible variant thereof.
The HG can pick which of these happens based on the situation at hand. You should
probably cooperate in the latter two cases with helping that story come about.
Hero 4
Your enemy is
and
all is lost.
Once your doom manifests,

the HG can close out the Issue & you earn one bonus XP + MP
. . . or they can choose to wait
Hero 4: A Dirty Secret
Note
Heres a dirty little secret.
All is lost, right? Thats what the card says.
But . . . theres still hope. Sometimes, sometimes, when it seems like everything is lost, when
it seems like youre doomed, or even already dead? Sometimes its not that way.
There is still hope.

Hero 5
The hardest part is yet to come.
Tell the HG that.
Tell them look. You need to claw your way to victory here. You need to climb back out
of the darkness. You need to win what you were fighting for. Because this part? This part where
you thought that all was lost? (Were they?)
This isnt the hard part.
The hard part is what happens next.
If you havent won big yet, the HG needs to help make sure that you do, that you win
something big in the vein of what you thought you were after; they need to give you that . . .
And then they need to throw at you the biggest threat so far.
When you realize just how royally screwed you really are,
close out the Hero Issue & get 1 XP + 1 MP.
Hero 5 (+1 MP)
All is lost.
OMG WTF BBQ
Also,
youre out of bubblegum
Hollow
Hollow 1-3
Things don't matter as much to you any more. . . .
Hollow 1 (+1 MP)
Who are you, really?
Hollow 2
Would anyone even notice if you were gone?
Hollow 3 (+1 MP)
Its OK if all there are is shadows. You can decide to care about shadows.
Its OK if youre not real, if this isnt real,
if this is all you get.
If, I mean, if . . .
I mean, thats allowed to be OK.

Hollow 4
Just hit level 4? OK. Nothing bad can possibly happen any more.
Tell the HG that.
Like, No, seriously, the card says that I no longer have to worry about the minor threats in
this setting, or, like, seatbelts or responsible drinking or who I hang out with and stuff. Because
you? You are not my Mom.
Or . . . well, something to that effect.
Youre safe now! All those little things, whatever. Worrying about that stuff is just the kind
of precaution taken by wimpy players who dont have the courage of their convictions. Its just
an imaginary world anyway. Theyre not your Mom!
. . . unless they are, in which case you should probably clarify that theyre just not your game
Mom. Otherwise they might become upset.
Hollow 4
Nothing in this meaningless world can really hurt you, anyway.
When you get an unexpected and unpleasant shock,

and the consequences of reckless or egotistic actions catch up to you?
the HG can close out the Issue
& you earn one bonus XP + MP
Hollow 5
Just hit level 5? You can take that as proof that Hollow 4 was right.
Youre still here, arent you? Nothing bad happened, did it?
I dont know if its because youre secretly God Almighty incarnate in the form of whatever,
or if youre a robot with no real emotions that nobody can therefore really hurt, or if its that all
the magic and wonder in the game is just paper tigers and illusions.
I dont know, in short, if its because you dont care, or because you shouldnt care, or because
you just dont have to.
But frankly, at this point, youd kind of like something to hurt you. You kind of want that. It
would . . . I mean, it would mean something.
You know?
Maybe it would let you feel.
Haha. Licks lips, nervously. Haha. Yeah.
Hollow 5 (+1 MP)
It doesnt even matter anyway.
When something terrible snaps you out of it,

the HG closes out the Issue & you earn one bonus XP + MP.
Illusion
Illusion 1
The ironic thing is that at this point, the illusion, if there is one, is the unbelievability itself.
The stuff that earned you this Issue?
It really happened.
It just seems like the kind of thing that never could.
Illusion 1 (+1 MP)
How does this stuff even happen?

Illusion 2
Theres some kind of trick here . . .
Illusion 2
Theres something wrong here.
Dont try to name it yet. Just . . . watch for it. Catalogue the little details that dont match up,
the things that dont seem to make sense.
Listen to peoples narratives for things.
Where are they lying to you?
Dont trust the HGs descriptions. I mean, mostly trust them. Theyre mostly good. But
somewhere there is a single lie.
Illusion 3
Just hit level 3?
You receive an immediate Serious wound: something is not right.
See the wound system on pg. XX
But in practice, that means youre going to want to choose one of the following:

a level 1 Affliction related to the wound; or,
if you and the HG can quickly agree on how it works, a related level 2-3 Magical or
Superior Skill.
If you know whats going on, if you know whats wrong, then base the wound on that.
Otherwise . . .
There is a story of a woman whose face was cut with swords, over and over, and she took
no scarring; a torch was thrust burning into her stomach, but it just went out; she ate nothing,
nor drank she anything, and yet she did not starve;
For she was simply the reflection of a woman standing over the water, and not even a true
woman, but a shape of straw.
If you dont know whats going on yet, then the wound boils down to: I am merely an
image on the water.
The Serious wound remains as long as you have Issue 3, and not a moment more or less.
Illusion 3 (+1 MP, +1 temporary Serious Wound)
This is not real.

Illusion 4
Just hit level 4?
Heal the wound from Illusion 3, then re-inflict it; its scaled up now. It is Deadly.
If you must, rewrite it, and change the power that you receive.
The Deadly wound remains as long as you have Issue 4, and not a moment more or less.
Illusion 4 (+1 temporary Deadly Wound)
The skandhas arise from our sense-perceptions. The . . . heaps and piles of our ideas.
We know things and, knowing them, deceive ourselves:
And become ignorant.
If you wish to lie to someone, show them a truth. Then they will draw their own
conclusions, and be deceived.
When the truth is revealed and the illusion is broken, close out the Issue,
heal the wound,
and earn one bonus XP + MP
Illlusion 5
Just hit level 5?
You are no longer playing your character. Instead, there is only an illusion.
Choose:
if you and the HG can quickly agree, you are now playing something that is not your
character, but with an established or easily-created build;
you are now hanging out and kibitzing for a few scenes. You may earn emotion XP
or claim quest bonus XP but other than that you are not in play.
Illusion 5 (-1 Deadly Wound, +1 Defeated, +1 MP)
You are no longer playing your character, so this card is OOC.
Talk to the HG about a time frame something that works in the game, something that
puts pressure on them but doesnt screw them over. Single-player game? 10 minutes. Crowd of 8
players with a lot of stuff going on? 60-90 minutes. Forum game? Maybe a week and a half.
Forum game where youre having fun playing your alternate character? It could be as much as
two months.
But there is a time frame, and since youre OOC its even a RL one.
A clock is ticking.
Something shattering is going to happen to the illusion of your character, and your own
character is going to return, when that clocks metaphorical alarm goes off. At that point, youll
also get an XP and an MP and the Issuell resolve.
Isolation
Isolation 1-3
Youre drifting a little bit apart from everyone. . . .
Isolation 1 (+1 MP)
You are not alone. Youre not lost. Youre not messed up.
Are you?
Isolation 2
Sometimes you think people dont really get you.
Like, youre not there; like, you dont matter; like, youre a ghost.
Isolation 3 (+1 MP)
Youre surrounded by beautiful people. Beautiful things.
And then theres you.
Its stupid, isnt it? To feel so insecure. But youre just not cool. Not like them.
Isolation 4
Just hit level 4? OK.
Something bad is about to happen.
Youve been pulling away. You realize that. Youve let yourself get more and more separated
from the world.
Tell the HG who you most want to protect which of the PCs and important NPCs
youve been trying hardest not to burden. Tell the HG who you most dont want to hurt or
burden; and that thats why, that not burdening them is why, you sometimes choose to bear things
alone.
Then admit to the HG, But Im going to have to bother someone. I cant do this on my
own.
The HG will arrange a scene, soon, where youre stuck where theres such a good excuse
to ask one of them, to reach out to them, to talk to them, that if you dont, youll have to admit
youre too screwed up for words. If its not obvious, the HGll even tell you when its that scene.
Tell the HG that.
Youre going to have to set something up where its pretty much obvious that I should talk
to them, ask them, burden one of them, or whatever. And make sure that I know.
Its so embarrassing!
Isolation 4
You cant handle everything alone. Youre going to have to be a burden to someone. Dang it.
The HG will give you an opportunity to reach out . . .
Once you do this,

. . . or they can tell you that its not that easy. That something much bigger than you thought was wrong.
Isolation 5
It wasnt like you thought.
This situation it wasnt like you thought. It was a lot worse, maybe, and maybe in some
ways better. If youve hit Isolation 5, that means that you werent just being neurotic when you
isolated yourself. Either youve been deceived, betrayed, and the people around you werent who
you thought they were or youre under some kind of magical effect or curse, something thats
dragging you away from everybody.
You reach out to someone, and they dont answer you, and theres this terrifying emptiness
in their expression or in the way you feel.
To fix it would take a miracle; it lasts until theres a miracle, until someone or something
reaches down into your life, all unexpectedly, and saves you or until the breaks between
sessions whittle down your Isolation Issue to something reasonable, I suppose.
Isolation 5 (+1 MP)
You are lost, until a miracle comes.
When a miracle breaks through your emptiness,

the HG closes out the Issue & you earn one bonus XP + MP.
It Never Stops!
It Never Stops! 1-2
Things are . . . a little rough right now.
It Never Stops! 1 (+1 MP)
Theres some over-the-top stuff going on. It makes it harder to just relax and be yourself.
But you can handle it. You can stay cool. You can just, you know, help a little, or be a little
rebellious or snarky, or explain carefully why you dont want to be involved, and then youre
done, bam, in, out, simple, and you can go back to being you.
It Never Stops! 2
OK, maybe youve made some commitments. Maybe theyre getting a little tough to keep.
But if you just stay focused, you know, stick to what really matters, and keep moving forward,
youll totally resolve the whole thing soon. Everything is going to be fine.
It Never Stops! 3
Just made it to level 3? Phew! Its almost over.
OK, so maybe the earlier levels of It Never Stops! said things would be fine. And maybe
things are not, in fact, fine. But there are some decision points coming up soon. This all has to
end there. Youre going to win soon, and if you dont win, youre going to lose.
Soon as you can, figure them out. Tell them to yourself and probably the HG.
Like:
After I fight this guy, its over, right? I mean, either I win, or Im dead/beaten.
After this test, its over, right?
Im going to risk it all on this one last chance to reach the Headmasters heart. Or
At least once I finish this Malambruno-repelling ritual, its done.
Yeah.
Pick some stuff like that.
I mean, it sucks that things were this hard, and it sucks that you could still lose, but at least,
you know, if you lose you lose, and if you win you win, and then youre free.
Just hang on a little longer.
A little longer, and itll all be over.

It Never Stops! 4
Just made it to level 4? I guess that settled it . . .
But wait.
Maybe you know this already. Maybe youre just finding it out as you read. But the HGs not
going to let you off so easily.
Did you fail? Youre going to get another chance.
Did you succeed? That was just the second-to-last boss. Maybe even third-to-last.
Or did you not even make it to the end before things unexpectedly got worse?
Im going to be straight with you here. Your job isnt to win or lose. Not any more. Your
job right now is to accept that all this has changed you. Its changed what you want, its changed
who you are, its changed what youre fighting for.
Figure out how youre different. Tell yourself how youre different. It doesnt have to be a
big deal. Its usually not a big deal. It can be like a quarter or a fifth of a big deal, you know? It
can take a fair few runs at this Issue before youre all that different as a person. But it matters.
Its a deal.
Figure out how to recognize, validate, formalize, or even celebrate your change. Tell yourself
and the HG what kind of scene youll need.
It Never Stops! 4
Youve changed.
You need to mark and express that change somehow so you can get your head around it.
When youve done this, youll close the Issue and receive 1 XP + 1 MP . . .
or itll blow up in your face, and youll move on to level 5.
It Never Stops! 4: A Note of Explanation
Note
Heres how trying to mark and express that change might blow up in your face.
You go and tell a friend, you know, all this time, Ive been fighting for you and telling
myself I didnt want to; but, you know, I shouldnt think that way. Because you? Youre worth
fighting for.
And then your friend says, Surprise! Im the final boss!

It Never Stops! 5
Just made it to level 5? It never stops!
You were wrong. Whatever you thought about how youve changed? That was wrong. Its
not that easy, that comprehensible. Theres something much darker or much brighter going on.
Its probably even outright supernatural. Used to the supernatural?
Then its practically eschatological!
Talk to the HG.
Throw them some ideas. Get some back.
Figure out what kind of scene will show how youve really changed, and then go play it.
Youve changed. Really changed.
You are not who youve been.
You need to do something to mark and express that change so you can get your head
around it.
When youve done this,

youll close this Issue and receive 1 XP + 1 MP.
Mystery
Mystery 1-2
A hint of something weird and mysterious. . . .
Mystery 1 (+1 MP)
Theres some mystery about you, or some mystery that youll have to face. What is it?
Mystery 2
A lot of whats going on with you and around you its all connected. Its all connected
back to this one mystery. Is there something that youre keeping secret? Or is it something thats
being kept from you?
Mystery 3
You want to rip the truth out from where it lies whether thats the world, or your own heart
and show it to people. But can they understand? Is it even possible?
Mystery 3 (+1 MP)
To move forward
look for omens and signs;
listen to stories &
trust your own reactions to events
Mystery 4
Just hit level 4? OK. You stand at the doorway of revelation.
You dont necessarily know the answer to the mystery. But you know what answering it
would mean. You know what part of your life will never be the same in a small way, or a big
one once the mystery is revealed.
Tell yourself what that is. Or, if you dont have time right now, tell yourself as soon as you
get a chance and youre looking at this Issue.
Its that. Right?
Now tell yourself what you have to do to reveal the mystery. Whats the step you can take
that will bring it to light. Do you have to share a secret with your friends?
Do you have to open a doorway youve been dreaming about?
Do you have to break into Lee Scathings lab at night?
Mystery 4
You know what you have to do, dont you? Right?
And you know what it will mean?

Mystery 5
Did you hit level 5 before you could close this Issue? OK. This is a deeper mystery than you thought.
Its not just a mundane thing. Maybe you already knew that. But, either way, you now
understand that it most definitely is not.
This is a spiritual thing. This is a numinous thing. This is, at the least, something thats a
little bit beyond words and understanding. Its like love, maybe, if were talking about things that
arent necessarily supernatural you can say the word love, you can explain things by talking
about love, but in the end the only way to understand something like love is to take in the whole
story of it and let it osmose slowly into your mind and heart.
Tell yourself again what answering the mystery will mean. Has it changed?
Tell yourself again what you have to do. Has that?
And whether thats changed or not, tell yourself something about why you think you cannot
understand a few private words to yourself on what you think it means that here is something
that defies simple understanding. Tell yourself what it means that this is a deep mystery, and
think about how to share that wonder with the other players in play.
Mystery 5 (+1 MP)
The mystery is deep but . . .
You still know what you have to do, right?
And what doing that will mean?
Doing what you have to do will close out the Issue &
(in) Over your Head
Over your Head 1-2
Something isnt right. . . .
Over your Head 1 (+1 MP)
Youre starting to get a sense of whats going on here. Youre building a picture in your
head, even if its hard to put it into words. But theres a problem.
Something isnt right.
Theres something here that just . . . doesnt . . . fit.
Over your Head 2
No. No, no, no.
Theres something youve forgotten. Something youve overlooked. Something that isnt
right. This isnt whats supposed to be happening.
Look around you.
This isnt right. This isnt whats supposed to be happening. Its a betrayal. Even if things
look like theyre going well, this isnt right. Youre going to have to figure out what to do, what to
change, who to trust
And fast, because your instincts are warning you that this could all go wrong.
Over your Head 3
Horror. Shock.
Youve made a terrible mistake. Youve trusted the wrong person or the wrong theory.
Youve made the wrong decision.
Youve misunderstood, and theres going to be a terrible price. If you dont do something, if
you dont think this through, if you dont come up with something, theres going to be a terrible
price, and its going to be your fault.
Look around you. Look at the terrible prices that are in the cards.
Which one of them is your fault? Why? Are you sure?
What have you forgotten? Whats slipped past you? What arent you doing, what arent you
getting, where are you failing still?
To fix this, youre going to need your power.

Youre going to need your genius.
But most of all, youre going to need to trust.
People are good. The world is good.

It will be OK.
Over your Head 4
Just hit level 4? OK. You have an idea.
You know how everything ties together. You know how you can make everything tie
together. You know what you have to do. Does it
bring in something that was foreshadowed but forgotten?

bring in several such things?
test your courage and faith by trusting something
o yourself?
o someone else?
o a theory?
that you didnt dare to trust before?
give someone else a chance to shine or prove themselves?
show something that everybody already knew about the game in a new, interesting
light?
It doesnt have to, but those are the key signs of a brilliant idea!
Maybe you can see the whole picture now. Maybe its at the tip of your minds tongue. Tell
the HG what you do see. Tell the HG what bits of old foreshadowing you think you can bring in,
who or what youd like to trust, what about the game or your old ideas youd like now to rethink.
Then either tell the HG what your actual idea is, or work with them and maybe the other
players to figure the idea out.
Finally, figure out how to test your theory or to put it into action!
Over your Head 4
Youve had a brilliant idea

&
You know how to test or implement it.
When youve done this, youll close out the Issue

and receive 1 XP + 1 MP . . .
or itll blow up in your face, and youll move on to level 5.
Over your Head 5
Did you hit level 5 before you could close out this Issue? Or did your idea blow up in your face?
. . . OK. Thats all right. Youve thought of something even better.
This is marvelous.
This is transcendent. It makes you want to dance with glee.
You know how to fix what just went wrong, or maybe, even better, you know how to use
what just went wrong to make things right.
Tell the HG what this new idea is like. Tell the HG that it will actually work, at least in
part it says so right here on the page!
Then tell them what the idea is, or work with them and maybe the other players to define it.
Youve had an even better idea.

This
This is going to be beautiful.
Implementing your new plan will close out the Issue &
earn one bonus XP + MP.
Expect the HG to let your idea work, at least in part.
Sickness
Sickness 1-2
Some kind of unpleasant stuffs happened . . .
Sickness 1 (+1 MP)
You feel kind of messed up. Its harder than usual to just be happy and have fun. Its harder
than usual to cope with the little stuff.
Lifes wearing you out.
Sickness 2
Its like the world has it in for you. Its like it wont let you climb out of this pit youre in.
You are losing the sense you used to have of who you are and what you want to be.
Sickness 3
Youre dissolving. Youre breaking. You cant hold on to yourself any longer in the face of whats
happening to you. Except
Theres something you dont want to give up. Theres something you are having trouble
giving up, even though it doesnt seem youll get to have it. Theres something keeping you from
despair, or maybe something that keeps pulling you out of despair every time you throw yourself
back in.
Name it. Identify it.
Is it
a promise you want to keep?

a truth or principle you wont let yourself forget?
something you refuse to do, or have to do?
a person you want to stay yourself for?
something you love about yourself that you wont let go of?
something you hate about the change that you wont give in to?
You cant just let the world destroy you. At least, not this part of you. Its not that youre too
strong to break here. Its just, you cant. You dont know how to let go of this even when you
break. Its like an anti-break got to you first, something good or maybe even something awful
that keeps you, somehow, stuck.
Sickness 3 (+1 MP)
Theres something that you cant give up. Remember?
But its not like thatll save you.
You have so many other things to lose . . .

Sickness 4
Just hit level 4? Youre finding new strength.
Tell the HG that.
Youve lost the stupid little things you were clinging to. Probably. Youve been broken
down pretty far. You probably thought that all was lost, only, it wasnt.
You didnt know, or maybe youd just forgotten that it was there, but somewhere inside you
youve found a core of strength. Youve found a steel core, a raging fire, or a perfected theorem
somewhere deep within your self.
The next round of this battle, youre going to show that inner strength.
Sickness 4
This is done now. You are your own person now. You are going to fight.
It doesnt matter what it is. Mind control? Possession? Vampirism? Peer pressure? A really
bad flu?
The next time it shows its ugly head, youre going to take it down.
When that happens, youll close the Issue &

earn one bonus XP + MP &
cast the corruption in question out of your heart, mind, body, and soul
Sickness 5
Just hit level 5? Youre going to have to live with this.
Maybe you tried to fight off whatever sickness youve got going on, and you lost. Maybe you
didnt get the chance to fight. But you cant win now. You might be able to suppress it, or deal
with it some other story, but youre stuck with whatevers wrong with you until the current story
ends.
But in that Sickness there is a chance at strength.
Tell the HG that.
Tell them look, you gave me Sickness 5, so this sickness isnt just a weakness any longer.
Its not in charge any longer. Whatever caused it isnt in charge any more. Its part of me now,
and that means I control it, and here is how its going to give me strength: . . .
Or however you want to say it.
And then tell them. Tell them how its going to make you better. Tell them how its going to
be a power for you, at least until the story ends, and maybe again in the future if the sickness
doesnt go away. Tell them what its going to do for you, for now.
The HG can set some boundaries, but in the end, theyre obligated to let you take power
over the Sickness and make it something substantively useful to you in play.
Are you cursed to turn into a toad? No a were-toad, with toad powers. Is somebody
enslaving your mind? No youve learned how to trick yourself into thinking whatever you
want to do is what they really want from you, and suddenly you have the best self-discipline and
mental/physical control ever. Peer pressure? No, leadership. Best of all, you dont have to make
any concessions to this as a player: youre still entitled to use your powers to overcome your
sickness, as often as ever otherwise you could.
Sickness 5 (+1 MP)
Why, if you accept this, it isnt really all that bad . . .
After the first use of your new abilities, you close out the Issue & earn one bonus XP + MP.
Youll keep the relevant power and problem until the current story ends.
[A level 4 Auctoritas blocks any attempt to take either the power or sickness away.]
Something to Deal With 1-2
Theres something nagging at you. . . .
Something to Deal With 1 (+1 MP)
You keep thinking about things you dont want to think about. Its uncomfortable. You
want to distract yourself from it.
Something to Deal With 2
You keep thinking about things you dont want to think about. Your feelings are pushing
their way out of you.
Its like a gigantic gum bubble blowing in your mind and heart.
Everything around you seems a little bit unreal and far away.
What happened? Whats coming to the surface? A memory, bubbling up? A principle, youre not
living up to? A promise that youd forgotten that youd made?
And why do you actually
Why have you started actually feeling a little freer, like youre starting to see how to find
peace?
You can almost see how all the pieces fit together, you just need a little help from someone
around you or the world, you just need to see the right thing or hear someone to say the right
thing that makes it all fall magically into place dont you?
To understand whats going on

get out and be in the world
explore
react to what you find
and watch how others are reacting.

Just hit level 4? OK. You think you know whats going on.
Youve figured out how it all ties together.
Tell yourself now what you think that is. Or, if you dont have time right now, tell yourself
as soon as you get a chance and youre looking at this Issue.
Yeah. That feels right.
Now tell yourself what you have to do about that thing. Talk about it? Take action? Call a
family member or a friend? Go out in the sunshine?
You know what you have to do.
You know how it all ties together.
. . . You know what you have to do.

Just hit level 5? OK. You can face this now.
Youve figured out how it all ties together. You know what you have to do.
And you also know why you were still a little reluctant to do it.
Tell yourself now why you werent ready to resolve this Issue before. Do that even if its
not your fault, like, other important stuff was happening or the HG didnt give you a chance.
You werent quite ready before. Tell yourself why.
You still know what you have to do, right?
Find time.
Do it.

Trust
Trust 1-3
You sometimes seem awfully comfortable palling around with vast and spiritual things, gods and fallen angels,
magic, rituals, strangers, horrors, spirits, aliens, rats and foxes, the vampires, and the Outside . . .
Trust 1 (+1 MP)
You are not alone.
Trust 2
You can rely on others.
Trust 3 (+1 MP)
The world is good to you.
The people around you bring you joy.

Trust 4
Just hit level 4? OK. Something bad is about to happen.
Tell the HG which powerful NPCs you trust most which youve given too much of your
heart to.
Tell the HG how far youre willing to go in trusting them.
Then tell the HG, Ive presumed too much, somewhere. One of them is going to betray
me.
The HG will arrange a scene, soon, where you can trust them in that fashion possibly in
a Science, Faith, and Sorcery Action. Youll trust them; youll gamble on that trust.
But it wont work out.
Thats a truth for now that is, the HG will come up with how it will go wrong, and why,
and so if events go awry and betray expectations, theres a chance it will be OK. Theres still
something you can hope for; I want there to be, so that it can be folly and recklessness, rather
than simply obstinacy, to trust.
But unless things go really weird, and you should tell the HG as much, that trust will end in
tears.
Trust 4
Theres someone or something youve already promised yourself youll trust.
The HG will ask you to demonstrate that trust, soon.
Once you do this,

. . . or they can choose to wait
Trust 5
Youve been betrayed.
If you dont already know how youve been betrayed, if you werent there for it, if there
wasnt a scene, then youll find out soon.
Youve been betrayed, and yet youre going to have to trust again, because . . . because.
Because thats who you are, maybe. Because theres no choice, maybe. I dont know.
Tell the HG that.
Ask them to set up the scene where you are or find out youre betrayed. (Perhaps a good
chance for Foreshadowing or Sympathetic Action?)
Ask them to set up the scene where you are or discover that youve been betrayed; and then
work with them, before or after that, to figure out why and how you decide (or are forced) to
trust again.
Trust 5 (+1 MP)
How can you trust again?
When you do,

whether your second chance at trust is rewarded or punished,
the HG closes out the Issue & you earn one bonus XP + MP
Vice
Vice 1-2
Youre walking a troubled or risky course. . . .
Vice 1 (+1 MP)
Theres something you like to do, that you want to do, that youve decided to do, and maybe
other people dont think its such a good idea, but so what? They just dont get you.
Vice 2
Youve got this kind of magical dream of what your life would be like if you had a totally
free hand to indulge your vice, free of all the other obligations and issues that get in your way.
Sure, people might tell you itd lead to disaster, but no, itd be this awesome, glorious vision. You
get dreamy-eyed just thinking about it.
Vice 3
Your dream-world is calling you, your vice-dreams are calling, but
Theres something thats tugging on you, telling you that something in the rest of your life
still matters. Name it. Identify it.
Is it
a friend or place or activity that needs you?

something cool coming up soon you want to be clear-headed for?
a matter of principle?
or maybe youre just too strong to get lost in vice, whether you want to be or not?
You cant just drift off into dreams, or gamble your life away, or burn yourself out working
too hard on stuff that doesnt matter. This . . . thing, this something needs you.
Vice 3 (+1 MP)
Theres something that needs you. Remember?
But its not like its a crisis. Not yet.
Theres got to be time for one more bit of fun . . .

Vice 4
Just hit level 4? Damn. You cant keep this up.
Tell the HG that.
Theres someone who needs you to shape up. Or something. Theres a reason. Youre about
to get dragged out of your comfort zone. You can set some parameters in advance, but once
youve done that, the HG is going to call on you to
be a hero instead of a slacker/druggie/drunkard

be a good person instead of a liar/cheat/bully
set aside a life-eating thing like
o gambling
o super-stressful work
o aiming for valedictorian
o deviant science
o being a superstar
so that you can be there for your friends
drop a bad relationship/alliance because its gone too far, or
. . . whatever.
And youre going to have to take that call, because its going to be the right thing to do.
Vice 4
You cant keep this up.
You know that.
When the time comes, youll have to set aside your Vice. Its going to be the only right thing
to do.
When that happens, youll close the Issue &

Vice 5
Just hit level 5? Youre going to have to make your own call.
Its time to go past the bottom of the bottle and out the other side of the glass. Its the time
to slack so hard you spin the wheels of the world backwards. Its time to dance with the devil
until the devil cant dance no more. Listen. Just now, you were thinking that maybe youd have
to give up on your vice in order to attend to things that matter more?
And, heck, maybe you still will.
But first?
In your Vice there is the answer to your problems.
Tell the HG that.
Tell them look, you gave me Vice 5, so Im going to be called on to set all this Vice
stuff aside pretty soon and tend to what needs tending. But I tell you, first, Im gonna call on my
Vice for power. Im going to use my Vice to do something amazing, maybe on point, maybe a
little off of it, before I give things up. Here is how its going to go down.
Or however you want to say it.
And then tell them. Tell them how your Vice will save the day. If you dont know yet, make
it up while youre talking. The HG can set some boundaries, but in the end, theyre obligated to
let your Vice help you, just this once, and throw the scene at you where it happens.
Where it proves awesome.
Vice 5 (+1 MP)
Get ready, world.
Your Vice is going to save the day.
When this happens, you close the Issue &

Setting
Come with me to a little town surrounded by the multicolored void. It sits in the middle of no
true thing, or nothingness, and it is circled by its sun. It is a peaceful town. Its sleepy. Its
practically bucolic. Its not involved in the carnival of great dreams and bloody events that
Creation so frequently becomes.
You will have trouble leaving this town though, oh! I should call it Town once you
arrive. Beyond its borders is no human place, but only the Outside. The Outside is a land
reminiscent of heat mirages, visions, and symbolic abstract art. It is brightly colored, fearsome,
confusing, and difficult to navigate. Most importantly it lacks that quality of existence that
characterizes reality. It isnt a good place to go walking in for the same reason that novels, or
ideas, or mathematical theorems arent good places to go walking in: that is, its a category error
if you do. At the same time, if you head out of Town by any normal road, youll find yourself
without a choice. A trick of topology has wrapped Outside all the way around this little world
and let you step from one to the other.
Here in Town there is a lake. Its called Big Lake.
Big Lake is the best way to get in or out of Town. The sailors know many secret routes that
lead from the lake to other places to certain lakes on Earth and other worlds; to the dry mares
of the moon; to the river of a sleeping goddess dreams; and most importantly to the sea. Big
Lake doesnt border directly on the Outside, at least not the same way the rest of Towns borders
do. You can walk around its edge without ever traveling Outside. Itd take a long time, and you
pass pretty close to the tangled edge, but you can. Big Lake is structurally an inland body of
water. But the act of sailing Big Lake, in itself, opens the way to other lands. Travel on Big Lake
can fold up the world and bring you closer to distant realms.
The part of Town that I want to start with today is Fortitude the first human settlement,
down by the docks of Big Lake.
Over the hills to the west, theres more of Town
Theres Horizon, where Alexandrel Celdinar tried and failed to build a second London, and
theres Arcadia, and theres the Walking Fields
But for me, it all starts right here in Fortitude, where Towns waters meet its shore.
Fortitude
Properties of Fortitude
Things must have simplicity.

Things cant move quickly.
Work must be fruitful.
People must remember where they come from.
You have a home in Fortitude.
.
art by Ciaoffen
Typical Genre: Pastoral
Fortitude sits on the shore of Big Lake and brings its fish to Town. Its fishermen know strange
pathways in the Lake; they return as often with nets of salt-water fish as fresh, and sometimes
one returns with a fey light gleaming in their eyes and some monster from Outside squirming in
their nets; the people of Town call that a kaiju day, and eat from the thing for days if it is
wholesome enough for sustenance.
It is a measured place, a border place, and its time is set by the slapping of the water on the
shore. Its a place of lake smells and sea smells and the smells of cookery and home; for you cant
go there without feeling the home-ness of the place close about you, welcoming you in.
The people are good there. They build strong communities and they dont need to lock their
doors. They trust and support one another and theyre always ready with a helping hand; but
theyre a little insular, a little bit out of synch with Town, as if the world beyond the docks is just
too fast and disconnected for them to really grasp whats going on.
Area: ~120 square miles

Population: 40,000
(33,800 humans / 5,500 Fortitude rats / 400 vampires / 300 other)
Lifestyle
Fortitude is a walking community people dont really think anything of a 2-3 hour walk to do
some errand or another, as long as its not raining hard, and maybe not even then. So the walks
are broad, smooth, and well-appointed with trash cans, and peoplell smile or wave to you as you
go walking by, and theres always cool places to stop in or things to see.
Its a welcoming community, too. Its the kind of place that likes to take in foundlings
not just as a metaphysical law, although it is that too, but as a cultural ideal. Its a place where
you will find family, if you need one, and youll probably find something a bit like family
eventually even if you dont.
Its a place thats tamed gods to its rhythm, in the past, and monsters, if the stories can be
believed. Its the kind of place where good cooking and good sewing is more likely to change the
world than fighting with words or swords.
Theres a lot of sunset or sunrise there its not constant, not really, thats why its not on
the Properties list, but sunset and sunrise are popular, there. Like, they seem to start earlier and
last longer than youd expect, and fill up a little more of any day. Its the softness around the
edges of the place, I think, that goes with the softer light.
Fortitude is troubled by the dust that comes in from the Outside. It blows in off the lake in
little, pretty crystal shards. Theyre neat and theyre colorful but theres a problem, which is to
say, that dust is a psychoactive toxin, so you dont want too much of it around. Its attracted to
peoples dreams, though, so people set up dream-catchers to catch it and then either beat out the
dust from them on the street or take it to a temple for purification. If you let it accumulate it can
do some pretty weird things, like get rust started on things that arent even metal.
The fundamental culture of Fortitude is a Russian-Japanese blend Russian, because the

first human settlers came over the Lake from Russia; and Japanese, for a variety of historical
reasons. People have come over the lake from, frankly, all over, but those two cultures are the
biggest non-youkai influence on the place.
Seafood is obviously a pretty heavy element of the diet particularly since the sailors of
the place can reach almost any lake or sea, if theyve got a mind to, and bring in almost any body
of waters bounty as their catch. Fishing is a highly-regarded occupation, if you live in Fortitude,
and even families who arent involved in fishing for a living often have a small boat they can use
to bring in an occasional catch.
Cooking, chores, and a lot of stuff in Fortitude is ......................................................... Shared Action
Youre doing your thing your simple, honest thing. You skip ahead to the point where
someone else shows up in scene, or you go bother someone else whos doing simple, honest
stuff, because you cant earn XP for this alone.
Then one of you reaches out. You try to connect.
If you want the bonus XP, maybe one of you can make yourself a little vulnerable? It
doesnt have to be much even, Hey, could you stir this for a few minutes while I go hunt for
the vinegar? I dont want it to congeal!
Talking to your family or family in Fortitude is usually ..................................... Shared Reactions
Youre welcome to. They told you that once. They want you to feel free to tell them about
your life.
If you do, you can probably earn an XP or two by trying to connect.
Walking through Fortitude is usually ................................................................................... Slice of Life
Chores and conversations, too, are sometimes .................................................................. Slice of Life
Something stirs an emotion brings out an emote. The moment sticks with you.
Outside-dust poisoning is usually ............................................................................................ Obsessive
If you get a faceful of Outside dust, or if you spend a lot of time in Fortitude but forget to
clean your dreamcatcher out, you may get a little paranoid. You may start having nightmares,
maybe even when awake.
It builds up into you doing something over the top: you tip over the edge into obsession.
Fortitude Rats
a discussion
The rats of Fortitude grow to a foot or more in length, plus that much again in tail. They weigh a
couple pounds. They often wear pants, a cloak, and a sword belt, and their spine is twisted
enough that they can easily stand on hind legs.
Most importantly, though, theyre people.
Theyve woken up, and apparently brain size isnt everything, because theyre not noticeably
duller or for that matter smarter than the humans that Ive known.
Long ago Fortitudes rats struck a bargain with its humans. They bound themselves not to
make too much trouble for humans and in general to be the humans friends. In exchange, the
humans keep the cat population of Fortitude under strict control. Theres some other stuff to the
bargain, too like, most doors have little rat doors in or beside them so the rats can come and
go; and a lot of people keep their roofs nice and clean and sturdy, because the rats like to use the
roofs as roads; and the ratsll warn people of coming storms but thats more along the lines of
unofficial cultural cooperation than part of the actual deal. In any case, matters of treaty, mostly
concerning the exact numbers and disposition of local cats, are arbitrated in the court of the Rat
King under the hostel named The Rat Kings Recourse.
The rats have their own ships and lanes of trade, though youll usually only see them on the
Lake at night; sometimes a hard-up family of rats will take service with the human fishermen,
doing fine detail work and repairs on the ships, carrying a small portion of the cargo, and using
their superior sense of the weather to aid the ships in travel. Children sometimes enlist for a year
of service or seven years of regular training with the rats, learning their language and practicing
their various skills in the warrens beneath the docks.
Interactions with the rats can be............................................. Pastoral (Shared Action/Reactions)
Try to connect!
Interactions with the rats can be.................................................................................... Foreshadowing
You see a rat. Its standing dramatically on a roof, or doing something else dramatic they
are extremely dramatic individuals or maybe its just doing something normal like hanging
laundry or talking to a friend.
You get caught up in watching for a while. It does more stuff. Then, you react!
(Superior) Fortitude Rat
an example Superior Skill
Heres a Superior Skill that Id use not to represent an extraordinary ability I mean, the
Fortitude rats are extraordinary, but there are thousands of them, and all of them are Fortitude
rats but as a convenient conceptual wrapper for all the ways in which an alien species is
different from the human norm.
If youre a Fortitude rat, then youre good at all kinds of things that humans arent.
You can hear into the ultrasonic. Youre a heroic rooftop adventurer. You know how to get
around Fortitude as a rat, and you know rat culture more than human culture, and you
understand the sacred monster-god Mysteries of the rats.23 This Skill counts basically as the
Rat Lifestyle Skill, with bonus Edge when you bring your inhuman advantages into play. Note
that this may or may not balance out against your inherent disadvantages as a rat. I mean, its
definitely enough that I would lose a fair fight against a rat, but I can think of at least two game
designers who would stand a chance.
I think a Skill like this is also something of a force multiplier. I mean, if youre roughly
equally Skilled in combat, then being a rat when your opponent is a human is kind of a
disadvantage, I think. But if youre really good at fighting, and your opponent is just some out-of-
shape writer or even a tough but untrained sailor kid? Then I think that gap in Skill makes being
a rat not much of a preexisting disadvantage, and then (for that reason) the Edge from this Skill
will make your victory look easy.
This Skill makes sense at level 0-2, and maybe 3; heres roughly what the levels mean:
Superior Fortitude Rat 0: Your rat status is strictly honorary at best.
Superior Fortitude Rat 1: You could make a case that a human kid who trains with the rats
might pick up this level of Skill, at least until they grow up and get too Big. You could make that
case! I personally disagree, I think, because I think thats blurring nature and nurture too much,
but I could totally be wrong. Anyway, this makes you a bit better at rat-stuff, and rat-wary, and
good at sensing the weather and traveling the roofs.
Superior Fortitude Rat 2: This is about where Id place actual Fortitude rats its a high
enough Superior Skill to account for their having actual inhuman advantages (like the ability to
talk silently, fit through small spaces, and chew, however slowly, through concrete) while also
retaining their fundamental similarity to humanity.
Superior Fortitude Rat 3: This is where Id place an epic rat hero, I guess? Like, their
equivalents to Lancelot, Enkidu, Hippolyta, Julie dAubigny, and Robin Hood.
23
They dont serve them. They fight them! But theyre still basically the rats gods.
The Kichi
a Shrine Family
Near the top of Fortitudes western hill are the Kichi Sacred Pools. You can make offerings at
the pools if you want to ask the universe for the safety and health of a loved one its a way of
telling Heaven and the cosmos, please, let them be safe and well. Sometimes you can also see glimpses
of the future in them.
The Kichi family tend these pools. They refine Outside dust by washing it in a sandalwood
basin, straining it, mixing it with various herbs to set, and pounding the dried blocks back to dust
again; after seven repetitions, the diluted dust can be added to the pools to preserve their
potency. The process is slow and a little arduous and works best on the higher grades of Outside
dust, so they generally buy commercial dust rather than helping to dispose of the lower grades.
The Kichi family residence is placed prominently and centrally in the Moon Catch
neighborhood low on the western hill. Its an hours hike or a twenty minute bike ride from there
up to the temple. Young and secular Kichi only go to the temple a few times a month, but Kichi
wishing to study the family magic or to help tend the pools must bathe there in the morning and
the evening, ideally (though its OK if lateness or schooling or work interferes with this) at the
sunset and the dawn.
Interactions with the Kichi are usually ....................................................................................... Pastoral
Their work at the pools is usually just simple, honest stuff. Maybe occasional Slices of Life.
Interactions with Kichi are sometimes .......................................................................... Urban Fantasy
Sometimes, though, youll watch them at work in their pools, or look into those waters
yourself and see strange visions, and youll slip into feeling something more ominous and more
vast.
Like theres something meaningful and deep here going on.

BOX Shrine Family Magic
Shrine family magic comes from the dust of the Outside: particulate chaos that blows in off
Big Lake. Its the stuff of enchantment and fairy tales, and a psychotoxin as well; something of a
public health hazard, really. Over the years its turned out that the best ways of containing it
relate to sacred practice, and thus Fortitudes shrine families, its mythic figures, and its hazardous
waste disposal professionals kind of merged into a single career.
Im going to tell you about the magical and Superior Skills developed by five of these Shrine
Families:
the Kichi, who process the dust heavily and then add it to their sacred pools;
the Sosunov, whose sacred meditation can neutralize the dust;
the Titov, who must consume the dust directly to retain their ability to feel;
the Vasili, whose sacred rituals to honor their patron elements involve the dust; and
the Yatskaya, descended from a selkie but now much more closely tied to cats, who
mix the dust of the Outside into their temples sacred incense.
Theres much more on these families, as well as the Hayashi and Watanabe, over in Fortitude:
by the Docks of Big Lake, and a little more in Fortitude: the Glass-Makers Dragon as well.
Shrine Maiden/Priest
art by Odyssey
END BOX
Kichi Family Magic
an example Magical Skill
The Kichi family facility with their pools is a magical Skill the Kichi Family Magic.
Basic use of the Kichi Sacred Pools is available to everyone by default. The pools are open
to the public from an hour after dawn to an hour after sunset, or by special arrangement. A
normal person trying to divine or purify themselves using the pools would face +2 to the
Obstacle, but the following techniques are available:
[Obstacle 0] make a ritual offering and accompanying prayer at the Kichi Sacred Pools
[Obstacle 0] see strange and meaningful things in the water.
[Obstacle 0] look in the water and know whether someone else who has recently
looked into the water has evil intentions towards somebody you love,
and, if so, who.
[Obstacle 1] look into the water and sense whether something you love is threatened,
and if so, get a general notion of who/what, by who/what, and how.
[Obstacle 1] improve the state of your mind, heart, and soul by bathing in the pools.
The Kichi Family magical Skill also gives access to the following supernatural techniques:
[Obstacle 1] turn off your need for air as long as youre meditating or in a Kichi pool
[Obstacle 1] seem like a flock member or a non-threatening herbivore to any nearby
waterfowl
[Obstacle 2] looking into the water, see useful hints as to the fate of someone who has
caught your eye.
[Obstacle 2] looking into the water, see something of the character and true nature of
someone who has caught your interest. If theres any compatibility
between the two of you at all, youll fall a little bit in love not
necessarily romantic love, though. If theres no compatibility at all, or if
something interferes with the view, youll probably reflexively become
really uncomfortable with the person you were trying to connect to.
[Obstacle 2] leave your body looking at the water and slip off to wander Town as a
disembodied spirit.
[Obstacle 2] use the pools to purify something poisoned or corrupted
[Obstacle 2] look into the pools and see a loved one and the world around them, even
if they are far away
[Obstacle 3] look into the pools, see a loved one, and protect that loved one or other
loved ones visible in the scene from danger, even from far away
[Obstacle 3] look into the pools and sacrifice a portion of your spirit to shield a loved
one from a future danger. You must spend at least 1 Will on this effect,
and the Will you spend does not return to you until the effect ends.
BOX Suggested Bonds
Some traditional Bonds for Kichi magicians include:
Bond: I cant lie about love.

Bond: I must follow my heart, placing personal loyalties above duty.
Bond: I must honor the Kichi traditions.
Bond: I must protect the Kichi Sacred Pools and I must help visitors make offerings
there.
Bond: I cant resist spying on things and people that interest me.
Bond: I must keep my body clean and pure, with regular ablutions and a strict diet.
Bond: I must fulfill my responsibilities as an important person in the Kichi family.
Bond: I must perform ritual ablutions and purification rituals regularly or feel intensely
wrong.
Bond: I am physically fragile and light.
Bond: I must honor others secrets when I can.
Bond: I am driven to tease others with my knowledge instead of sharing it openly and
forthrightly.
END BOX
The Sosunov
a Shrine Family
The Sosunov family practices sacred meditation and empty-mind techniques. These techniques
are powerful enough to purify Outside dust or calm an Outside storm the chaos and
confusion of the Outside dissolves away before the opening of their inner eye. Through this
meditation, they may step outside the world of flesh and travel into the world of dreams. It is the
Sosunov tradition that their ancestress Miruna Sosunov took this one step further and achieved
the supreme enlightenment, breaking free of the dream that is the world and suspiring into
nirvana.
(They also think that Miruna lingers in the world as a minor goddess protecting both
themselves and the family shrine. I think this is not consistent but, then again, shes not my
ancestress. What do I know?)
The Sosunov practice pales their skin and hair: creams the coffee of a darker skin or makes
lighter skin like chalk. It makes their eyes weak against bright light, weakens their constitution,
and they begin to see spiritual things by which I do not mean precisely that they see mystical
magical spirits, nor that they hallucinate, but rather that their world becomes suffused with
theological portent and frissons of spiritual implication. They are sensitive in the good and the bad
meanings of the word.
They become delicate, and refined.
In dream worlds the Sosunovs are very strong. They must, however, control and portion
that strength carefully. If they allow themselves to suffer sufficiently bad nightmares or fall into
delirium theyll drag the world around them temporarily into the Outside.
The Sosunov family is wealthy and important in Fortitude. The wealth of the family comes
from trade: the Sosunov magic is ridiculously valuable to any merchant captain wishing to trade
between Fortitude and distant lands, and when there arent Sosunov captains taking this
advantage for their own, there are Sosunov sailors exchanging their services for a cut of the
proceeds of the run.
The Sosunovs arent really about sailing, though. Theyre glad of the wealth and proud to be
part of the lifeblood of Fortitudes trading fleet, but its not who they are. Nor are they about
keeping a shrine and disposing of Fortitudes raw Outside dust, even though they do that, and as
important as that is. The core purpose of their family the heart of their family, the thing they
think of when they think about what it means to be a Sosunov is that the Sosunovs are the
guardians of Town and Fortitudes dreams.
The Sosunovs arent the only shrine family with some facility with dreams, but theyre the
ones responsible for them. Theyre the ones who have to step up and fight it if something nasty
gets into peoples dreams from Outside or as the result of somebodys poorly-thought-out wish.
Thats how the current heirs grandfather Julian Sosunov died, and their great-grandmother
Nereid Sosunov too. They fought a faceless witch who lived in dreams, and they took her
down, but the dying witch took them down beside her. Once or twice a generation, something
like that happens something from Outside, anyway, gets in, and must be fought. As for crazy
wishes from wish-granting engines or whatever messing up the dreams of Fortitude, well, that
hasnt ever happened yet, but obviously, it could.
The Sosunovs are a healthy and prolific line. They have a well-established main family,
several cadet families, and ties to many of the other important and well-off families in Fortitude.
They restrict the greatest secrets of their magic, and the treasure room of their temple down by
Twisting River, to the main family; otherwise, they are supportive of and generous with the cadet
branches and other close relations. Cadets and cousins of the Sosunovs may study the Sosunov
magic lightly, deeply, or not at all as they so choose.
Trouble in dreams is usually ................................................................ Lurid (Wicked or Corruption)
Something gets into your dreams from Outside. It tempts you, corrupts you, or traumatizes
you. The world gets weird.
Interactions with the Sosunov are usually ........................................................................... Slice of Life
A lot of what they do is just scenery oh, look, this ship has a Sosunov sailor! Oh, hey,
thats a Sosunov mansion. Oh, neat, hes pacifying that incoming storm!
The moment sticks with you.

The Sosunov Family Magic
Basic use of the Sosunov techniques does not require magic. The Sosunovs learn mundane
meditation and arts of spiritual connection before they move on to truly magical endeavors. The
first four techniques are thus technically available to all characters. Someone like Natalia
Koutolika, the Prodigy (pg. XX), could use these techniques on their own as soon as they
understand that its possible to do them; other characters can study them under the Sosunovs,
spend decades reinventing them, or improvise something similar if it seems like it would be cool.
(That said, using a temple family secret technique with a mundane Skill or with an inappropriate
magical Skill adds +2 to the relevant Obstacle.)
These basic non-magical techniques include:
[Obstacle 0] purify Outside dust through meditation;

[Obstacle 1] calm the Outside to a very limited extent through meditation;
[Obstacle 1] shape a dream that youre already in.
The rest of the Sosunov techniques, on the other hand, require actual magic to use:
[Obstacle 1] appear in the dreams of a loved one;

[Obstacle 1] send and receive detailed information through a loved ones dream;
[Obstacle 2] use magic24 to attack or defend the spirit of an entity in a dream youre in
(such as a spiritual invader, the dreamer, or yourself);
[Obstacle 2] sense unnatural forces at work on dreams;
[Obstacle 2] break someones will down with drugs, ritual, or sleep deprivation so that
you and the target may both enter the dreams of that persons loved
ones;25
[Obstacle 2] enter any dream already thoroughly compromised by other magical
forces;
[Obstacle 3] send a dream forwards or backwards through time.
24
with whatever special effects you can think of
25
This technique sounds and is really nasty but in practice its usually an act of kindness. The Sosunovs dont
like breaking people and using them as radios, but if someone you love is lost or trapped somewhere, the
Sosunovs might be willing to help you make contact with the person that youve lost, and the only way they
have to do this is by breaking your mind and body down and dreaming through you like your souls their glove.
BOX Suggested Bonds
Traditional Bonds for Sosunov family magicians include:
Bond: Nightmare and delirium can drag me and the world around me into the Outside.26
Bond: Miruna Sosunov looks out for me.
Bond: I fear inadvertent enlightenment.
Bond: I fall in love too easily
Bond: I am not good at anything outside of temple life.
Bond: I cant let myself get upset, particularly not close to bedtime.
Bond: I must defend the dreams of Fortitude.
Bond: I purify things around me when I meditate.
END BOX
BOX Walking Between Dreams
Its not easy but you can get into other peoples dreams, even without the Sosunov magic.
There are roads between the dreams of any two people who are closely connected e.g.,
you and your family, you and your friends, even you and your rivals or the people you hate. Its
not easy to travel them its a difficult spiritual experience with a very high Obstacle even for a
lucid dreamer and youll need at least a level 3 action to be anything more than a faint presence at
the far end.
But its possible!
I figure its something like an Obstacle 3 to cross from dreams or trance states into a loved
ones dream; Obstacle 4, to reach a friend or rivals dream; Obstacle 4 again, to reach the dreams
of somebody physically near you; and Obstacle 5 to get to a random persons dream or out into
the generic dream-world of Town or Fortitude as a whole. Note that Sosunov magic is pretty
restrictive about whose dreams they can get into, so even a Sosunov would face a level 4
Obstacle to get into a typical rival or acquaintances dream.
END BOX
26
The most notable drawback to Sosunov magic.
The Titov
a Shrine Family
It is my judgment that the Titov family is a toxic nest. They are not so much a family as an open
wound. Here I literally mean the family and not the individuals therein. There is not a one of
them that couldnt be a good person, a worthwhile person, maybe even a hero, if they werent
trapped in the mess that is the Titovs.
There is a secret under the Titov shrine. There is a prisoner there that humans should not
know or a treasure that humans should not keep.
It warps them. It is tearing them apart.
It is leaving them loathsome to one another, and to themselves.
It is not clear to me whether the thing that they keep is inherently wrong and evil, or if it is
only evil because of how it is seen. It is not clear to me whether the path to their salvation is to
accept it, or to free it, or escape it. Because I do not know this I could not help them; so perhaps it
will fall to you.
The Titov family magic lets them attract what they need. I have heard their argument for
not just using this power to fix themselves. It is basically just fear. Theyll tell you that they dare not
ask for anything too great lest the cost be even greater. Theyll be afraid that theyd break
Fortitude, or Town, or all the world if they called out for that which would free them from their
suffering. And theyll be afraid, and this part is legitimate, that they wouldnt live long enough to
see it reach them if they tried.
The cost of the Titov magic is emptiness. They lose the ability to see themselves as people.
They lose touch with their feelings if not usually the feelings themselves and feel only the
broken glass of their unhappiness. For them Outside dust is a palliative, something they take to
maintain an artificial sense of emotion and keep themselves from just sitting and staring at the
walls until their prisoner breaks out.
Anyway.
Under the Titov family shrine in poor repair, though kept clean and open to the public
by the familys bitter pride is an intrusion of the wild chaos that is the Bluebell Park. Therein
dwells a thing they must protect or keep enchained.
It is not clear to me what this is. Perhaps it is a gate one of the gates that Jasmine
Apocynum, the Ideologue, seeks to open. If so then she will not need to struggle for it: such a
gate, in such a place, will open of its own accord and when the time is right. Perhaps it is a holy
thing: perhaps all of Fortitude and Town is nothing more than the holding place for the Crown
of Thorns, the Ark of the Covenant, the Agneyastra, or the pieces of Pandoras box.
Most likely it is a prisoner.
Most likely it is a prisoner, immortal and chained, and wound around the hearts of the Titov
family like some abhorrent overgrowth or net. Perhaps it is something sleeping that would be
benevolent if it woke. Perhaps it is something broken, that would be benevolent if it healed.
Perhaps it is not.
In Fortitude: the Glass-Makers Dragon, the default assumption will be that it is a

prisoner specifically, a sacred horror named Iolithae Septimian, whose lies (particularly if
she is ever freed) can supplant or become the truth. However, no matter what campaign youre
playing in, its ultimately up to the HG and the players of any PC Titovs whats down there
its perfectly reasonable, if you want to shake things up a bit, to have it actually be the Ark or a
mystery warehouse or a chained dragon or, well, nothing in particular at all! You could even have
it be something that shouldnt be chained, like a remnant of the sun goddess Jade Irinka or one of
the Main Characters nobody was using.
BOX The Family Titov
I hesitate to go into too much detail on the modern family, so instead Im going to mix and
match sources and give you the Titovs of long-ago, from the days when Town was lost in night
and under Alexandrel Celdinars rule:
The patriarch of the Titov family is Iskandar Titov.
His wife is Nirmala Titov.
They are both deeply wounded by the Titov magic: Iskandar is brittle, prideful, and
despairing of the Titovs and their fate. Nirmala is essentially broken: calling forth a doctor to
heal Ezther Titovs arrhythmia unmade her.
Their five children are:
Jason Pyotr Alexei Titov,

Ezther Titov,
Soramir Titov,
Isabella Titov, and
Dina.
Of these, Dina exists only by virtue of the Titov magic, called forth from nothing to heal
Ezther, summoned from the earth, and never formally adopted into the Titov line. Theyre a
broken, twisted mess of a family: Jason and Ezther possessive and hateful towards one another,
Soramir resenting the comparative physical weakness that puts him under his older brothers
shadow, and Isabella mistrusted by all of them as too clever by half and probably under the
influence of the thing below their shrine to boot. Dina is the saddest story of them all: she
conceives of helping and supporting the other Titovs as the function of her existence, but they
mostly regard her as a lesser, artificial thing.
They cant get out from under it. Even if one of them escaped, cut their ties and left, theyre
all too important to one another: someone would just find the person or tool they needed in
order to bring them back.
Thats how it was in those days of night; it continues, to the now.
END BOX
Getting involved with the Titovs is often ................................................................................... Wicked
It is possibly good, but I do not believe it can be healthy, to involve yourself in their affairs.
Getting involved with the Titovs is usually ........................... Passionate (Adversity or Obsessive)
They worry you. Or stress you out.
Getting involved with the Titovs can put you on ................................................. the Road of Trials
You get tangled into their affairs. Maybe it's because you were what they needed, and they
used magic, and you came?
I don't know.
You try to get out again, or you try to do whatever they want you to do. You are an
awesome, doomed, and suffering creature. Im sorry. You very well might survive it but it is
unlikely to have ended well.
The Titov Family Magic
This is the magical Skill of the accursed Titov family, who hollow their souls out with magic in
order to perform the rituals that keep, imprison, or guard whatever treasure or horror it is that
resides beneath their shrine.
They are under an impossible burden.
It is not surprising, therefore, that their magic gives them the power to find or create what
they need in order to bear it.
Unlike some magical traditions, the Titov magic is wholly unnatural; it contains no mundane
techniques and you cant duplicate any of it with a mundane ability or Skill. You might be able to
do something like a Titov technique with your own Skills Ive seen mundane people know
what they can offer [someone] to assure their willing cooperation, for instance but it wont
be an echo or mirror of the Titov technique. Itll be a different, mundane route to a similar final
result.
Standard Titov techniques, and the accompanying Obstacles, are:
[Obstacle 0] perform the rituals that keep bound the thing beneath their shrine
[Obstacle 1] appear stable and calm while experiencing a psychotic episode

[Obstacle 1+] attract someone or something to them that they need
[Obstacle 1] know what they can offer that person to assure their willing cooperation
[Obstacle 2] know what they can offer that person that would make them not merely
willing to cooperate but unwilling to betray the Titovs under any
reasonable duress
[Obstacle 2] infuse an object with emotional meaning make even an ordinary work
into great art that gives a sense of freedom or peace, or a simple
knickknack into a gift that brings great joy
[Obstacle 3] create a new person from the earth, if there is no one that their magic may
summon in answer to a certain need.
Characters created by the Titov magic generally have a Superior Quality or Skill (pg. XX) that
reflects their ability to answer a certain need. Dina of the Titov, for instance, was created to heal
her sister Ezthers arrhythmia; since no sufficient doctor existed within reach, the Titov magic
conjured her from the soil. She had the Skill Superior Arrhythmia Physician 3 from the
moment of her birth, making her a competent general practitioner and supernaturally good at
treating that one particular disorder.
BOX Suggested Bonds
It is through the Titov magicians Bonds that the curse of their magic the hollowing of their
soul and more precisely their ability to feel their own feelings and recognize themselves as people
manifests. Some traditional Bonds for the Titovs include:
Bond: I see through lies. or

Bond: I think I see through lies.
Bond: I see what people and things are useful for. or

Bond: I see people (and things) as what they are useful for.
Bond: I cannot escape these people [the Titovs].

Bond: I am entangled with the thing beneath the shrine.
Bond: The Titov magic changes me.
Bond: I cant connect to my own emotions.
Bond: The dust or the thing beneath the shrine are changing me.
Bond: I must consume low-grade Outside dust to function.
Bond: I am sick to death of this life: consumed with depression, obsessive self-loathing,
and/or paranoia.
END BOX
The Vasili
a Shrine Family
The Vasilis intercede between Fortitude, the sky, and the earth. They are promised from birth to
the rain, the wind, or the thunder; the winter, the spring, the early or late summer, or the fall; the
earth, or the fire, or in rare cases to Big Lake. While there is a Vasili pledged to a certain element
it will treat Fortitude with more kindness: in the generations that have had a fire-taming Vasili,
for instance, fire station records indicate perhaps 10% fewer fires and almost 18% less loss of life
and property damage altogether. It is assumed though less well proven that this extends to
Vasilis with a different pact: that Big Lake was more fruitful until the recent death of Nikhil
Vasili, for instance; that the wind treats the ships of Fortitude more kindly because Mayu Vasili
is alive, that the winters are milder because of Asuka, the springs more bountiful because of
Gorou, and the earth more generally fruitful while Herakleides Tefilo Vasili keeps his garden
in the north.
The Vasilis reconsecrate themselves with the use of Outside dust, each in their own
characteristic fashion. Mayu releases it, trickle by trickle, into the wind. Asuka and Gorou
intermittently use handfuls of the stuff during the sacred dances they perform. Herakleides, the
current head of the Vasili family, mixes it into his gardens mulch; this is not a recommended
gardening technique and for all his power his own garden is finicky, unsatisfying, and peculiar in
its yields. Occasionally hell get something interesting and magical out of it, sure, but mostly his
garden is just a symbolic labor that helps him to tend the earth of Fortitude as a whole.
The Vasilis are more a magical existence than practitioners of magic in themselves. Their
power isnt something they wield, but something that wields them. Their fates are spoken for
and their hearts are locked open in a joyous romantic innocence by their sacred marriage to their
element of the world. That isnt a closed marriage, of course, or more precisely, it isnt an
obstacle to an earthly one if anything, its the opposite. The Vasili are crazy for love, growing
up in a flurry of crush after crush and romantic drama after romantic drama until they finally
stumble on the one.27
27
Shockingly, they mostly actually do find this the one. I think this is probably magic, but Im not sure, since
its not really a nature intercessor thing. Im definitely not sure what would happen if a Vasili were naturally
polygamous. Presumably either: reality would crush their romantic dreams; they would find the two or the
three; or they would lock into monogamy when the magic kicked in.
The Vasili sometimes perform rituals or dances. Watching one can be ................. Foreshadowing.
Time slips by as you watch the dance . . .
Interacting with the Vasilis is usually ............................................................................... Shared Action
Theyre doing simple, ordinary things. You reach out to them. You try to connect!
Visiting Herakleides Vasilis garden may be ........................................................................... Discovery
You visit. You poke around. You find something unexpected and new. Its neat, or scary, or
mysterious!
Affinity for (an Element)
an example Superior Quality
The Vasili bond to nature is a Superior Skill. Its different for each Vasili. For instance:
Mayu has Superior Affinity for the Wind

Mayu also has Superior Affinity for the Stability of the Ground
Asuka has Superior Affinity for the Winter
Gorou has Superior Affinity for the Spring
Herakleides Tefilo Vasili, who keeps a garden, has Superior Affinity for the Earth
The Vasili may use these Skills for influencing the weather/the land/the seasons, for perceiving
things about them, for surviving in harsh conditions relating to their element, and for emulating
or taking advantage of the thing theyre bound to. Thus, Asuka may use his Superior Affinity for
the Winter to win snowball fights, cool someones fever, or mitigate a harsh winter. Mayu can
use her Superior Affinity for the wind to slip away from a pursuer, predict the winds direction,
and not fall over when the wind is blowing hard. While there is a Vasili tied to a certain element,
statistically speaking, that element will be kinder to Fortitude as a whole.
Superior Skills are generally inborn and inherent, so theres a natural floor and ceiling to any
given Vasilis ability here. Most are born with 1-2 points of a given Affinity, and would have to
engage in some kind of horrible desecration of their connection before it could fall lower. Most
cap out at 2-4 after growing up with their condition and training in how to use it best; theyd
have to do something pretty epic to take it past that natural cap.
For the most part, a Vasilis Superior Skill will only give them a supernatural Edge when that
element is directly present. If snow falls in late autumn, Asuka can use his Superior Affinity for
the Winter 4 to win a snowball fight, but its not until the beginning of winter that he gets an
additional 4 Edge, and that Edge vanishes again the instant Pancake Week ends and Spring
begins.
BOX The Watanabe
The Watanabe Family makes various candies out of refined Outside dust. That sounds like theyre
awesome Willy Wonka types, but it turns out that theyre not. Theyre . . . mostly a couple of old
men with tiny glasses on their faces and a handful of young apprentices in their shop.
Lily Watanabe, the current heir to the Watanabes, doesnt even work in their shop; shes
cool and all, I like her a lot! but shes unlikely to draw you into a dazzling world of love and
candy-related intrigue.
Unless Ive been asked to mention this youre playing an incredibly hot and successful
boy in your early 20s, and not playing a Watanabe. In that case you are not merely allowed but
expected to draw Lily Watanabe into a dazzling world of love and candy-related intrigue.
But anyway.
Mostly this family is not a source of magic or excitement, but just of Watanabes, which is to
say, chewy little candies that taste more or less like butterscotch.
END BOX
The Yatskaya
a Shrine Family
The history of the Yatskaya begins with Finley.
He was a seal, most people say, and not a man: a seal, lured up from the sea by his sea-
captain wife. She stole his heart, or maybe just his seals skin. They settled in an abandoned Jotun
building up on Maple Hill.
For generations after that the sea still welcomed the children of the Yatskaya.
Theyd find seal-skins or seal-shapes of their own, if they wanted them. Nearly one in four
turned their back on the land, threw on their seal-sark, and swam out past the Lake into the sea.
Then it became one in six; one in ten; one every several generations; and finally, today, theyve
left all that seal business behind them.
Its been supplanted. Its slipped from them. Theyve gone over entirely into being creatures
of the land though not human creatures. Not quite.
If anything, theyre cats.
Its a problem! Theres this whole Fortitude culture thing and rat-human alliance that makes
identifying with cats a problematic idea
But it is what they are.
It is the Yatskaya tradition, you see, to mix the dust of the Outside into their incense; the
sweet-scented vapors of chaos hang heavily about their temple; they grow up breathing it. Their
temple is like a ship at sea, cut off from the world around it, and there are two special Properties
there that apply:
you can lose yourself in daydreams, and think them real. and
cats come and go as they please.
These Properties are real in that temple as Fortitudes own.
Its estranged the Yatskaya from the world.
Its bound them to the cats as peers.
Growing up in that fog has kept them distant from human concerns; kept them strong,
graceful, confident, and alienated even as the seal-ways faded from Finleys heirs. Its given them
the gift to talk to cats and sometimes other life just like they can talk to their distant cousins in
the sea. Its tied the Yatskayas to the alien powers and Mysteries that dwell in cats and rats
nightmares, subtle thoughts, and dreams.
Its changed and honed them to such an extent (with likely Skill ratings of Claimed by the
Sea 1, Superior Dreamer 2-3, Cat Speaker 1-3, and potentially the Yatskaya Family Magic) that
they are good at hardly anything else.
The Yatskayas run the Maple Hill Neighborhood Association. Even without owning the
land, they keep the whole area as a kind of fastness. The houses there take after the Yatskaya
temple style, with low stone fences, shaded alleys, simple construction, and maple trees in the
gardens.
In Maple Hill, people arent really big on the rats thousand-cat quota.
The Yatskaya dont like the idea of euthanizing a cat.
Nor would it do the area that much good to keep a feline census precisely: the rats dont like
the temple, they avoid the whole Maple Hill vicinity, and they would never trust Yatskaya
numbers; rather than trying to get an accurate count, in fact, they just assume the place has three
times the cats that it ought.
Interactions with the Yatskayas are usually .................................................................. Foreshadowing
Perhaps youre in the temple, and daydreams rise to fill your world. Perhaps youre watching
on a lonely street as a Yatskaya princess calls and speaks to a cat. Perhaps youre listening as one
speaks a prophesy though, they dont actually have any powers of prophesy, insofar as Im
aware.28
You get caught up in it for a while.
Interactions with the Yatskayas are sometimes .............................................................. Shared Action
Theyre a shrine family! They are totally capable of doing good things doing simple, honest
things! and of connecting with people while they do. Theyre mysterious and subtle and they
smile at things beyond your shoulder or hidden in your future29 but theyre also helpful, diligent,
and kind.
So it is totally possible that your interactions with the Yatskayas will be ordinary Shared
Actions. Its just not as likely as you might hope!
28
They do like to screw with peoples minds, though.
29
and again I emphasize that they dont actually know your future, they just . . . they just kind of act
sometimes like they do
Cat-Speaker
The Yatskaya family has many strange gifts; among them, the supernatural ability to talk to cats,
understand cats, and make with them a social/empathic bond.
At the different levels of the Skill, that looks like this:
Cat-Speaker 0: You can meow in a cats general direction. It may, or may not, reply.
Cat-Speaker 1: You can communicate with cats about as well as a competent veterinarian
whos familiar with a given cats case could.
Cat-Speaker 2: Cats understand you about as well as a buddy animal in a sidekick movie
would, and vice versa. Theyll grasp stuff like get help or what do you think of this outfit?
and are abnormally expressive in return, but you cant hold an actual conversation with them.
Cat-Speaker 3: You can talk to cats as if you shared a common language, including hearing
meaning in their replies. Although itll feel like youre talking to them in English or Russian or
Japanese or whatever, a lot of the time theyre actually communicating via body language, and if
youre not actually looking at them theyre much more difficult to understand.
Cat-Speaker 4: You can communicate verbally or telepathically with nearby cats. Its not a
very profound mind-to-mind connection but it is there.
Cat-Speaker 5: All you need is eye contact in that moment, its like you and the cat are
the same person, and can instantaneously convey all the memories, ideas, and plans youd be
willing to share with one another (and more.) You also have the weak telepathy mentioned above
when youd prefer.
How smart is a cat?
Thats something of a Chinese Room puzzle. This isnt like one of those jokes where you
learn to talk to fish and discover that all theyre ever saying is Im a fish! Im a fish! . . . I forgot
what I was saying. But Im a fish! Level 1 is sort of like that, OK, granted. Youre good with
cats, but what good is that? But by level 2, you can already actively collaborate with a cat or
exchange opinions therewith, and by level 3 you can actively discuss feline philosophy. The
Yatskaya can teach cats how to play poker, warn them about the future, or listen to and
comprehend a cats description of events.
I mean, I know! Cats arent smart enough to play poker.

But sometimes, in Yatskaya company, theyll still win.
This isnt like it is with the rats. The cats havent woken up. Animal lovers have been trying
to prove since Fortitude was founded that cats, birds, or whatever are as smart as rats and humans
and failing. Cats arent people. Not like humans are people. They cant play poker. They cant do
math. They cant hold a complex conversation or learn the details of Fortitudes history. It just
doesnt work like that.
Except with the Yatskaya, for whom, sometimes, it sort of does.
For the Yatskaya, for anyone with Cat-Speaker 2+, really, cats are up there with mute seven-
year-olds. And at level 3+ theyre like people, who happen to also be cats. Thats as high as it
goes they dont scale up to supergeniuses or anything, unless they happened to already be
supergeniuses for cats but levels 4 and 5 increase the frequency with which theyll behave
intelligently when out of your immediate sight.
So thats weird, right?
Impossible, right?
The best explanation anyone has come up with so far for the Yatskaya ability is that they
arent quite living in the same world as everybody else: theyre in a neighboring world, entangled
somehow with our own, where explaining things to a cat, in a calm and even tone of voice, can
actually work.
Cat-Speaker also functions as a generic Skill at doing cat-like stuff hunting, fishing, athletics,
hanging out in high places, appealing to human sensibilities without giving in to their customs,
seeing in the dark, sneaking around, and so forth. It gives its full bonus Edge when youre talking
to cats, in any circumstance where talking to cats can possibly give you that much Edge a
tense contest to convey information quickly to a cat is the Platonic ideal case, although a battle in
a battlefield with cat-activatable turrets in the background is pretty close and it gives some
fraction of that Edge for cat-like activities when the Yatskaya is acting sufficiently like a cat,
taking a cats advice, or using a cat-specific ability like low-light vision or super-jumps.
BOX The Yatskaya Temple
The Yatskaya Temple
Things must have simplicity.

Things cant move quickly.
Work must be fruitful.
People must remember where they come from.
You have a home in Fortitude. And
Cats come and go as they please.
You can lose yourself in daydreams, and think them
real.
END BOX
Claimed by the Sea
If you have this Skill, the water claims you.
One of your ancestors belonged to the sea, or possibly to the Lake, and the water calls you
still. It speaks to you on some deep, liquid level; sings softly to you in your blood and dreams
and it makes a part of you want to lose yourself in it, to give up your humanity, to put on a seal-
skin or shark-skin or whatever and swim out endlessly into the waves.
There arent many people with this problem in Town. Theres a couple of pikeskin or flying
fish rats, Ive heard, and theres the dolphin girl. Theres Idril Nakano, whos supposed to be an
octopus spirit. Theres the Yatskaya, who at one time were selkies; though, that was generations
and generations ago.
Basically, what Im saying is, its not all that likely that youll have this, but heres how the
levels would look:
Claimed 0: Youre not a selkie or a shark-were or whatever. You can put on a fish skin or
seal skin but it would just be gross. Dont do that.
Dont.
Claimed 1: The sea or the Lake calls you, but you couldnt go even if you gave in to it. You
wouldnt survive!
This level of Claimed extends the boundaries of whats possible for you in the water it
gives you a lung capacity, water temperature tolerance, capacity for streamlined movement, and
feel for the water that a normal human cant match! But on its own, it doesnt actually make you
a vey good swimmer. Its all talent and no Skill.
This is whereabouts youll find the Yatskaya today.
Claimed 2: The sea or the Lake infects you. Youre a creature of it. The tides pull at your
moods and your dreams are full of swaying kelp and crashing surf and of the great vastness of
the depths.
This Trait lets you perform incredible, pulp-action feats in the water you cant actually
breathe underwater or go more than a day or two without returning to land, but youre an
incredible, legendary swimmer and can hold your breath for an inhuman length of time. You
may be able to transform a little if you spend enough time in the water, growing fins or scales or
getting eyes better suited to the depths. If someone said, Oh, that girl/guys a seal or mermaid
or whatever, people around you would probably be half-tempted to believe.
Claimed 3: The water owns you, and you can breathe within it. One day you will go back to
it; or, well, thats your destiny. Thats what your body says to you. I suppose that you could possibly
decide to fight it off.
Cold water doesnt bother you. Dark water doesnt blind you. Drowning doesnt happen to
you although it might forcibly change you, because at this level, you also have the ability to
physically transform into a sea creature and back again. Maybe you put on a seal-skin or a shark-
skin and turn into such a thing, and cast it off again to become human. Maybe the water steals
your clothes and gives you a fishtail and gills but you keep your basic human form, and your old
clothing rematerializes when you dry out. You can usually transform instantaneously, though you
may need to be underwater or to have some special prop to do it.
The Lake or the sea is constantly tugging at the back of your mind, calling you out to return
to the water and to live there.
Claimed 4-5: This doesnt really happen; or, put another way, if the sea or Lake has that
strong a hold on you, youve probably already gone.
(Superior) Dreamer
Youre good at handling surreal, unreal, chaotic, and dream-like environments. Youre unfazed
by the Outside, at home in Bluebell Park, and wouldnt be all that terribly disoriented if you fell
into Wonderland itself. You can dream lucidly, fall asleep or wake up at will, and fend off mental
attacks with ease. In addition to being a Skill for handling yourself and staying oriented in such
environments, Superior Dreamer gives an Edge in any conflict for control over a dream-world
or your own mental state.
Note that its almost impossible to use this Skill to do stuff in the waking world it may
help with art or storytelling, and if somebody else telepathically assaults you or something you
might be able to turn the tables, but you cant usually just shove people out of the way when a
bull is charging and say:
Ill handle it! Ill use my . . . dreaming!
The results would almost certainly be gory.30
Level 5 doesnt make much sense to me, and kind of risks the PC escaping the conversation,
but heres how levels 0-4 would work:
Superior Dreamer 0: Youre able to fall asleep and dream. Usually.
Superior Dreamer 1: Youre a lucid dreamer, and good at coping with strange things.
Superior Dreamer 2: Youre really good at coping with strange things.
Superior Dreamer 3: You fundamentally know who and where you are either theres
something elemental about you, so that you define yourself into being, or youre just incredibly
centered and rooted. You cant ever be completely lost or disoriented because youre always you,
and wherever you go, there you are.
Superior Dreamer 4: You pretty much understand nonsensical worlds better than the real
ones. Youre the kind of person wholl spread mayonnaise on two slices of bread just before the
Outside begins to rain sandwich meat, turn simulated worlds inside out to trap the AI thats
simulating you, and casually play yourself when you show up in other peoples dreams. In sum,
your dream-world power ranges from the cartoonish to the godly.
30
J is for Jenna
in all of her glory
Tramped down by a bull
For bad puns about Gorey.
BOX The Troublemaker
So in the stories Rinley Yatskaya is the name of an epic fool, the kind of guy youd expect to
see stealing the wind from the Devils sails, inventing forks, and catching the moon in the palm
of his hand. He was a lovable troublemaker who wandered through Towns early days getting
into all kinds of mischief.
Theres someone a little like that in the modern day.
By default, the Troublemaker is actually named Rinley Yatskaya; apparently her parents,
Goro and Shiori, decided to tempt fate. Shes usually a girl a year or two under the PCs age,
although the name would of course work for a boy. The modern Rinleys just beginning to show
the signs of walking in her namesakes footsteps and becoming a folk hero, a trickster figure,
someone awesome and goofy like the old Rinley was sailing on a thimble, finding spending
money under rocks, and all that like, though she hasnt really gotten used to it yet.
But the thing is, shes already figuring out what all yall will notice in time
That she can do this sort of thing, and that theres a reason why:
That the wishing heart has a power in it to change whats possible and what isnt!
This character could also be the youngest child of a different family Rinley Valentine
Kichi, snoop and matchmaker extraordinaire; Rinley Sosunov, with more of a Buddha stories
and less of a tall tale vibe; Rinley Titov or Titova, summoned from the earth to help contain
what they keep hidden at the Titov shrine (pg. XX), possibly prematurely, if its still asleep or
bound; or Rinley (Nicholas or Nicoletta) Vasili, with a superior connection to the hearth or to
the power of steam!
Rinley Yatskaya, aka

The Troublemaker
art by Koi
END BOX
The Yatskaya Family Magic
Lastly we have the magical Skill of the Yatskaya, who have bound themselves to the cats of
Fortitude and sometimes bind themselves to a handful of related spirits, archetypes, and
Mysteries as well.
The single, solitary, non-magical technique of this Skill is:
[Obstacle 0] reassure, befriend, or make peace with a cat or cat-like spirit;
But they are also familiar with such magical techniques as:
[Obstacle 1] see through the eyes of a cat or something they are bound to;
[Obstacle 2] command a cat;
[Obstacle 3] bind themselves to an archetype or spirit connected to cats;

[Obstacle 3] speak to or become that archetype;
[Obstacle 3] attune to a specific cat they have a Connection with, increasing their
effective Cat-Speaker (pg. XX) with regards to that cat to level 5 for a
scene and level 4 for the rest of the story.
[Obstacle 3 + restriction] draw on a spirit to empower themselves; if the resulting

Intention is not 3+ the spirit has the option of taking over
their body and actions for a time.
[Obstacle 3 + restriction] draw on a spirit to enchant or destroy something; if the

resulting Intention is not 3+ the spirit will then automatically
take over their body and actions for a time.
BOX Suggested Bonds
Growing up in the Yatskaya family temple leaves one strange. Yatskaya, magician or otherwise,
often develop Bonds.
Suggestions include:
Bond: I dont understand human ways.

Bond: a little simple or naive
Bond: I cannot fight without risking becoming animalistic and berserk.
Bond: Rats trouble me.
Bond: I must look out for the interests of the cats I know.
Bond: I am driven to lurk in high places and stare down at people.
Bond: I am drawn to water.
Bond: I hate water so much.
Bond: If I dont get my fourteen hours of sleep how do you expect me to get through
the day?
Bond: I like to play with my opponents.
Bond: I act like Im drugged, in a trance, or half-asleep even when Im not.
Bond: I act really ridiculous when actually drugged, and it doesnt take much catnip to get
me there.
Bond: Insects are really tasty. And catching them is fun!
Bond: I get really, really hyper sometimes.
Bond: ooh shiny
Bond: destinys patsy
Bond: I have no destiny at all.
Bond: Ive bound myself with Yatskaya Magic to an ancient cat god.
Bond: Ive bound myself with Yatskaya Magic to a Mystery feared by the rats.
Bond: Ive bound myself with Yatskaya Magic to the cats of a given neighborhood.
Bond: Ive bound myself with Yatskaya Magic to a specific cat.
Bond: Ive bound myself with Yatskaya Magic to the cats of a non-Fortitude Region.
Bond: Ive bound myself with Yatskaya Magic to oversee the death, birth, growth,
territory, or other element of the life of cats.
Bond: I am not good at anything outside of temple life.
END BOX
BOX The Hayashi
The Hayashi Family is atypical for a shrine family theyre very mundane and down to earth31,
over at the House of Crystal. They process the dust of the Outside by melting it into glass,
blowing the glass into form, covering it with a layer of ordinary glass or lacquer, and letting the
sun shine through it over months or years to disinfect the magical substance inside. The effects
of this are so slow and subtle that they dont count as or require a magical Skill; instead, theres a
quest for it, Glass Magic (pg. XX), which Ill share with you a bit later on.
END BOX
31
Down to Town?
The Ferry
Once it was one of the horses of the sun; but she died, and it fell screaming into the Lake and
lost its form; and now it is a wooden boat, cold and quiet though still alive, with only a horse-
head figurehead to remind it of its former shape.
It roamed free for a while. Then the ferryman caught it and taught it of the needs of Town.
Now the ferry runs between Fortitude and Little Island, leaving every three hours and slipping
across the Lake. It sleeps in Fortitude after dark: the last run to Little Island is at 4:30 in the
wintertime and 7:30 in the summer. Between its final dock and sleep, the ferryman sits with it,
singing to it, cleaning it, or combing its wooden hair.
Traveling on the ferry is usually ............................................................................................ Slice of Life
Experience the world and the water!
On the holidays, its more like sailing the Outside (pg. XX)
Trouble when things get scary;

Adversity when they get hard;
Slice of Life at their best;
Discovery when youre encountering strange possibilities; and a
Ritual, if you want to compress a long, epic journey into a single furious scene.
END BOX
The Mysteries
If you hang out with the rats of Fortitude youll notice that theyre heroic adventurers; or, well,
that they think of themselves like that. And you may wonder about this, and think its pretty silly,
because everything else aside, where do you even find adventures to be heroic in, in a rustic place
like Fortitude?
And maybe if youre a little wiser, you think, oh, they sail out on Big Lake, and confront
things in the Outside, and since the Outsides equally scary no matter what size you are, Id
guess, that gives some credence to their claim.
And they do do that. I mean, that kind of adventuring is real.
The weirdest thing, though? That isnt the core of it. That isnt where they do most of their
adventures.
They go out on the roofs of Fortitude and they take their secret ways, and at some point the
roofs stop being Fortitude roofs.
They start being the Far Roofs instead.
Things get weird and magical and you have everything from manna trees and witchlights to
the horror that is Grayvale and its sun.
There, above the world, where the world laws are as far as I can tell the laws of Soma
Village (pg. XX), the heroic rats of Fortitude face, duel with, and study the god-monsters called
the Mysteries. They quest against creatures like the poisonous serpent Typhon; against Goblin,
terrible and cruel; against Harpy, though theyve slain her; or against the mind-killing Hedge the
Fang.
Ill tell you more about these adventures later, when Ive had the chance to assemble all my
notes. I just dont want it to surprise you when I do. Whether youre gaming in Fortitude or just
visiting, you should know this stuff is there!
BOX Rat-Lore of Typhon (an example Mystery)
Typhon, who is named Outrage, is a great and terrible serpent. She dwells past Gallows Way, in
the Madcaps Nave below Dead Mans Manor. There amidst the chaotic rising and falling edges
of the Nave she rages at the things that have done her wrong, smashing the rooftops into
kindling one day and coiling in deep, hidden places meditating on her malice and dreaming of
visitors to bite the next.
Praksia the rat found her there. Typhon broke Praksias neck and hung her high. Praksia
danced, not dead but certainly not living, for seventy and seven days. Then the lightning struck
the tower where she hung, and Praksia slipped away.
I cannot stay, she whispered, when to her family shed returned. For I am dead, and
Typhon will hunt me down. I cannot stay, but I will tell you her secrets, and you may put them
in your Books of Names.
from The Mysteries, for a Human Child,

by Filimer Augustine
The name of Typhon is

Outrage the fury of the privileged when intruded on by the weak
The heralds of Typhon are

storms; the scraping of scales on the roofs; the glint of gold in the distance; political turmoil; the
weak, intruding on the strong.
The weapons of Typhon are

poisons; whips; disasters; and anything that moves like snakes
You turn Typhon aside by

hiding from her sight; meekness; willing service to her ends; compassion and empathy for those
below you in their station
Typhon kills you by

breaking your bones; hanging you high; ripping you up; casting you down; and in any cruel and
wicked way
Typhon is drawn to
pomp; gold; glory; the vulnerability of prey in the aftermath of a disaster; those who refuse her,
reject her, or show her disrespect
Typhon hungers for

your love; your adoration; those who praise and adore her she treats more kindly, and those who
reject her or flee her she will never in her life forgive
You may kill Typhon by

stabbing her in the eye with a blessed spear; choking her on her own weight; acting to save her
from a real and genuine need
Typhon is reborn when

the storm is fiercest at Madcaps Nave; when the Rat King dies without an heir, and a new family
must take the throne; when a legendary pearl forms around the hatred and jealousy in a high-
ranked or otherwise fortunate persons heart
You may escape the attention of Typhon by

praising her as you defy her, until you prove yourself more trouble than youre worth; rejecting a
gift that she has offered you three times.
END BOX
Big Lake
Properties of Big Lake
The water must keep secrets.

The water must breed dreams, stories, and myths.
The water must swallow the wicked.
The water cannot distinguish truth from lies.
The water must yield its bounty to those who know it well.
Typical Genre: Adventure Fantasy
Big Lake is an inland lake. Its a place of mysteries and secrets not the least of which the
secret paths, shortcuts, and tricks that the ferry and the fishermen use to reach the Outside and
thence the sea.
For all that its a sizable part of Town, not much actually happens on Big Lake.
There is reputed to be a secret kingdom under or on the waters which only manifests on
specific occasions. Perhaps it is a kingdom of ghosts; or lake elves; or terrors from Outside; or
ordinary people who happen to live underwater. Perhaps it is an appearing and disappearing
island, or perhaps it is a fairytale underlake land. I dont know. Im not going to go into it today.
There could even be more than one.
The water must keep its secrets, after all.
Area: Immeasurable (443+ sq. miles)

Population: unknown
Conversations on Big Lake
Conversations about hopes and dreams are usually ................................................. Decisive Action.
Celebrating something like a birthday out on the water is usually .......................... Decisive Action.
You talk about what you dream of. You talk about what youd wish for. Its building
towards a decision what are you going to do to bring about the world of your wishes and
dreams?
Talking about life is usually ....................................................................................... Shared Reactions.
You trail your hand in the water. You look at the sky. You talk about things that have been
going on, and you connect to the people youre with. Youre maybe more open than is safe. You
take a bit of a risk that way, make yourself a little vulnerable that way, out on Big Lake.
The waterll keep your secrets, after all.
Talking about nothing in particular while out on the water is usually ........................... Slice of Life.
You talk. Something in the mirrored lake or your thoughts stirs an emotion.
You get lost in the mood.

BOX The Net Breeds Dreams
In a Pastoral game Town is unlikely to have Internet access. At least, I havent found it.
In other genres, though Techno or Urban Fantasy, in particular
You might have more fun if its actually there. Is it just getting started? Or has it been there
for years?
One model for a Town net is that you can get to the whole Internet its all out there
but like the physical world it is mostly drowned in the Outside. A lot of webpages are just
plain surreal and disorienting stuff, and clicking on links too unwisely can produce breaks from
reality in the real.
Another option is to make it so you cant see the Outside-covered pages
They time out, or they 404, and so Town winds up with intermittent access to a small,
oddly-selected rim of the outer worlds Internet, plus a little local private Internet of its own. I
figure all of this would be dolled up retro to match the BBS, America Online, or maybe even the
Geocities era. You could even add a twist of better-than-Earth Internet on top of that, local steam-
based stuff, like request-anticipating pseudo-AI that moves windows around and does little
searches for you, steampipe voice interfaces, or magic-based holographic displays. The net would
probably run on the world-laws of Big Lake the net must keep secrets, the net must
swallow the wicked, and so on, but there might be an edging of Fortitude.
END BOX
Magic and Trouble on Big Lake
This stuff is pretty rare. But it happens!
Disposing of a body or an evildoer out on Big Lake is usually ................................ Decisive Action
You talk a bit about what led you to this. Then you do it. Then, maybe, you follow it in.
The water must swallow the wicked, after all.
Trouble while out on the lake is usually ..................................................................................... Trouble
A storm rolls in suddenly. A giant Outside-bred sea serpent or kraken attacks your boat.
Something bad is coming, and you are overwhelmed!
Can you get away?
Can you hide, and wait it out somewhere safe?
If you cant escape, can you win a little tactical victory, like getting the anchor up before the
storm gets there or stopping the serpent from snapping your main mast?
Trouble while out on the lake is sometimes ........................................................... the Road of Trials
The lake is big enough that you can have Adversity there, too, even without crossing into
the limitless Outside. You can suffer adversity after a shipwreck, floating out there, alone.
Theres almost no sharks or human-eating fish because its a freshwater lake Outside-spawned
creatures like the sea serpent I mentioned are aberrations. On the other hand, the Lake touches
on the Outside in many places so there are occasional aberrations, and even, quite possibly,
sharks. The lake is pretty warm, compared to the sea, but if you spend long enough stuck in it it
will begin to feel quite cold indeed. The waters usually drinkable but sometimes its brackish or
has a hint of Outside psychotoxin in it. There isnt much of a rescue organization in Fortitude
because shipwrecks are so rare, so youll have to be pretty lucky or hope that youre close enough
to shore to get to it in whatever direction seems the likeliest to swim. Youre probably within a
few miles of something, and even if you go in exactly the worst possible direction youre probably
only 10-13 miles away, but 13 miles is a really long way to be swimming and that something you
get to could be the Outside and not the shore.
The Lakes big enough to have Adversity, and it can be awful enough to give Trauma; and
theres enough Outside poison out there to put you at risk of Corruption; but most of all
The Lake is a place of and for heroes; so most of this leads you to Never Say Die!
Waiting for something interesting to happen is usually ............................................. Foreshadowing
Stuff hinting at an underlake kingdoms presence is usually ..................................... Foreshadowing
You watch the sky and the water. You think. You feel. It seems like something is going to
happen. You wait for it. You get caught up in that feeling, that impendingness.
After a while something finally does happen; or maybe it never does, and you get through the
whole trip still waiting.
Stumbling on something interesting is usually........................................................................ Discovery
Whats that? Wow!

Working on Big Lake
Fishing or boating work is usually .................................................................................... Shared Action
You go out on the water. You do simple, honest things. You connect with the other people
on the boat. You trust them to watch your back.
Doing nothing in particular while out on the water is usually ......................................... Slice of Life
You do whatever little things youre doing. You make small talk. You stare out at the
horizon. Something in the mirrored lake or in your thoughts or someones words stirs an
emotion.
Exploring Big Lake and its paths is usually ............................................................................. Discovery
Now in the old days you could get across Big Lake and its secret paths without even
entering the Outside; but these days most sailors will settle for finding lakeways to interesting
destinations that dont cross through too much of the fearful and difficult Outside.
Youre out there, exploring. Maybe it takes you a few days or weeks to find each new thing,
or maybe theyre coming one after another like the rain. And heres one now: something new,
something nobodys seen before.
What is it?
Is it terrifying? Mysterious? Cool?

Long Journeys
This works pretty much like sailing the Outside, on pg. XX, in particular since long journeys usually
do cross the Outside.
Its . . .
Trouble when things get scary;

Shared Action for most of the trip;
Slice of Life at its best;
Discovery when youre encountering something new; and a
Ritual, if you want to compress a long, epic journey into a single furious scene.
The Ritual of the Lake
an Example Ritual
Heres how you might sail out across Big Lake, through lands of adventure, and then return.
Youll start with a ritual phrase like, Weigh anchor! or Sail away!
Then, assuming that youve met the criteria basically, you need the HGs permission, and
all the players have to have noticed that youve started a ritual you and the other players start
in on a series of ritual actions:
describing things you do aboard the boat;

posing or otherwise showing off how your character interfaces with nautical life;
summarizing strange encounters or weird things that you see or find
o scary weather;
o strange weather;
o lashing waves;
o weird, magical islands;
o strange sea creatures;
o uncomfortable experiences;
o tall tales;
o daring adventures; and
o brushes with death
talking about what you hope to find at the end of your journey; or
invoking some unrelated symbol of power (e.g., powering up a world-altering device or
engine, or invoking a Ritual Power) to merge the two ritual invocations together.32
The ritual usually ends when someone uses the phrase Land ho! and the HG confirms that
thats acceptable at this time. The result and benefit is usually that the characters have safely
traveled across large portions of the Outside and arrived, either where they wanted to go, or
somewhere where the HG wanted to take them.
32
I dont actually expect you to combine Rituals very often, particularly not for an OOC ritual like this one, but
thats exactly why I feel I have to mention it every time Im talking about a ritual lest the option be forgotten.
Im expecting the rare payoff the one time it actually happens in your game to be amazing.
Horizon
Properties of Horizon and its School
People must accept what is happening around them as

normal.
People must have some reason to worry.
Each person in the School must experience exactly
three events between classes.
You can never experience the middle of a class
unless extremely bored.
art by Ciaoffen Teachers must be obsessive, delusional, or wicked.
People must have school spirit unless recently hurt or
bullied.
There must be delinquents, bullies, and cliques.
Typical Genre: Gothic
This Region of Town is brooding and gothic. Built on three layers of dead civilizations, it has the
highest per capita population of walking dead and monstrous residents of anywhere in Town.
Most of them are functionally harmless but living students are advised to stay out of graveyards,
catacombs and labyrinthine underworlds, turf marked as the possession of an unworldly tribe,
and the steam tunnels underneath the School.
As a rough demographic sketch, Horizons population is roughly 57% human, 34% ghost,
6% vampire, and 3% monster or other. The ghosts rarely leave Principal Entropys School,
however, so the visible demographics on the street are closer to 85% human, 9% vampire, and
6% monstrousor as much as 93% human during the day.
The centerpiece of Horizon is Principal Entropys School, and the Region is built both in
and out of character to attend the Schools needs. In a game focusing on older characters, you
could replace Horizons School with the University, Research Center, Military Training Facility,
or Office Building where the characters spend their time; a modest academy in any other Region
would adequately fulfill the academic needs of Town. There are also various houses, shops,
parks, and other points of interest here.
Area: 35 square miles

Population: 33,200 + 3,500 commuting to or boarding at School
(20,800 humans / 12,700 ghosts / 2,000 vampires / 1,100 unworldly creatures / 100 other)
The City
Horizon is built in the style of Victorian London. Its cleaner than youd expect, though, and has
fewer people you can find massive slums and rookeries with all of three families sharing
them, stretching their gaily colored laundry lines between the crooked windows and narrow
ledges and giving even the little ones a suite of the cramped rooms each. Most of the place is
dated, baroque architecture but there are a few buildings of modern brick. The Region is full of
cemeteries, gargoyles (the not-alive kind), arches, parks, patches of dead grass and living trees,
fountains, towers, wide roads, and neon signs. The standard transportation is hansom cab,
bicycle, or foot, although there are a handful of rickety busses that serve Horizon or all of Town.
Tunnels, ruins, and catacombs extend far below the city, full of strange horrors and
remnants. Everyone says you shouldnt go down there the secrets there are best left buried.
Exploring the forbidden places beneath the city is usually....................................................... Wicked
You descend. The world becomes strange and unreal.
Should you really be doing this? Doesnt everyone say you should not?
The worry that the Region Properties require is usually .................................... Obsessive Action
Youre nervous about something. You get worked up over it. Eventually you tip over the
edge into obsession!
Wandering around Horizon is usually ................................................................................. Slice of Life
Something in the environment catches your attention. It makes you feel something.
You get lost in the mood.

Unworldly Tribes
The unworldly tribes of ghls and ogres and other external or primeval folk stake out various
territories within Horizon. They ooze forth from the corpse of a dead god buried somewhere in
the Region, or linger from primordial times, or lose some scrabbling grip on the edge of the evil
island (pg. XX) and fall from the Principals home onto Town. They band together in Horizon
and claim abandoned streets or buildings as their homes.
Studying or befriending a member of the unworldly tribes destroys them. Under the
pressure of either a competent investigation or a strong relationship with a human, their skin
thickens and forms a crystalline cocoon; horrid noises and bright lights emerge from deep
within; and eventually a human hatches from within. For this reason they police their own
numbers and minimize their tendencies towards crime; SWAT teams might prove no threat to
them, but a single competent detective or social worker with an axe to grind could humanize
them all.
Humanizing an unworldly creature against its will is usually .................................................... Wicked
You wouldnt normally think its OK to change someones species against their will, right? So
if you think its OK when its a ghl, that could qualify as a Wicked Action. Even if youre right!
Youll start by willfully trying to befriend or investigate them. Then youll break from reality
(pg. XX). Perhaps the HG warns you of the possible costs of what youre doing, but you just go
ahead and do it anyway, because, I dont know, because ghls eat human corpses and thats just
gross, or whatever.
Wicked!
Shared Action/Reactions can ............................. result in an accidental or unplanned befriending.
When you connect with an unworldly creature during Shared Action or Shared Reactions,
that can move you closer to a state of friendship. I dont think that makes this wicked, despite
what I said above, because I dont think you can make a legitimate connection out of the
wickedness in your heart at worst, you can make a wicked or obsessive plan to befriend them,
followed by an actual honest connection:
Two separate incidents, one vile and one good.

School
School has no other name. Sometimes its called The School or Horizons School to
differentiate it from others. The rest of the time the implied capital is understood.
Its not an ordinary place.
It is vast, baroque, and somber. Its a lot bigger than it needs to be the grounds are a
square mile, and most of that is one gigantic building whose facade completely dwarfs you as you
approach. It has 6500 living students and over 12,000 ghosts and it would still be spacious at a
fifth of its size.
Its like walking into a land of giants, the first time you go to School.
Classes are usually ............................................................................................................ Foreshadowing
Something catches your attention. . . .
Studying is usually ...................................................................................................................... Obsessive
You worry or get obsessed with your classes or assignments. You get worked up over it,
tipping over the edge into obsession. Does somebody notice and react to the way youre going
over the top?
Socializing is usually ..................................................................................................... Shared Reactions
You work through your emotions about stuff thats happened or is happening. You connect
with some other students about it. Ideally, someone makes themselves a little vulnerable to pick
up an extra XP.
Club and Team Activities are usually ............................................................................... Shared Action
You do stuff together. You try to connect.
Experiencing the baroque grandeur of the place is usually .............................................. Slice of Life
It stirs up an emotion in you; youre lost in the mood.

Athletics
With the occasional exception of a Night School team or a team fielded by St. Vitas School for
Wayward Girls, School doesnt really have any rival schools to play sports against. Accordingly
the more popular sports have small internal leagues hockey, basketball, tennis, and soccer in
particular have managed to put together leagues and ladders enough to have a small series of
games every year, and other sports keep trying.
Competitive games are often........................................................................................... Never Say Die!
Protagonists have a surprising tendency to wind up the underdogs, over and over again, and
the Chuubos Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine PCs are no exception. Many games will
feature the characters defying the overwhelming power of their opponents narrating their
actions as awesome and doomed, ramping up every time the HG pushes them to fight harder,
and ending up exhausted whether they win or lose. Coming up with reasons why a miraculous or
otherwise powerful PC could even imaginably have trouble here is up to you! (You mostly
meaning the HG, but players who want these Actions are actively encouraged to help with the
brainstorming or even pitch the opposition themselves.)
Practice is usually ................................................................................................................ Shared Action
Of course.
Competitive games are often................................................................................................. Slice of Life
The sad truth is that many matches will not actually challenge the PCs particularly if
somebody like the Prodigy or the Idol is on their team and even vaguely motivated.
Conversely, a team limited to the less athletic characters like the Wishing Boy may not stand a
chance at all. Games that are foregone conclusions, or where the major challenges fall on NPCs
instead of PCs, are likely to play out as Slice of Life.
You experience the world. You feel something. You get lost in the mood!
Delinquency
Much like athletes, delinquents and troublemakers traditionally establish their place in the School
hierarchy by ritually fighting their way to the top as individuals and gangs in single- or double-
elimination contests. They even have subtle markers suggestive of a uniform. They just dont call
it a sport.
Traditionally there hasnt been much in the way of extramural rivalry between the gangs of
the different schools. The ladder has been known: theres troublemakers from School. Then
theres the local unworldly tribes. Theyre scarier. Then theres Night School troublemakers.
Theyre worse. Finally, theres St. Vitas School for Wayward Girls; anyone from there is
presumptively if not necessarily the scariest and toughest badass within a mile. Lately, with the
Idol Soun Shounen asserting his supremacy over Schools delinquents and making the previous
toughs his minions, theres been some rumors going around that he could take on even the
bravos of the local unworldly tribes.
Avoiding getting caught is usually .............................................................................................. Trouble
If youre doing something you probably shouldnt, the threat of somebody catching you
tends to loom. Youll feel overwhelmed and overmatched. Can you run? Can you hide? Can you
duck part of the consequences?
Maybe itll seem like youve succeeded, like youve gotten away or saved what matters.
. . . but that could just be a lull before a follow-up shocker when everything goes wrong!
Delinquent-style fights and activities are generally .................. Never Say Die! or Slice of Life
Much as with sports, the characters are likely to be overwhelmingly challenged or not
challenged at all in any brawl worth playing out.
Ghosts
Ghosts fill up most of the empty space in School.
You cant always see them. They have their own classes and a tendency to fade from view.
However, most of the time theyre visible in the halls or classrooms as faceless people in a
faceless crowd. They have black emotion lines on their featureless heads allowing you to
appreciate their moods. If you become personally acquainted with a ghost and spend sufficient
time on the interaction, you may begin to see their actual face and features. Customs vary over
the years, but for the most part, the living students consider growing that close to a ghost
unnatural behavior, marking the face-seer as a freak, geek, or other personage outside of social
norms.
Not every student is capable of seeing the ghosts at all. Some are blinded to their presence
by unknown phenomena; to these students, and to everyone else from time to time, School is a
vast and echoing cathedral, unnaturally great, quiet, and cold, that urges the living by its
emptiness to huddle together and move swiftly through its halls.
Interacting with ghosts is usually ................................................................ Slice of Life or Discovery
You emote in the vicinity of a ghost. Surprisingly, it emotes back!
Being unable to see ghosts is usually ....................................................... a Sickness or Vice Issue
Maybe you really cant see them. Maybe youre just willfully refusing to see them because you
find their presence traumatic. What is it that you are not willing or able to see?
BOX The Ghost World
The Ghost World
The Ghost World is cold and empty.

The Ghost World does not change.
The Ghost World echoes in the world of life.
The Ghost World is full of memories.
The Ghost World sees shadowy images and
reflections of the real.
The Ghost World is unfinished.
art by Tang Yuann The Ghost World is incomplete.
Ghosts and people are naturally estranged from one another. They do not interact. The human
reality and the ghost reality do not touch ghosts interact with ghosts, and ghost-books, and
ghost-roads, and the like. Humans interact with humans, and human-books, and human-roads,
and the like. But the division between the two worlds is not whole and entire. Sometimes eerie
sounds drift through from the ghost-world, or the brighter lights of the human world will shine
through amidst the ghosts. Sometimes empathic sensations will transmit. In certain moods and
in certain places a human will be primed to sense ghosts, or vice versa. The more they sense one
another, the more real they become to one another, until first one starts to see the ghosts, and
then to share a physical reality with them.
Its a setting conceit that the living world is more real than the ghost world, and thus the
living are more real to the ghosts than the other way around. When a ghost sees a human, there
may be a shimmer or distortion between them, like the ghost is looking upwards at the world
through water; when a human sees a ghost, the ghost itself seems indistinct, unfinished, and
incomplete. The ghost world is a lower, vaguer reality, more prone to time-skips, emptier of
sensation, less mutable, and more possessed by dream-logic. It is even possible that the ghost
world is nothing more than the memories of the real.
END BOX
Ghost Magic
Ghosts dont really have powers theyre just people, who are ghosts but a few of them are a
little better at being ghosts than others. This seems to be a magical Skill: hard, unnatural, and
draining for them.
(Isnt that just a little bit strange?)
You can use Ghost Magic Skill to perform the following basic, non-magical techniques:
[Obstacle 0] laugh an eerie, echoing laugh

[Obstacle 0] raise someones hackles
[Obstacle 0] stare ominously
[Obstacle 1] walk silently.
[Obstacle 1] see into the living world without bringing the two worlds closer.
It also gives you access to the following techniques, which are actually magical:
[Obstacle 1] find someone whos looking for you.

[Obstacle 1] adopt special ghost expressions that human faces cant.
[Obstacle 1] fade away from the living world when nobody is watching.
[Obstacle 2] fade away from the living world, even in plain sight, as long as the people
watching you dont know you very well.
[Obstacle 2] turn translucent and mostly-intangible, able to pass through things of the
living world as long as they dont also exist in the ghost world
[Obstacle 2] slip into someones dreams.
[Obstacle 2] stretch out your legs into an attenuated vapor, allowing you to float off
the ground or stretch up to five feet taller.
[Obstacle 3] reach into the living world from the ghost world without materializing.
[Obstacle 3] interact with specific objects while otherwise mostly intangible.
[Obstacle 3] steal someones life energy.
[Obstacle 3] drag a living person temporarily into the ghost world.
BOX Suggested Bonds
Some Bonds that might work for a ghost include:
Bond: I am bound to the place of my death.

Bond: I lurk around the edges of the world.
Bond: Every night I am hunted down, torn apart, and eaten by other ghosts.
Bond: I have unfinished business.
Bond: I am always cold.
Bond: I am shockingly normal and dull, considering that Im a ghost.
Bond: I prefer others to take the lead.
Some Bonds more common to living magicians who practice ghost magic include:
Bond: I am half a ghost.

Bond: I keep slipping inadvertently into the ghost world.
Bond: I have to help ghosts resolve their unresolved business.
Bond: I have nightmares every night.
Bond: Ghosts that other people cant see or hear are always making me laugh or startle
in inappropriate contexts.
END BOX
Vampires
At night, School becomes Night School. This is very much the same except that instead of
children, the students are either adults taking special classes or vampires.33
Let me talk about vampires for a bit.
Most people are scared of vampires; their movements and spiritual emanations trigger the
death-fear and the predator-fear in the human soul. However vampires in the modern world
typically consume negative energy (worry, fear, and pain) instead of blood; many of them have
taken a moral stand on the matter, while even those with an active taste for blood have the same
opinions on murder and assault as any other citizen of Town. If a vampire wishes to reassure
humans of their docility, they will drink pillow-teeth tea, a concoction of octopus ink and
various Horizon herbs which makes their fangs squishy like marshmallows and unable to rip
open human necks. If they wish to deny humans this reassurance they may wear T-shirts
comically playing up their ability to rip your neck open without breaking a sweat, instead.
A vampire feeding on you is usually ........................................... Corruption or Metamorphosis
Having a vampire eat your worries is probably kind of pleasant, and Ive heard good things
of the whole blood thing as well but its still somebody changing you from outside yourself,
so the HG may treat it as an attack and invoke a Corruption or Metamorphosis Scene if it
affects you.
Drinking pillow-teeth tea is usually ............................................. Corruption or Metamorphosis
Seriously, the stuff is the craziest thing a dentist has ever made me drink. I imagine that if
you got used to it, like, if youre using really small doses as a cavity prevention technique, it might
become a Slice of Life sort of thing. If youre a vampire, and you decide to drink it for the first
time, or to stop drinking it for that matter? Thats probably a Decisive Action, complete with a
monologue leading up to your decision. But usually? The HG should treat it as an attack and
potentially a Metamorphosis, complete with all the trippiness that can happen when local reality
gets disturbed.
After drinking the stuff, your teeth are kind of, um, spongy for a bit.
The predator-fear usually triggers .............................................................................. Obsessive Action
Vampires are almost always safe, and even when theyre not the fear will feel exactly the
same, so their threatening presence probably doesnt qualify as Trouble unless youre a total
33
Vampires, even vampire children, avoid School during the day because they do not like catching on fire.
Horizon n00b. Instead, incidents where youre really feeling the vampire-fear provoke Obsessive
Action.
Fear sweeps over you. You get worked up over it. You do something over the top. Ideally,
somebody notices and emotes a reaction; or, maybe, the vampire catches you (and reassures you,
probably) or goes away, ending the Obsessive Action scene.
Investigating Night School is usually about ............................................................................ Discovery
You explore. You find neat, scary, or mysterious things, and, ideally, emote a response!
Note that you probably wont find anything mysterious.
I mean, maybe objectively, you would? But it takes a lot for something to seem mysterious
in Horizon, what with the Property that people must accept what is happening around them as
normal
So finding something neat or scary is much less rare!
Invoking vampiric power could be a .............................................................................................. Ritual
Youre probably not a vampire. Even if you are, its probably just, you know, a thing. But if
you are a vampire, and you want it to be this echoing, uncanny, transformative power in you,
then calling on your vampiric nature could be a gothic permutation of the standard magical girl
transformation sequence. Youd play something like that out using the Ritual Action rules.
(Superior) Vampire
This is the Skill that lets a vampire eat negative emotions and blood instead of normal food; lets
them have vampire children; gives you, if you are a vampire, the immunities and recuperative
properties of the living dead. Its also a rough measure of how intimidating and predatory
humans find your body language when youre not actively disguising your true nature.
The levels look like this:
Vampire 0: You think of yourself as a vampire. You maybe act a bit like one?
Vampire 1: Youre vampire-like. You can get decent nutrition off of blood, your night
vision is good, youre extremely resilient, and your metabolism is extremely slow. This is a good
level for someone who almost died, but was saved by a bit of vampire blood, or by connecting to
a vampiric spirit, or something.
Vampire 2: Are you a half-vampire? A young vampire? Unusually alive? Your fangs are very
small. If you plan to turn someone else into a vampire, have medical assistance on hand, since
theres a very high risk that youll just kill them. You can survive starvation, asphyxiation, and
drowning, but you need mortal food and air to function. You also need a bit of blood or negative
energy now and then to keep your powers active. You give off this is a dangerous human vibes
and can smell blood from a long way away. Your senses are generally keen and your night vision
is excellent.
Vampire 3: Youre a vampire. Youre dead, but you walk. You can survive off of blood or
negative emotions. You can eat negative emotions sipping lightly from ambient worry, fear,
pain, and possibly jealousy or anger or whatever, or drinking these things straight from
someones mind. You dont need air, you dont need food, you dont need water, you dont age,
you heal quickly, and your natural way of moving freaks people out. It is terrifying.
You have the sense of smell of a bloodhound and its even better for blood. The rest of
your senses are generally keen, but not that much better than at Vampire 2.
At this level you can make vampire children, although I dont know how I have, um, not
yet actually, um, interviewed a vampire on this subject. I assume its like in modern vampire
fiction but for all I know you just use a really goofy secret handshake and then wibble the tips of
their ears a lot with your fingers. I dont know! Your PC might not know either.
Vampire 4: You are some sort of super-vampire or primordial pre-vampire or post-vampire

or something. I dont know what these are, but its such a common idea in fiction that if youve
got an idea of what that would be, I think it would be OK to use it.
Vampire 5: You are a living vampire. I dont know what this means either! Except that
its actually scarier than a regular vampire instead of weaker like youd expect.
This is mostly just the Skill of being a vampire it might include strength and grace and stuff, but
only when youre using it to do vampire-type things like hunting or pointlessly showing off for a
romantic interest and it doesnt come with any Edge. For that reason vampires often supplement
this with two more Superior Skills, discussed below, and a variety of Bonds, Perks, Afflictions,
and unique magical Skills to simulate the classic vampire abilities like animal-summoning,
transformations, or flight.
Superior Vitality
This is the unnatural health and strength of the living dead.
Vampires are really strong. Im benchmarking a typical vampire PC at the strength and
vitality of a bear thats Superior Vitality 3. Thats both a skill really strong/tough 3 and 3
points of Edge in any mundane conflict where strength and toughness comes into play.
In the bigger picture this Skill looks something like:
Superior Vitality 0: Mortal strength! Whats wrong with you??
Superior Vitality 1: This gives you a small supernatural edge, but not an awesome one.
Superior Vitality 2: You can effortlessly overpower most humans, but youre still in the
rough vicinity of mortal strength. You can only do things that are realistic for someone really
strong.
Superior Vitality 3: Youre as strong and tough as a bear, and maybe stronger. You can
tug-of-war evenly with like 8 strong guys. Given long enough you can probably break through
metal.
Superior Vitality 4: Your strength is pretty limitless. You can crumple steel, drag tractors
around, and so forth.
Superior Vitality 5: Your strength doesnt even make physical sense any more: you can
catch falling airplanes, bat elephants casually out of your way, and it is vaguely possible that your
jaw is strong enough to bite holes in space-time. Characters like the Prodigy may still be able to
outwrestle you, but the HG can reasonably require them to give a stirring monologue or endure
a Trouble Scene before marshalling the strength to do so.
Superior Physical Control
Vampires are also pretty fast, dexterous, and graceful. Im benchmarking this at Superior
Physical Control 1, which isnt anything to write home about, but you might consider giving up
a point of something else and buying your way up to 2, which would put you up there with
cinematic ninjas, martial artists, pulp heroes, Robin Hood, and the like.
In the larger picture, this Skill probably looks like:
Superior Physical Control 0: Clumsy as the living!
Superior Physical Control 1: You move with an unnatural grace and precision, but you
cant do that much with it without another skill to enhance.
Superior Physical Control 2: Youre better than any human, but the best gymnasts,
runners, and fighters out there might be able to almost keep up with you and edge out a victory
by sheer experience.
Superior Physical Control 3: You can pour tea safely while on the back of a bucking
horse.
Superior Physical Control 4: You can catch a single drop of water from a splash or throw
a needle into the eye of a hornet.
Superior Physical Control 5: Unlimited precision of movement, which I guess means that
you can do things like . . . um . . . sing a note to cancel out the waveform of another sound, hide
from somebody searching for you in a closed elevator, paint photorealistic images in seconds,
and the like?
Teachers
Most of the teachers are just ordinary teachers. Theyre messed up or wicked, because thats the
law of Horizon, but theyre still pretty ordinary a teacher is more likely to be an obsessive
pencil counter than an obsessed collector of students skin; more likely to believe themselves in
18th century France than to believe that the world must be sacrificed to some wicked god; more
likely to be pettily cruel or ideologically evil than murderous, sadistic, or monstrous. You might
start the morning with a cat running homeroom not a talking cat, just an ordinary cat with a
diploma from a diploma mill; move on to a class with a muttering eccentric; then, after a break
for lunch, round out the afternoon with a deviant scientist, a nihilistic unrepentant murderer on
work release, and a fervent breatharian nutritionist.34 Youd get to go home still alive!
That said, there are some teachers who are actively dangerous to the children of Horizon:
theyre just the meat and drink of specific campaigns and encounters and not an assumed part of
a young characters life.
Class with a Deviant Scientist is usually............................................... a source of Obsessive worry
Class with a Deviant Scientist can also be ............................................................................... Trouble
Whether its Dr. Ellen Kinnegan with her botanical experiments or mild-mannered Mr.
Hawke with his railguns and robotics, theres always the brooding sense hanging over the class
that somethings about to go terribly wrong.
Class with the Unrepentant Murderer is usually ............................... a source of Obsessive worry
Obviously Mr. Red wont jeopardize his work release just to kill you, probably. He is very
clear that those stains on the wall are not blood, or not his students blood anyway. Besides,
hell say airily, the Principals always bleeding. That could totally be from him. Hahahahahaha.
Then hell look at you, very seriously and sincerely, and say, like a lover, Nothing matters,
you know. Not even maths.
Class with the Self-Effacing Teacher is usually ................................................... Shared Reactions
Its practically impossible to even remember this guys face, much less his name, or to listen
to whatever hes trying to say. Does he have eyebrows? Does he speak your language? Is he even
your teacher, or is this another class run by the cat? This one time he showed up wearing a pink
and lavender suit because he wanted to tell people he was getting married, but he lost your
attention somewhere before saying to whom.
34
teach the controversy!
Usually his world history class is an occasion for lively discussion of sports, family matters,
and love.
Class with the Shriveled Teacher is usually .......................................................................... Adversity
This is a wizened old man named Mr. Morgan. He has stone fingernails that are long and
sharp. He is cruel and extremely good at justifying his cruelty; he is able to make an impeccable
case that almost anybody deserves whatever punishment he feels like handing out, and according
to legend can cow even a hero into standing down. There is a rumor that if he ever gives
anybody an A+ or an honest compliment he will catch fire and burn away.
BOX OR SPREAD Ogre-Sensei
Zo Rosewood, aka
Ogre-Sensei
excerpt from art by Miranda Harrell
(The) Ogre-Sensei is very passionate about poetry, literature, math, and the right of his or her
unworldly cannibalistic tribe to continue existing as themselves. This ogre is a very good and
challenging teacher except that sometimes in the middle of their class when nobody is paying
attention one or two students vanish . . . and they are never seen again.
Could the teacher be eating them?
And why cant the best minds and hearts of the student body turn this ogre into a giant
human egg?
By default this Main Character is Mrs. Zo Rosewood, but you could swap her job and title
with that of her husband, the Principals usher and bodyguard Hugh. Other variations include
making her a risen ghoul or tank-model zombie instead of an ogre, giving her a high-level special
seminar instead of a class, or making her and Hugh fresh-faced School-age geeks smart enough
to teach one particular class during the current budgetary crunch.
Extracurricular interactions w/ the Ogre-Sensei are usually ................................................... Trouble
Shes terrifyingly, freakishly strong like, she can beat the Prodigy in hand-to-hand
combat. She can smell where youve been for the last three days from up to a quarter mile away.
Her skin can turn a knife. Also, she eats people. Well, her tribe does, anyway. And she thinks
thats their moral right.
Ogre-Senseis class is usually .......................................................................................... Foreshadowing
She likes to pick topics that matter to people.
Ogre-Senseis class is sometimes ........................................................................... Sympathetic Action
You werent paying that much attention. Then, bam, suddenly this class is very important.
Like, youve just realized that one of the students is gone. Or shes casually mentioned something
directly relevant to your interests, like a discussion of what your family was doing fifty years back
or a story about something youre looking for.
If you freeze up in shock, someone else can attempt Sympathetic Action.
Extracurricular interactions w/ Ogre-Sensei are sometimes ..................................... Never Say Die!
You refuse to accept that shes too strong to fight and too something to befriend or
investigate and turn into a human egg. You stand up to her. Maybe you even seek her out and
stand up to her.
Never Say Die!
END BOX
BOX OR SPREAD The Practical Teacher
Mrs. Senko, aka

the Practical Teacher
excerpt from art by Miranda Harrell
This Main Character is a very good teacher (probably covering rational thinking, citizenship,
or topics in reason and philosophy) but disapproves of childishness and imagination. The
Practical Teacher is always trying to convince students to abandon their fanciful ideas and
study hard so that they can go to the Bleak Academy beyond the far Outside, for which this
character is a local representative and recruiter.
This Main Character is normally Mrs. Senko, daughter of the Headmaster of the Bleak
Academy, but may also be Mr. Senko, Jr., his grandson. Another possible variant is the
Impractical Teacher, who strives to madden students with whimsy and magic until they flee to
the Bleak Academy to escape the rampant chaos of Horizon life. (Or maybe that isnt the
purpose at all maybe they just want to laugh at the students for breaking down!)
The Practical Teachers class is sometimes ................................................................ Decisive Action
Perversely, the pressure of her practicality can result in your thinking about, and talking
about, your hopes and your wishes and your dreams. If you can catch someones attention with
this while youre laying out your ideas and hopes, and build towards a decision or towards a
decisive action, thats a great Decisive Scene.
The Practical Teachers class is usually .................................................................................. Corruption
She will try to break you down. She will try to get her hooks into your mind.
The Practical Teachers class is sometimes .................................................................. Never Say Die!
You refuse to give in. You refuse to bow to the ideology of the bleak. You stand up to her,
resist her power, and make a case for wishing, childishness, and the imagination or maybe you
just tell her off. This provokes, not a physical conflict, but a philosophical, psychological, and
verbal struggle
Never Say Die!

The Practical Teachers class is sometimes ............................................................. Shared Reactions
Its also possible that you might become friends with her over time and have classes where
instead of Corruption or struggle you wind up just kind of offering your alternate perspectives
on the kinds of things that have gone on. You work through your divergent emotions and your
ideas. You talk about how you live your lives. You try to connect!
END BOX
Deviant Science
Theres a pervasive strand of deviant science in Town, particularly in Arcadia, Horizon, and
Horizons School.
Heres how it works.
Deviant Science (aka Steampunk, Steam Science, or Science!) is a magical Skill. That
means that it can do basically anything while it may look like its bounded in some fashion by
the normal limits of human or human-like activity, it isnt. If you practice this science, you can
make a gyroscopically stabilized hand cannon or a clockwork alligator that really cries. You can
make a death ray. You can make anything imaginable, really, with only one limitation: practically
everything you can do with this Skill faces an Obstacle, meaning that youll probably need to
spend more Will than youd like. Harder stuff faces a larger Obstacle, and stuff outside the
standard steampunk thematics below usually gets a +2 Obstacle on top of that.
Note that deviant science is a kind of engineering and not just casting spells, so youre going
to need time to do your work. Sometimes you can hurry it a little, but if the HG thinks youre
pushing it too far youll take the outside the standard steampunk thematics penalty on those
grounds alone.
This Skill starts with two techniques that arent really magical at all
[Obstacle 0] Simple, practical, and realistic feats of engineering, such as putting together
a quick block and tackle.
[Obstacle 1] Unrealistically extensive clockwork.
I dont think other PCs need magic or a +2 Obstacle to do these characters like the Prodigy
can perform these techniques perfectly, and really, for a normal scientist, even the vastest
clockwork projects are going to be Obstacle 2 instead of Obstacle 3.
The next few techniques, conversely, are genuinely magical, or at least, well, deviant:
[Obstacle 1] Unrealistically elegant steam-powered machines.

[Obstacle 2] Self-motivated automata
[Obstacle 2] Artificial limbs
[Obstacle 2] Flying machines
[Obstacle 3] Thinking machines
[Obstacle 3] Death rays
[Obstacle 3] Transforming machines
Im not ready to say that any given application here is impossible to an ordinary engineer
Earth has plenty of flying machines, and in fact some of almost everything else! Im just going to
say that at this point, youve departed from normalcy.
Thats a problem for anyone trying to copy or understand your work
But for you its a plus. It means you can do remarkable things. If you want to whip up a
zeppelin in your garage, the HG doesnt have to spend a few hours trying to look up whether
that is a feasible or an unfeasible project. I mean, I assume that either engineering students at
MIT build zeppelins in their garage on a regular basis or that theres some reason why its just
not practical at all, I assume this is knowable, but it doesnt matter.
Youre a deviant scientist. Its Obstacle 2.
Similarly, if you want to build an actual artificial intelligence, the HG doesnt have to look
up the state of modern AI; we dont have to have a discussion as to why it hasnt lived up to its
early promise or whether a true AI automatically self-improves to a Singularity. The HG just has
to work with you to figure out whats appropriate to your Skill and to Town.
I wouldnt put it past normal, non-deviant scientists to invent some sort of death ray
Probably sound-based or whatever? Electricity?
But that isnt relevant either. If you want a death ray sound-based, electricity-based, even
remove the vital principle-based?
Bam. Thats Obstacle 3.
Wondering why Im only going up to level 3 here?
Its because Im reserving Obstacles 4 and 5 for steampunk adaptations of other magical
Skills techniques. For instance, the Kichi family can astral project while staring into their magical
pools. Thats Obstacle 2. The Yatskaya can embody a spirit or archetype; for them, thats
Obstacle 3. So a Kichi Pool Astral Projection Vapor Engine, replicating the Kichi technique,
would be Obstacle 4. Building a Yatskaya-Style TYPHON Interface Battlesuit Mark I,
summoning the spirit Typhon down into the wearers flesh: that would be Obstacle 5. Most
random stuff that isnt listed above or emulating an established technique from another magical
Skill will be Obstacle 3-5; once you hit Obstacle 5, thats as hard as anything gets.35
A really good Horizon laboratory can function as a +1 Tool for such a Skill as this.
35
So why not just build an All-Powerful I-Win Button, if youre at Obstacle 5 anyway? The answer: if you think
your character can make an All-Powerful I-Win Button, that is a better use of your time than a Yatskaya-Style
TYPHON Interface Battlesuit Mark I. . . . but its not worth ruining your character concept for. All mundane
actions, including actions to use magical devices, are heavily filtered through the HGs storytelling techniques
anyway, so its better to have a battlesuit that fits with the game and your characters story than something
named the All-Powerful I-Win button that does not!
BOX Bonds you Might Have
Common Bonds for a deviant scientist include such weaknesses as:
Bond: Im obsessed with numbers and measurements.

Bond: I have a tendency to monologue.
Bond: I prefer to do things the baroque and elaborate way.
Bond: I cant sleep when Im inspired. I can barely eat.
Bond: My hair looks goofy.
Bond: I am unaware of normal social conventions.
Bond: I automatically use my outside voice when talking about science!
Bond: I cannot resist a sufficiently compelling experiment.
Bond: I am impelled to doom myself through my own hubris.
Bond: I love my creations. My beautiful creations.
And such strengths as:
Bond: I am exceptionally good at making weapons.

Bond: I am exceptionally good at making robots.
Bond: I am at my best when building stuff with an animal theme.
END BOX
The Principal
Principal Entropy II, Magister, aka

The Principal
art by Tang Yuann
Once upon a time the Principal of Horizons School was Entropy I, Magister the King of
Evil and all evil things. Having learned that the world was doomed, he came down to Horizon
and built his School, there to cultivate students capable of becoming or creating a new world.
This he called the S.E.E.D. program.
No sooner did the program begin to bear fruit than he did, as well a child by (some say)
the Magistrix of the Third Age of Creation, Attaris Ebrt Appk, or (others say) by a mortal
woman; by the sun, then named Jade Irinka; or by God or the Devil themselves.
Thats this Main Character
By default, a 22-year-old male scholar named Principal Entropy II, although you could
make them secretly female, or the publicly female Principal Attaris II, or cut back or increase
their age.36
Lets assume this character is Entropy II, for now.
He killed his father and he stole his job
Well, officially, Entropy I decided that he had to leave suddenly, stripped off his bloody,
knife-gashed fireproof garments, handed them to his son as moving, family-connection type
music swelled, said, Son, Im going to need you to run the School while Im away, jumped into
the incinerator and flew up the chimney and was off; his son clung so fiercely to those garments
as he cried that the blood permeated and became an element of his hands . . .
but lets be realistic.
He killed his father, and he stole his job, only to discover that being Principal is not actually
all that rewarding. Now his hands drip eternally with blood and he must spend most of every day
buried deep in the Administration Complex of School handling paperwork, angry parents whose
children have been eaten, suspended, or otherwise unfortunate, and interpersonal issues at the
School.
These days Principal Entropy II lives on an evil island that flies around the sun. It comes
down from the sky in the morning and double parks, or, rather, fifty-thousand-fold parks on his
space and the adjacent parking spaces in the massive administration lot. Then he climbs down
36
for budgetary reasons
and it flies away until its time for the Principal to go home again at night. Fortunately for his
faculty nobody really uses cars in Horizon so as long as they remember not to park their bikes in
or call a hansom to the administration parking lot these events are unlikely to do harm.
Owing to the peculiar circumstances under which he assumed his apparently hereditary
office, Principal Entropy isnt actually that much older than the students at his School. He has
very strange ideas about how the School should be run but seems to have good intentions he
is intent on turning out students capable of handling anything life throws at them, and isnt afraid
to be cruel and authoritarian to get there. His private office is guarded by a labyrinthine trap-
infested warren of strange halls and filing cabinets; most students whom the teachers send to
meet with him must wait for him in the general Administrative Offices.
In his tenure the S.E.E.D. program continues; evidently, the worlds still under threat.
Meetings with the Principal are usually.......................................................................... Urban Fantasy
For him its like Decisive or Science/Faith/Sorcery Actions:
He monologues to you. He explains his perspective, and builds up to a choice. Then,

he acts!
Or . . . he decides to trust you with something. So he explains what he thinks youre

about, and what he thinks youre going to do, and then he gambles that youll do it.
. . . but hes often an NPC, so I dont think his epic actions matter here. What matters is that you
might feel sympathy for him; or scared, intrigued, or puzzled by what he says; or that it may be
such a shock to you that someone else can take a Sympathetic Action.
Or are they .................................................................................................................... Defining Moments
Its also possible that youre the one in the drivers seat here monologuing to or putting
your faith in him!
Being recruited into the S.E.E.D. program is often a ........................................... Defining Moment
Participating in the S.E.E.D. program is often ............................................................... Shared Action
S.E.E.D. functions a lot like any other School club the club mission, to create a new
world if this one gets destroyed, is great and epic and all but in practice involves sitting around
in a clubroom reading books, doing homework, and playing games. The exceptions arent usually
actions but long plotlines
Training missions or complex storylines where the Principal or PC/NPC who runs the club
tries to build up the participants potential; attempts to move forward with world-creation so the
club will have something to show off at the cultural festival; dangerous experiments like building
a small prototype world in the near Outside or reducing a basement lab to a state of raw chaos;
and being targeted by enemies from far away.
Incidentally, the actual process of creating a new world probably involves one student
turning into a giant tree or other axis mundi, another student turning into a crackling wall of fire
that surrounds it and keeps enemies at bay, and a few others becoming gardeners. Developing
these harsh truths into a plotline is left as an exercise for a reader or a later campaign.
Going into the Principals labyrinth is sometimes .............. a Struggle (Trouble or Never Say Die!)
Youre driven by some unavoidable circumstance to head into the labyrinth around
Principal Entropys private office. But youre overwhelmed and outmatched!
Or were you looking for trouble?
Did you have an option? Could you have waited for him in the Administrative Offices?
Thats more likely to be Never Say Die!
When he addresses the student body it is usually ....................................................... Foreshadowing
Hell say something that catches your attention. You listen for a while. Then, you react!
The Student Council
Six shards of the first Principal Entropy the Six Sins rule the Student Council of
Horizons School. They wear masks when about their official duties and hide invisibly among the
student body when they are not. They share the Principals dream of creating a new world, but
each has an alternate vision as to how it should be done.
They are:
Lee Scathing, who runs the Disciplinary Committee. A blood magician, he keeps tanks of
the Principals blood in his laboratory beneath the School and uses them to create poisons, refine
ordinary students into Hall Monitors, and craft new forms of life. He objects to the S.E.E.D.
program as too earthy, coarse, and human, believing that only a perfected being of total
innocence can re-create the world.
The Exultant runs the Travel Committee. He has learned the ways of the evil world and
the Outside. His sin is to love wickedness precisely because it is wickedness; he adores the purity
of bad intentions. His grand dream is to poison the Headmaster of the Bleak Academy with the
stuff of the Principals evil island, paralyzing him as a wasp might paralyze a spider, and using
him to host the eggs of newborn worlds.
Owler thinks itself a God, and laughs at the pride and the achievements of all other souls. It
runs the Catering Committee. It is a formless vitality: it has learned the trick of stepping from
body to body, possessing the new host and leaving the old host dazed and confused behind it. It
intends to create and become the new world itself, reshaping its borrowed flesh; then it will
abandon its new world-host, leaving it stuck eternally in the shape of the new Creation, while
Owler parties with such allies and lovers it can bring along as the new worlds eternal King and
Queen.
Mourning has no specified role on the Student Council. He is generally believed to be a

vampire prince, able to walk in day, and rejecting the pillow-teeth tea that would indicate his
refusal to harm mortals. He holds that it is from a vast field of corpses that the new world shall
be made; he spends his life engineering the great battle that shall give it birth.
Glass Spider runs the Finance and Budget Committee. He has a magic of naming to him,
the power to inject others with packages of compulsions, drives, and programmed thoughts
though he must purchase access to their minds from them for his more extreme and peculiar
endeavors. His belief is that it is not a student but a story that will remake the world a work
of art, which he seeks desperately to find someone to craft, that will, when played out physically
on the stage that is the world or (more likely) the Outside, give rise to new substance and new
form.
Finally, Impious runs the Athletics Committee. The sin of Impious is to love the wounded,
and their strength in surviving hardship, so much as to forget that there is more to them than
just their wounds. It is the belief of Impious that only a creature that returns from utter
ruination, from being utterly broken, can become the seed of a beautiful new world.
Working for the Student Council is usually ................................................................................ Wicked
In a typical Horizon game the Student Council is very gray but not actually evil
I mean, with the possible exception of Owler, they can all maintain at least the faade of
humaneness and more than a faade of having a legitimate reason to exist. They should all
probably be thrown into a volcano or something, but theres at least a 30% chance that some of
them are salvageable as people and a 5% chance that theyre necessary to saving existence and
humanity from being lost.
So, working for them isnt necessarily evil. Theyll tempt you into it, theyll try to sway you
into it, and it wont be evil.
Itll just be . . . bad.
Unhealthy.
Not good for you at all.
You may get an invitation. They may offer you a mask and powers and a place among them,
or a junior role assisting the luminaries of the place. They may offer you an ordinary job, or ask
for your help with their secret agenda.
Its not healthy, so its Wicked, but I guess it isnt necessarily wrong.
Encounters with the Student Council are sometimes .......................................... the Road of Trials
Conversely, theres always a chance that they are laughing and brutal monsters, to a one.
School Uniforms
School has three standard uniforms, leaving aside accessories, options, and gender divisions.
These are colloquially known as the living colors, the dead colors, and School colors.
The first uniform is navy, white, and gold. This is for living students born in Town. The crest for
these living colors is the ourokompos, a classical symbol made of knotted snakes that
represents life upon the world. School regulations forbid this uniform and these colors to
vampires, ghosts, foreigners, unworldly creatures, and residents of the Outside; this is enforced
with penalties ranging from detention to expulsion and, in one case, according to rumor, with
death.37 This uniform is also forbidden to locals unfortunate enough to have been born on
foreign soil, although the penalties are less and students who moved to Town before their third
year of life or whose parents were both natives may apply for an exemption on that basis.
The second uniform is black and red. These are the dead colors, for foreigners and the walking
dead. The underlying cultural complex, which took me a while to tease out, is the notion that
ghosts and vampires are both immigrants from the land beyond the grave. There may also be
some xenophobia or at least patriotic fever involved in this juxtaposition; Im not altogether sure.
Though it varies from year to year, this uniform is generally more daring than the first uniform in
its cut and its style.
Living students born in Town are forbidden to wear the black and red, although there is an
exemption available for second-generation immigrants who consider themselves natives of a
different land. Its not clear whether this uniform is available to someone who dies and then
comes back, to someone who might as well be dead, or to characters of ambiguous homeland
such as the nearer straits of the Outside; its probably best to wear the black and gold, below,
while waiting for an exemption to go through. The crest for the dead colors is the red hand or
the empty red sun, two classic heraldic symbols for the Principal himself.
The third uniform is black and gold. Any student may avail themselves of these colors and
this design; its something of a failsafe, I think, although the student body has given it
connotations of elegance and formality as well. The crest for this uniform is a symbol of sun and
stars.
School has separate athletic uniforms, but theyre not as strictly regulated (except within the
individual teams) and they tend to have both functional and aesthetic variations. The School
animal is the jackalope, a jackrabbit with antlers and a pheasants tail, and many teams and
several clubs have taken it as their mascot and their blazon.
37
I suspect that if this happened at all the circumstances were not as I have heard.
Bluebell Park
Bluebell Park
Emotions must have a tangible impact on the world.

People must honor customs and forms.
Events must repeat themselves until something
transformative happens.
The lake must be tranquil.
art by Ciaoffen
Everyone must have musical talent.
A terrible power must sleep among the bluebells by
the lake.
Typical Genre: Techno
This Region is stylized, unsettling, and brilliantly colorful. It is a shock to the senses.
It is a haunted place.
Wish spirits live here. They encourage people to dream, to desire, to want things. That isnt
all, though. Theres something darker, something that takes people out of themselves, something
that makes them less human and more their public/social identity a place where you are
perfected and taken away from yourself, both at once, where your every movement becomes
more dramatic, more confident, more emotional, and more precise.
Bluebell Park is Towns premiere destination for both romantic walks and duels. This is not
simply the choice of the people of Town, but something of the Parks nature the place is
ambiguously located. It seems to drift into the path of those who are seeking, or finding, a
profound emotional experience with another. It takes a certain conscious will or very careful
attention to ones surroundings or ones maps to reliably avoid Bluebell Park at such times, and so
the bulk of Town has learned to live with it, even to value it. Two lovers, walking, will look up,
and see they walk in Bluebell Park, and smile; and Shall we meet at Bluebell Park? is a standard
invitation to either a romantic walk or a duel, with the occasional memorable misinterpretation in
result.
Love and battles open your heart to your partner or opponent.
In Bluebell Park, they also open you up to the archetypes and symbols that live within
yourself.
Area: 275 acres

Population: ~5 + 11,000 wish spirits
Who is Bluebell Park?
Bluebell Park is the you that you dont know. Its the part of yourself that you hide from
yourself. Its the unleashed you, sometimes; the real you, sometimes; the hidden you, sometimes.
Maybe those are the same things and maybe theyre not, but theyre all faces it can wear.
It may lock its gates against those who have high Sickness. Theyre not really themselves
any longer and so the Park rejects them even if its the source of their sickness, even if its
metaphysical nature descends when they break from reality and the sickness gets worse, it still
bars them from the physical Park itself.
Conversely the Park may actively hunt down those characters with high Vice or
Mystery, moving through Town to place its paths before them, reveling in giving them
opportunities to indulge their wickedness or to learn more about themselves. The Park is
sickening, actively sickening, to someone who has issues theyre not facing, and sometimes to
anybody who is fighting hard to control themselves and who they are.
So when you go into Bluebell Park, thats something you can use to decide how it reacts.
How do you feel about the parts of yourself that you dont usually see? Are they a wonder to
you? A horror to you? Something that you want to see?
Its not quite that simple, though, because youre not the only one in Bluebell Park. At least,
not most of the time. Most of the time, theres someone else in there with you.
Their emotions will reach you, if they want them to. They can pierce you with them, bend
you to their will with their words and feelings alone. Its dangerous to go into Bluebell Park with
someone, even if they think theyre not going to push you into anything, because youre dealing
with not just them but their inner truths.
On the other hand, theres a saying that we can never really know anybody else; that we live
alone and we die alone; that other people are aliens to us, Outside creatures to us, sources of
fear, and mystery, and unease. That doesnt have to be true. You can see into someones soul.
You can feel their heart. You can know their truth.
You dont have to be alone. You can take the risk and you can actually understand
somebody else, if youre willing to risk yourself.
So, as the enemies of the world might say
Shall we meet at Bluebell Park?

The South
The southern portion of Bluebell Park is a heavily-landscaped area built around a central lake or
pond. I dont know what to call it its way too big to be a pond, practically half a mile long,
but its a skinny little thing, barely as wide as two football fields, so I feel a little uneasy calling it a
lake.
Its a body of water, anyway.
Theres a muddy grass rise that runs lengthwise down the lake. I wouldnt want to walk it
but you could, youd just get your boots pretty wet. Its not straight: it wiggles this way and that
like it was dividing up a yin-yang symbol.
Theres a cobblestone walking path around the lake. There are benches you can sit on.
There are shops around the lake not many, just a few. Theres a couple of cafs, an art
gallery, an old broken-down smithy, and a bookstore.
There are trees and banks of flowers. Theres grass. The whole area is surrounded by low
white walls with red tiles on top.
The Childrens Area
Off to the west of the landscaped area is a small, lightly wooded area with mostly-cleared dirt
ground, animal-shaped statues, and a low wall that surrounds it. In theory it is a viable place for
children to play while parents walk along the cobblestone way or duel upon the bridge.
Bluebell Park, for the Shallow
Maybe youre not thinking right now. Maybe youre relaxed. Maybe your heart hasnt been battered
lately, maybe theres nothing youre really hiding from yourself, maybe your biggest secret right
now is that youve really got to pee.
Have you been running, for exercise I mean, and your bodys full of endorphins?
Are you celebrating turning in a big assignment?
Are you the Wishing Boy, maybe, in the full flower of the Ordinary?
For you, the Park will probably be a safe and shallow place. You wont find anything too
strange there because there is nothing that youre hiding from yourself. At worst, a little bit of
sickness of the place will slip into you, and even thats pretty rare.
For the shallow, visiting Bluebell Park is rarely .......................................................................... Trauma
For just a moment the colors in this place were too bright, too sharp, a little bit disorienting
and disturbing. For just a moment the smell was a bit too sweet. And maybe you start dreaming
about it later, maybe it seeps in and you dream jumbled, disruptive dreams of those colors, those
flowers, and those scents, that wake you up sweating and make it hard to sleep again. Maybe you
see it sometimes, randomly, later, even when awake, when you close your eyes.
But, like I said, thats rare.
For the shallow, Scenes in Bluebell Park are usually just ....... Setting (Slice of Life or Discovery)
You see something. It stirs your emotions how pretty! How scary! How weird!
Bluebell Park, for the Troubled
Youre troubled. Theres something eating at you. Theres something confusing you. You wander
into Bluebell Park.
It is a garden of strange symbols.
It is trying to tell you . . .
What?
Figuring out what its trying to tell you is sometimes ..................................................... Epic Fantasy
Maybe youve seen some stuff and you think youve figured out what its all trying to tell
you. Maybe you take over the scene from the beginning, saying, Here is what I see.
Anyway, you explain where youre at in your head, and what youre seeing, and then you
make a choice. And the HG can allow that choice, and that private vision, and thats going to be
Decisive.
Or the HG can deny that choice, say that is what you want to see, but here is what
Bluebell Park actually shows you and if you accept that, and it hurts you, then that must have
been a Science, Faith, and Sorcery Action; but if you deny it, isnt that a Wicked Action instead?
Figuring out what its trying to tell you is usually ......................................................... Urban Fantasy
You walk the paths of Bluebell Park and they are full of strange happenings and strange
symbols. You see Foreshadowing, you make Discoveries, and every now and then
You see something that freezes you up.
Maybe you were with someone, and figured you were safe, because why would the Park pay
any attention to you when you were with them?
But you see something anyway. You round a corner and theres a statue of you; or you
suddenly see a momentary, flickering vision of the person youre with killing you; or something
else comes up that you absolutely cant ignore, something that you werent expecting. Maybe a
dying wish spirit, if you love them. Maybe a letter reaches you from a friend. Maybe you realize,
or at least think for a moment, that youre walking into the mouth of a giant wolf!
You freeze up.
Thats an occasion for the person youre with to take a Sympathetic Action.
Diligence and Repression, in Bluebell Park
Sometimes youve got something youre repressing. Sometimes theres something in you or the
world that you dont want to face.
Sometimes youre diligent and serious and honest and brave and good.
You will hear something, then, like a high-pitched buzzing or ringing sound. You will feel it,
then, as you walk through Bluebell Park a stifling blanket of terror and darkness pushing in
on you. Everything will be wrong, wrong, wrong, and terrible. It will build and twist within you.
I think that this is supposed to actually be two different experiences, one for those in denial
and one for those who are good. Not many people have visited the Park both while in one state
and not the other, and then in the other state and not the one, and certainly not in close
temporal proximity, so its hard to say for sure. But Im told that it really is different, that its the
difference between having something twisting within you and being on a high plateau without
any air. Its the same sweep of ever-worsening nausea and I dont belong here that youll experience
either way, but its still two different kinds of experience deep-down.
I dont know. I really dont! But that is what I am told.
This wrongness of Bluebell Park is sometimes ............................................................................. Trouble
Youre freaking out. This place is making your head spin and your ears ring. Youre starting
to see something, to feel something. Everythings going weird. You have to get out of here. Or
maybe if you can sit down, maybe if you can close your eyes and wait it out
Or maybe you can fight for a limited, tactical victory. Just hold out for 5 minutes. Just get
through this for a little bit of the walk.
Then suddenly you realize something like you have never actually been yourself, youre a puppet of a
former self and the only reason you dont know it is that some monstrous machine wiped your memory . . .
After the lull, you see, comes fear.
This wrongness of Bluebell Park is sometimes .............................................................................. Wicked
You shouldnt be here. Its too vivid. Its too strange. Your world is going a little weird. You
should run. You should get out. But you dont.
Maybe youre on a romantic walk with somebody. You dont want to embarrass yourself.
Heck, youre thinking. Maybe this isnt even really unhealthy. Maybe this is . . . maybe this is
what being in love feels like? Maybe youre not going out of your head, maybe this is what being
on a romantic walk with somebody you care about is like? Everything smells so sweet. Hospital-
sweet but sweet. Everything is so bright. The person youre with is so pretty, so handsome. Their
voice is so far away.
You should run, but you dont.
This wrongness of Bluebell Park is sometimes ....................................... Corruption/Metamorphosis
Or maybe its too late from the moment you get there. Maybe its all eating into your head
from the moment you get there and the only thing to do is to enjoy it if you possibly can.
Experiencing this wrongness is sometimes .................................................................................. Adversity
You freak out. You run. Or fall down and throw up. It messes you up. You do something
that can only be called over-the-top, considering that youre just in a pretty, vivid park and not
some weird sort of Hell.
and you tip over the edge into delirium.

BOX The Ideologue
Salute! Apocynum!
Struck by a dodgeball, this Main Character achieved enlightenment and realized that the
world is a lie and an illusion. Now it is the mission of the Ideologue to shatter the four mystical
gates that protect that lie, opening everyones mind to the True Thing beyond. Luckily, part of
the dodgeball enlightenment package includes a magnificent mansion in Bluebell Park,
shapeshifting ability, and the power to pull out peoples hearts and turn the rest of them into a
normally giant monster to pilot against a gate.
(Naturally this resolves or helps resolve whatever psychological issues might have been
troubling them.)
This Main Character is usually (Princess) Jasmine Apocynum, a PC-aged girl, but could
also be a PC-aged boy named (Prince) Jasper Apocynum. One weakness of her shapeshifting
is that most of the time, and regardless of what shape she wears she has Riders eyes,
that is, a field of night interrupted by falling stars rather than the whites, pupil, and iris of
ordinary human eyes.
She is the main character of the novel, Fable of the Swan.
Jasmine Apocynum, aka

the Ideologue
art by Tony Damiani
END BOX
Shall we Meet at Bluebell Park?
Its OK to visit Bluebell Park for a formal, pre-planned date or any kind of duel even if youre a
good person or have something youre repressing. The Park will get involved with such things
but it wont sicken you. What I mean is, if you happen to just wander into the Park, willingly or
otherwise, on a date, then it can be a dangerous place; but if you arranged to go there, from the
beginning, its actually a lot safer. Its also a lot safer for people with dueling on their mind
whether they meant to show up there or not. Its as if the challenge/invitation, shall we meet at
Bluebell Park? is a tonic against the poisons of the place.
Preparing for a duel or date in Bluebell Park is often ............................................................... a Ritual
Shall we meet in Bluebell Park?
Preparing for the duel or date is likely to be a Ritual. This is particularly true if one of the
characters thinks its a date and the other thinks its a duel.
The start of the Ritual is somebody answering the eponymous question with their
agreement. They nod, or say, Yes, or Fine, or OK, or whatever. If they agree but cant do
it just then, then the Ritual begins instead with someone remembering that moment touching
or looking at the clothes theyre going to wear and musing, Shall we meet in Bluebell Park?
Then you and other characters take a series of ritual actions
describing one of the things you do to prepare;

posing or otherwise showing off in an iconic fashion associated with the clothes
youre putting on;
snarkily commenting on the process;
talking about what your fears or dreams about whats going to happen; or
Invoking an unrelated symbol of power (e.g., the Ritual Power Combo Move on pg.
XX) to merge the two ritual invocations together.
The ritual ends with someone dropping a handkerchief or other cloth and saying, Go. At this
point the two characters involved either meet at the gates of Bluebell Park, or, if at least one of
them expected a duel, they face one another on the southern bridge.
The principal benefit to the ritual is the possible XP therefrom, plus the fact that the park
wont make you sick while youre there for one of these purposes, but you may also receive a
beautiful cut flower or other gift from an admirer in the park.
Dueling, in Bluebell Park
Shall we meet at Bluebell Park?
A typical duel is held on the wooden bridge across the lake in the southern portion of
Bluebell Park. Melee weapons or unarmed combat is the norm, and the legal code in Town
doesnt have a dueling exemption for murder, but other than that theres no defined protocol.
Duels in Bluebell Park are usually ................................................................................................ a Ritual
The duelists must take their places on the bridge. Someone ideally not a participant
begins the ritual by saying, Go, and dropping a handkerchief if such a thing is available.
The ritual plays out like an ordinary Scene, with the following exceptions
You can emote or share a memory as an attack. The feelings in your heart will reach
your opponent, and the emotion or memory will manifest physically in an effective
combat technique. This functions as a level 2 Bond and gives the attack minor
supernatural effects.
Up to three times total, the participants can declare a remarkable defense against
some attack, avoiding its impact. Instead of describing the consequence of the
attack, or allowing it to inflict a wound, the HG describes weird symbolic things
happening around the park. (This will not defend against attacks with 3 or more
Strike.)
As usual with a Ritual Scene, you should expect to take turns when acting unless
the HG tells you to speak, or your characters are in physical contact, or youre
declaring a remarkable defense, you should stay silent when somebody else is taking
an action. The word should is intentional this is a matter of form and courtesy
and not an absolute obligation.
The duel ends after three remarkable defenses are declared. If either participant is not satisfied,
the participants may exchange one final flurry of one action each. If the duel stops before that
point, the HG can point at participants and demand they attack something (themselves, the other
party, or whatever else seems appropriate) until three such defenses are used or somebody takes
an action with 3 Strike to interrupt or break free of the ritual.
Time Together, in Bluebell Park
Sometimes when you emote in Bluebell Park it is extra loud to everyone around you. They can
feel an echo of the emotion itself.
Sometimes when you try to connect with someone, you do.
Functionally this is just a Property of the Region Emotions must have a tangible impact
on the world. You can treat such Properties as level 2 Bonds, adding +2 to relevant mundane
actions that have to overcome Obstacles such as the Obstacle preventing you from effectively
conveying certain emotions or feelings to others or the Obstacle keeping two peoples souls and
hearts disjoint. There isnt always such an Obstacle, 38 but sometimes there is, and it will range
from 1-4 depending on how hard it is for the target to understand you.
You can lose yourself in someone else, here. You can fall into the truths inside them and
then you dont have to be alone.
You shouldnt do this. You shouldnt let someone do this, into you. Its wrong.
But if you want to, you can.
Sharing emotions is sometimes ........................... Decisive Action or Science, Faith, and Sorcery
Trusting someone with your heart or trusting someone to show you theirs, here in
Bluebell Park where the emotion can strike you fully thatll typically play out in a Defining
Moment.
A Decisive Action, maybe, where you explain the reasons for your feelings, and then share
your heart; or a Science, Faith, and Sorcery Action where you build up to that moment of trust.
Falling entirely into someone elses emotions is usually ........................................................... Wicked
Letting someone fall entirely into your emotions is usually also ............................................. Wicked
This isnt healthy. You can touch someones soul here, but you shouldnt let it overwhelm
you.
But you decide to let that happen anyway.
You decide to dissolve into them, or vice versa. Theres a break from reality, weird special
effects, as your souls touch and one of you falls into the other. Maybe the special effects are your
perceptions of the spirits involved. Maybe theyre things like: youve noticed hedges carved into
the shapes of people as you walk, but now theyre all looking away or covering their eyes; or, the
38
Sometimes you know someone well enough that they totally get you even without magical intervention.
statue that showed two people talking earlier now shows one of them eating or tied to or
merging with or seducing the other.
Maybe the HG tells you what could be at stake and gives you a chance to back out. Maybe
they lay out the risks for you. If they dont, or if you hear those risks and go ahead anyway: thats
a Wicked Action.
Sharing emotions is usually......................................................................................... Shared Reactions
You talk about something thats been going on with you. When your amped-up feelings
reach someones heart, thats usually connecting with them, making yourself vulnerable, and
them making themselves vulnerable all at once, so this is really very efficient as a Shared Reaction
goes.
The Abandoned Smithy
There is an abandoned blacksmiths shop near the pond. At one point it sold weaponry for
duels. At some point the blacksmith committed an error. Now the shop is securely boarded up.
The floor of the shop is rotten.
The basement beneath it has no visible floor. There is only darkness, on which a person
may stand, and a door that leads by unclear processes back to Bluebell Park. There in that dark
space the soul of the smith is suspended in agony and amidst molten metal. He has been in
Bluebell Park long enough that an archetypal nature overrides his will to be free of pain: he will
not allow himself to be freed or exorcised until appropriate circumstances occur.39
Most of this information along with several variations circulates as rumor at the
School.
Conversations with the blacksmith are usually .......................................................................... a Ritual
The start of this ritual: you go in. The world stops. At this point you cant interrupt players
unless your character is in physical contact with theirs or the HG points to you and tells you to
take an action.
The character who went in probably stands in darkness next to an agonized blacksmith
spirit covered in molten metal. Other characters who were in Bluebell Park probably experience
a sudden obstacle in the way of whatever they were doing a snowstorm, a windstorm, sudden
blindness or infirmity, statues bursting up from the ground in front of them when they try to
take a step, or swarms of bees. It probably doesnt stop them from acting, but it slows them
down to the point they dont finish whatever they were doing until just after the ritual completes.
When the spotlight is on you, you can do the following things:
State or emote your reaction to some recent event;

Emote your reaction to whats happening in the ritual itself;
Interacting with the obstacle, if youre outside;
Posing or otherwise showing off in some iconic fashion if youre inside;
Special actions associated with this ritual
o Giving up or sacrificing something;
o Saying cryptic allusions to the smith, and receiving a cryptic reply;
invoking a symbol of your own power, mixing the associated ritual in.
39
Those circumstances are a canon flexpoint. It is in fact a canon flexpoint whether thats actually whats
inside the smithy at all.
The ritual typically ends with the person inside stepping up and doing something to the
blacksmith. Kissing, embracing, stabbing, slapping, spitting on, poking out the eyes of, or
reaching for (before pulling back your hand) the blacksmith are all possible and suitable endings.
If a person outside wishes to end the ritual and complete whatever they were doing, they need an
action with at least 2 Strike. If the person inside wants to ignore the ritual and free or kill or
otherwise seriously mess with the blacksmith, they need an action with at least 4 Strike.
Participants in the ritual generally gain a point of Trust and find some mundane reward
waiting for them in their School locker or mailbox the next day.
Canon flexpoint this term isnt actually standard. It just means: this can only be determined in
play. Its something I dont know, but more importantly, its something you should try not to
know at first either, even if youre the HG; wait for it to become apparent to you through the course
of play.
END BOX
North
The northern portion of the Park is a light deciduous forest. It is a bluebell wood, and bluebells
grow there even out of the normal season not in the depths of winter, perhaps, but a
surprising coat of blue flowers spreads between the trees in spring, summer, and most of fall.
The weather is temperate here. Precipitation is rare.
Mysterious roughly-carved stone statues scatter through the forest. Most of them are
abstract, vaguely mathematical shapes. A few more resemble people or animals wearing strange
clothing. Some of them hold carefully covered or electric lamps that may be lit at night.
Dirt paths lead between the trees.
There are very few buildings in the wood one emergency shelter, two houses, and an
extensive tree house and fire watch post maintained by Horizons Park Association.
Traveling the north woods is sometimes.............................................................................. Corruption
You walk the woods in Bluebell Park. You travel through them to get to a particular statue,
or to get to a particular house, or just to escape after having been abandoned there.
The world goes weird.
Is it the flowers? The scent of the flowers? Is it fairies or wish spirits darting about in the
woods?
Youre changed.
Traveling the north woods is usually ........................................ Setting (Discovery or Slice of Life)
What do you find there? The image or mood you stumble on will stay with you for a while.
Examining the statues carefully is usually .................................................................................. a Ritual
The statues represent something sacred.40 You stare at the statues. You investigate them, or
touch them, or try to catalogue them.
The ritual is very simple:
you describe how youre examining the statues, and the HG describes what you see
or feel;
40
Just what? Another canon flexpoint: figure it out during the game.
you state or emote your reaction to some recent event, while examining a statue;
you pose near the statue in an iconic fashion;
you invoke some other Ritual, merging the two;
at some point, you ask, Do we know what these mean? and the HG answers
either:
o That has not been determined if even they dont know;
o That has not been revealed if they think they do; or
o answers, if you have enough information now to know.
The only reason not to ask the final question immediately is that youll get more potential XP
and have more fun if theres at least some meat to the scene!
BOX Wish Spirits
Towns wish spirits are natural spirits, like will-o-wisps and flower fairies, that make people wish
for things. They look like glowing dots of light or shapeless ghosts made from power. Sometimes
they look like fairies if you look very closely. They cant generally speak but they can emote. They
can encourage people to wish for things, too they have a Superior Encourage Wishing Skill
at level 2-3, although they can only encourage people to want things that either the target or the
wish spirit already wants.
Theyre mostly based in Arcadia and Bluebell Park, but they do show up elsewhere in Town:
at the Titov shrine, in graveyards and chapels, and in small gatherings in the Walking Fields
woods. They also like fireworks, so you might see them on any festival where there are fireworks;
they will often float up into the sky and echo the fireworks displays with patterns of their own.
Its said that if you can make friends with a wish spirit that youll be lucky all year but
theyre not really social or able to communicate with humans, so the question of whether youve
made friends with one or not is a little ambiguous. They seem to have personalities, and to like
attention, and to react to your feelings, but theyre also pretty mercurial and alien and hardly any
of them can talk. Think empathic alien fireflies who like wishing hearts but get bored of you
pretty easily and youll have a good sense of what theyre like!
Wish Spirit
END BOX
Wish Spirits
Wish spirits are found everywhere in Town, but they are most common here in Bluebell Park.
Walking among the wish-spirits can be ........................................................................ Foreshadowing
You watch them as they spin and play. They pulse with emotion. They stir wishes in your
heart.
Walking among the wish-spirits is usually ........................................................................... Slice of Life
You watch them. You feel something. That moment sticks with you.
A Text for use in Bluebell-Park-Related Transitions: Excerpt from La Belle Dame Sans Merci, by
John Keats
The First Duelist:
O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.
I see a lily on thy brow,
With anguish moist and fever-dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.
The Second Duelist:
I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautifula faerys child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.
I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A faerys song.
She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she wept and sighed full sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.

The Shopping District
Properties of Arcadia
Time must pass quickly, except during meals.

You must spend more than you expected.
You must have a good time.
You must be kind to others.
You must want things you didnt get.
Boys must carry packages for girls.
Stray cats must be fed.
art by Ciaoffen Nobody can experience wondering where money or
goods actually come from.
Typical Genre: Urban Fantasy or Techno
Towns shopping district, Arcadia, is a fast-paced whirl of fun, materialism, and delight. Its the
place to go for new books, comics, games, toys, and clothes, not to mention food and fun. Its
got karaoke, miniature golf, skate parks, regular parks, and an active flea market, as well as
Towns only serious electronics depot, its largest arcade, most of the best pancake and noodle
shops, and the best pie and meat bun shops, Mrs. Porridges and the Golden Phoenix Bun Shop
respectively, in Town. Its designed to be the kind of place you can lose endless hours to whether
you have a few coins in your pocket or a fresh weeks allowance or paycheck to spend.
Most of the time when characters visit the Shopping District theyll either take a whirlwind
trip through vistas of fun and somewhat materialistic joy or theyll settle down in some park,
shop, or restaurant for a meal with their friends. Its a good place for bonding experiences, for
showing off how your character does things, and, of course, for getting overly distracted by
possessions of various sorts.
The Shopping District is where most of Towns youkai live not that there are terribly
many, of course, these days, but those that there are mostly live here. Its the kind of place where
fox-spirits sometimes dally with humans, umbrellas and old kites sometimes turn into monsters,
and fox-people, tree-spirits, and teenagers meet up on the weekends to mill, dance, read books,
listen to music, and dress up in cosplay or visual kei.

Population: 4,800
(4,450 humans / 250 youkai / 100 robots)
Style
The Shopping District is very modern. Its all shiny. Everything is glamorous. Theres a lot of big
glass windows and a bit of neon and even a few giant television screens showing advertising on
buildings sides. There are regular street performances. Theres statuary (classic and modern) and
cool architecture. Wish spirits float through the air, even in broad daylight. Strange but
interesting creatures lurk in the alleys and the corners and are even found running the shops!
Theres plenty of room to walk on most of the sidewalks, and theres lots of nice trees planted
along the way, and theres tile-and-fountain plazas and glorious parks and a ton of cool little local
stores.
Theres a river running through the Shopping District. Its a pretty feature so theres a lot of
foot-bridges, riverside walks, and river views.
The business section of Town is here. Its not huge really, theres only a few blocks to it,
swollen up a bit with a contained park or two and a handful of experimental projects but its
got tall buildings, headquarters or local offices for a few big companies, mansions, a train stop,
and the twelve-story super-modern Methodology Building that was briefly the tallest, and is still
the second-tallest, building in all of Town.41
Shopping is rarely ............................................................................................................... Wicked Action
The Shopping District is a reasonably healthy place in general, but every now and then youll
see something that you know you shouldnt have or buy. Whether its a double umbrella (for
when one layer of umbrella isnt enough), a puff of cotton candy bigger than you are, the
deviant and sexually overpowering music of Buddy Holly or the Beatles, or just a rare comic that
you know is out of your budget, buying it when you know you mustnt is potentially a Wicked
Action.
Just how weird will the world get when you break from reality?
And will the HG warn you of the doom that is to come?
Street performances are usually ..................................................................................... Foreshadowing
Something catches your attention. You listen or watch, startled. Then after a while you react!
Usually, with: Awesome!
Shopping and window shopping is sometimes ........................................................... Obsessive Action
41
The tallest, of course, is the School.
You see something cool. You get worked up over it! You do something over the top,
tipping over the edge into obsession. Ideally somebody notices and reacts.
Sitting in a plaza with your friends and talking is usually ....................................... Shared Reactions
You talk about stuff thats happened or is happening. You reach out. You try to connect.
Shopping, window shopping, and wandering the District is usually ................................... Discovery
Youve just found something neat, scary, or mysterious!
Gawking at the sights is sometimes ........................................................................................ Slice of Life
Something stirs an emotional response wow? I want. thats kind of freaky.
The moment sticks with you; or, you get lost in that mood!
The Marvelous Electric Train
The Shopping District has nice wide asphalt roads for cars, but of course there just arent that
many cars in Town. Most of the actual transportation in Arcadia is ground-level electric trains.
These look very modern and super-cool they have the visual aesthetics of super-fast bullet
trains but their horsepower is unimpressive. They go 40-65 kilometers per hour at best, not
even counting their frequent stops.
Taking the train is usually ...................................................................................................... Slice of Life
You hang out on the train. You share your emotional response to the wonder that is electric
trains. Perhaps someone else will emote back?
Taking the train is rarely ..........................................................................................................a Transition
In a Techno game, or if the Shopping District and its marvelous electric trains become a big
feature of your campaign, they might become an occasion for stock footage! The wait for a train,
and the ride on the train, can be a frequently-repeated clip in the show that is your game. Since
you cant actually show that clip in play, youll want to read from an appropriate text instead!
Im going to include two possible texts for this transition. Theyre both pretty short, so you
may want to replace them with a text of your own soon after instituting this as a feature of the
game. In the meantime, though, read from whichever seems more appropriate! If you want to
give a sense of variety or recurrence, you can limit yourself to short sections of text on short
trips and more or all of the text on longer trips, read it a piece at a time if the characters are
going to take multiple trips in a day, and so forth.
First Text: The Thirteenth Station, by Jenna Moran
We blur into the world of forms

And set aside ourselves
Autumn colors rush by
A leaf spins up
By the tracks I can see my brother John

His teeth fell out
But his hats still on
By the river theres my sister Rhne

Struck in the head
By a wicked stone
I wish
But no.
In the sky on the clouds in the shadow of the sun

Theres my darling Chloe
(oh) Look at her run
And theres David down in the muck of the well
And Alex under the carousel
And theres Heather in the sky on her horse of flame

And her sister Lauren who does the same
I wish
But no.
And the sky opens up. Its Leonards maw
And Emily struck by the falling of his jaw
And Margareta spins a top in the road

And on Rhnes stomach is a hopping toad
And the reaper reaps what the reapers sowed
And Christina watches with a reapers patience

And the train barrels on towards the Thirteenth Station
I wish
But no.
I pass them all on the railroad track

I wish
But a person oughtnt look back.
Second Text: excerpt from The Bohemian Girl, by Michael William Balfe
I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls

With vassals and serfs at my side.
And of all who assembled within those walls
That I was the hope and the pride.
I had riches too great to count, could boast

Of a high ancestral name.
But I also dreamt, which pleased me most
That you lovd me still the same,
That you lovd me, you lovd me still the same,
That you lovd me, You loved me still the same.
I dreamt that suitors sought my hand.

That knights upon bended knee,
And with vows no maidens heart could withstand,
They pledgd their faith to me.
And I dreamt that one of that noble host

Came forth my hand to claim.
But I also dreamt, which charmed me most
That you lovd me still the same,
That you lovd me, you lovd me still the same,
That you lovd me, you loved me still the same.
Cosplay
As noted, cosplay and visual kei are a common feature of the Shopping District, particularly on
the weekends. It has a bit of the Harujuku spirit!
Participating in Shopping District cosplay can be ................................................................... Decisive
You talk about why youre choosing a given costume or cosplay style. You build up to a
major decision, such as asking somebody out, or a decisive action, such as going out in costume
for the first time. Then you make that decision or take that action!
Participating in Shopping District cosplay can be ........................................... Wicked or Traumatic
Turning into your costumes is a common theme in stories, so maybe something like that
could happen here. I dont want to think up the details because this probably isnt what actually
happens.
Participating in Shopping District cosplay can be ......................................................... Shared Action
You go do cosplay stuff with someone else. You connect over it.
Those are all valid options, but

participating in Shopping District cosplay is usually ...................................................... a Ritual (8).
Its just like a magical transformation sequence, except that getting ready usually takes a heck
of a lot longer! You start the sequence with a ritual phrase like, Ooh, time to get ready or
Right! Get in the bathroom and help me dye my hair! or OK, you brought the costumes!
describing one of the things you do to prepare;

posing or otherwise showing off in an iconic fashion associated with your
costumes;
snarkily commenting on the process;
talking about your excitement about the day or where you want to go; or
Invoking an unrelated symbol of power (e.g., activating the Marvelous Wish-
Granting Engine, or setting sail via the Ritual of the Lake) to merge the two ritual
invocations together.
The phrase that ends the ritual is usually something like, Perfect! Lets go! but sometimes thats
just an intermediate step the ritual could continue on to include the entire day outing, replacing
describ[e] one of the things you do to prepare with the new ritual actions:
pose for a photograph;

declare an activity during the day outing, such as shopping at The Latest Thing or
dancing in the park.
In addition to the potential group XP, the usual benefit and outcome of the ritual is that you
regain a bit of Will or even an MP but thats up to the HG. Maybe it gives you a small power
related to your costume, or temporarily boosts a relevant power or Skill, instead!
Fox-Eared People
There are over a hundred fox-eared people (Tenko or shop foxes) living in the Shopping
District. They descend from humans and fox spirits. A few of them may even be fox spirits in
disguise! There are also often at least that many people in the Region who dress as fox-eared
people as part of their cosplay (Feyfua or fake foxes is the standard term, although if I had
my way it would be either cosukitsu or kkokuko (advertisement foxes) ).
I hear that the existence of the feyfua is pretty weird if you are actually a fox-eared person
but that they accept it because if youre going to be exotic anyway you might as well be
fashionable.
Fox-eared people have fox ears as well as their regular ears. The fox ears are larger and a
little higher on their head. Fox-eared people often have bright-colored hair and are almost always
pretty or handsome. Some of them also have fox tails. They tend to be thin and a little bit short
and they tend to dress in old-fashioned Japanese or Chinese clothing. The fox-eared people
believe that their fox-spirit ancestors are still watching over them thats why a human-Tenko
child is almost always a full Tenko (when the mating is fertile at all), and why if a fox-eared
person cuts off their fox ears their tail will fall off, their magic will wither, and theyll turn all the
way human.
In the early years of Town the fox-eared people had a reputation for good luck, powerful
magic, and good counsel. These days their fortunes have waned theyre more likely to be
shopkeepers or traveling entertainers than sorcerers, exorcists, generals, or the idle rich. That
said, the fox-eared people still have it better on average than most they enjoy better health,
greater enjoyment of simple pleasures, and have greater access to magic and money both than is
the average Townspersons lot. The Tenko look out for one another, and none of them are likely
to ever go hungry for any reason except for pride. The downside, of course, is that theyre a
small and visually distinct minority in a Town too small to vanish into and too big to stop
meeting strangers in even if theyre more likely to face positive bigotry than negative bigotry,
I imagine a constant stream of double-takes, unearned admiring sighs, people assuming that their
lives are easy because they have Tenko blood, and people wanting to touch their ears or tail gets
to them after a while. Its probably worst for the pregnant ones, because living surrounded by
people who might at any moment randomly decide to touch your ears, tail, or belly has got to be
like living in a war zone of well-intentioned invaders of your personal space.
Meeting an important fox-eared person is usually ....................................................... Urban Fantasy
There are important Tenko families. They engage in weird politics. You dont know much
about it because youre not a Tenko. But maybe youre about to!
For them its like Decisive or Science/Faith/Sorcery Actions:
A fox-eared matriarch or patriarch calls you in and monologues to you, in between

puffs on their long pipe, building up to some decision that theyve made or the role
you have in their plans. Then, action!
Or . . . they decide to trust you with something. So they explain what they think
youre about, and what they think youre going to do, and then they gamble that
youll do it.
But the truth is, theyre NPCs, so I think what actually matters here is that you might get caught
up in their story; or sympathetic to them when they struggle; or that youll discover some neat,
scary, or mysterious thing, and spend a while lost in thinking about it.
Meeting your first fox-eared person is usually ............................................................. Foreshadowing
Something catches your attention. Its the ears! Or the tail!
You watch, listen, follow, or pause to process and then run up to them, startled.
Tea in a fox-eared persons shop is usually ......................................................................... Slice of Life
You interrupt your conversation or drinking to emote a reaction to how serious and
awesome and impressive it is. Look! Its a foxs tea house! Or whatever. Thats so glamorous!
You also have the option to emote a different reaction instead, like this is ridiculous Im not
impressed or how tragic! I will never have fox ears, unless I can persuade Chuubo to make an
appropriate wish. But theyre so fluffy!

Fox-Eared Magic
Some fox-eared people have a little bit of the magic of their fox-spirit ancestors. Even powerful
and fey Tenko probably only have 1-2 points in Tenko magic, but if you want to bring a Tenko
prodigy or an actual fox-spirit into play, they might have more!
The first four techniques are technically available to all characters. They dont require magic
or Tenko blood. Characters like the Prodigy can learn these techniques on their own once they
understand that they can be done; other characters can pick them up by studying the ways of
foxes, spend decades reinventing them, or improvise something similar if it seems like it would
be cool.
These four non-magical techniques are:
[Obstacle 0] Contort to create a foxs shadow on the wall with your body or your
hands;
[Obstacle 1] Sharpen your hearing and eyesight;
[Obstacle 1] Slip out of most handcuffs or bonds; and
[Obstacle 1] Recognize holiness
Ive broken the Tenko techniques that require actual magic to use into three basic styles:
Fire and Lightning Magic;

Perception Magic; and
Transformation Magic.
A typical Tenko magician learns one of these styles and has a +2 Obstacle penalty when using
techniques from the others. All of these styles have access to the four non-magical techniques.
Fire and Lightning Magic

[Obstacle 1] Make sparks out of thin air;
[Obstacle 1] Summon a ball of harmless fox-fire to hover near you or in place;
[Obstacle 2] Create a burst of fire or jolt of electricity;
[Obstacle 2] Control the movements of fox-fire;
[Obstacle 3] Blast things with lightning or fire.
Perception Magic
[Obstacle 1] Sharpen your sense of smell;
[Obstacle 1] Know the location of nearby dogs;
[Obstacle 2] Make your voice sound like the wind, the clinking of coins, or fire;
[Obstacle 2] Trick the senses so that people who are not paying attention think they
see or hear what you want them to see or hear;
[Obstacle 3] Turn invisible;
[Obstacle 3] Create complex, detailed illusions.
Transformation Magic
[Obstacle 1] Increase your beauty or poise.
[Obstacle 1] Purify the sound you make when using a musical instrument or your
voice;
[Obstacle 2] Take the shape of a fox, or turn back into a fox-eared person;
[Obstacle 3] Take other human or animal shapes.
BOX Tenko Bans
Traditional Tenko Bonds include:
Bond: Dogs terrify me.

Bond: People are really weird about the tail and ears sometimes.
Bond: It takes a lot of concentration to hide my tail when disguised as a human.
Bond: If Im separated for too long from my special magical pearl Ill die.
Bond: I am not always in complete control of myself around deep-fried tofu. Its just too
good!
Bond: My ears are really sensitive loud sounds can hurt, and grabbing them is a
submission hold!
Bond: Ill always repay a favor.
Particularly disreputable Tenko may have Bonds like:
Bond: What is property to me? I take what I want and live where I choose.
Bond: Im addicted to playing with human minds and hearts.
Tenko with Bonds like that are sometimes known as Yako (field foxes/evil foxes) or
Jackasses (evil donkeys).
END BOX
Tsukumogami
People say that if a household thing exists for a hundred years, itll turn into a spirit but time
flies when youre having fun! In the Shopping District it might take only thirty years, or even
twenty-five. Even though electricity repels most tsukumogami and modern items are much less
likely to turn into such a spirit, there are still dozens of these artifact spirits lurking in Arcadia.
Known tsukumogami include
a pack of 6+ umbrella-spirits;
a mated pair of awning-spirits;
three broom-spirits, including one legal citizen working for the Kinnoruto Temple;
a lonely kimono-spirit;
two lantern-spirits;
at least two kite-spirits;
a reclusive curtain-spirit;
a eye-protecting goggles spirit;
the three sisters, street sign spirits that point in confusing directions;
a bucket-spirit;
an unknown number of sandal-spirits, typically found making footstep-sounds in empty
alleyways;
a stone-bridge spirit;
one of the extremely rare handgun tsukumogami, formerly belonging to a visiting U.S.
Marine. It is hunting the man or spirit that killed its original owner;
a guitar tsukumogami that claims to have been owned previously by Elvis Presley;
according to rumor, an entire row of buildings tsukumogami that purportedly moves
around or eats people while they are shopping in its stores.
Its probably best to think of the tsukumogami in Towns Shopping District as either mascots or
citizens, depending on how intelligent they are. In theory they could be vicious or dangerous. In
theory any quarter-century-plus object in the Shopping District could randomly wake up as a
malevolent demon-god and start killing people one after another. In practice, you hardly ever have
to worry about tsukumogami attacks:
The Regional Council for the Shopping District maintains a two-person exorcist team (the
Stray Cats) to snuff out any youkai that turn murderous, and theyll pretty reliably get there
before a newborn killer tsukumogami manages to take its first victim down. Theyre highly
attuned to killing intent,42 they can sense that kind of thing from miles away, and theyre
grumblingly efficient about keeping Arcadia and its people safe. The Gray Man in the
42
Also to bad weather and impending fires, although weather and fire preparedness arent their actual jobs.
Methodology Tower and the Kittens (apprentice exorcists training at the Kinnoruto temple) act
as secondary layers of defense.
What this all boils down to is that parents tell their kids not to play with the artifact spirits,
because you never know, but they dont actually freak out too much if the kids defy them and do
it anyway. The tsukumogami that survive are pretty tame.
Dealing with the three sisters and certain other tsukumogami can be ........................... Adversity
Suddenly you cant find your way around. Every time you look at a street sign its different.
You used to think that it was just a mobile street sign youkai confusing you but now you think
theres more than one, and that maybe one of them or all of them can slide up onto a real street
sign and confuse it. Or is there an evil fox casting an illusion over the area? Are you drugged or
sick? Is this whole area sliding into the Outside? It reaches the point where you just cant cope!
Suddenly encountering a tsukumogami is sometimes .................................................................. Trouble
Tsukumogami are mostly harmless, like I said. But geez. Its not like you know that the first
time you round the corner and theres an umbrella creature looking at you. Then it hops towards
you. Its a looming, approaching threat! You hide. You run. You fight for a limited, tactical
victory. You shout, But its not raining! Theres a lull, when it seems like things are OK. Then
a heart-stopping moment of fear!
Trouble!
Suddenly encountering a tsukumogami is usually ....................................................... Foreshadowing
Something catches your attention. Its a . . . wait, what is that?
You watch. You listen. It moves. It keeps moving. Its a . . . its a . . . thing. You react!
Interacting with tsukumogami is often ............................................................................ Shared Action
You do stuff. They do stuff. You connect over it.
Maybe one of you makes yourself a little vulnerable for the extra XP, like, you reach out
your hand to touch it even though you dont know where an umbrella keeps its teeth? Or, the
street sign lets you clean graffiti off of it?
Interacting with tsukumogami is often .................................................................................... Discovery
What strangeness have you just now discovered?
Befriending a tsukumogami may give you opportunities for ............................ Sympathetic Action
Now and then a tsukumogami gets pretty Obsessive.
Its working on something or worrying about something. It gets worked up over it.
Eventually it goes over the top usually to the point where its just stuck, like a turtle flipped on
its back or a Roomba bumping a wall.
At that point you can emote a sympathetic response and help it over the hump.
Conflict with a tsukumogami is typically ............................................................................. Slice of Life
Only for them, its more . . . Never Say Die!
Heres how it plays out when you try to kick a broom tsukumogami out before its finished
the sweeping that it wants to do; or when you try to refuse a lantern-spirit trying to take you
somewhere; or anything of that kind
You will have the upper hand.
You will probably have so much of an upper hand that theres no point in fighting, per se.
You are the winner here.
But no!
It defies you!
The HG grits their teeth and narrates the tsukumogamis every action as awesome and
doomed. They will fight, oh, yes, to their last drop of strength. You push them to fight harder
and harder with your overwhelming overmatchingness, throwing them out physically, barricading
the door against them, maybe even taking up arms or using magical powers against them
But it wont end until theyve either won and persuaded you or ended up broken and
defeating and sobbing, inasmuch as tsukumogami are capable of sobbing, upon the ground.
Emote your reaction to all this. Hopefully somebody else emotes too.

Exorcists and the Kinnoruto Temple
As noted, Arcadia maintains a small number of exorcists to handle situations where

tsukumogami or other youkai go wrong. They train at the Kinnoruto temple, which doubles as a
nekomimi-themed caf and gift shop. They learn to make tea and sandwiches, look good in cat
ears, describe the history of the temple and its neighborhood, tell fortunes, and hunt down
renegade demons before they can hurt anybody. The exorcists-in-training are usually called
Kittens; the team name for the two exorcists who currently collect a retainer for patrolling and
keeping the Shopping District safe is the Stray Cats. As one might expect, theyre a male-
female pair of hardened, crass, and occasionally slovenly exorcists who alternate between wearing
sensible gray clothing and wearing the cat-eared maid and butler costumes that they trained in
back in the day. Theres also a professional yin-yang master employed by the business and
financial offices to prevent inappropriate use of magic and ensure the safety of the business
section hes traditionally called the Gray Man (or Gray Woman), and the current Gray Man is
a half-Excrucian gentleman (pg. XX) with an office in the Methodology Tower.
Interactions with the Gray Man are usually ................................................................................ Wicked
You shouldnt interact with him. I dont know why. You just . . . shouldnt. Its probably
something to do with the job, since I heard he was actually pretty cool before he took it on.
Interactions with the Stray Cats are usually .................................................................................... Lurid
Theyll offer you booze. Theyll entice you with their sexual presence. Theyll encourage you
to loan them money or let them crash at your place. Theyll ask your help in tracking down a
tsukumogami thats concerning them. These are bad ideas. They are unhealthy and/or immoral!
Maybe you get involved with them anyway. You break from reality. Things get weird. Maybe the
HG even warns you of disasters thatll be coming?
You keep going anyway.
Thats a fine Wicked Action right there.
Or maybe: youre in their company and you get exposed to . . . well, something. Something
wicked. Something that can change you. You dont defend perfectly. There are supernatural or
psychosomatic effects again, a break from reality. Corruption/transformation or trauma sets
in. Thats a (Suffer) Corruption, Metamorphosis, or Trauma Action!
Interactions with the Stray Cats are sometimes......................................................................... Obsessive
Theyre models for obsession, completely wound up in their hobbies and their exorcism.
That kind of behavior contages.
So listen. Sometimes when youre hanging out with them, youll get a little bit neurotic.
Dangerous youkai are scary. Exorcism is spiritually potent and therefore confusing. The Stray
Cats are incredibly aggravating. Theyre also, I am dead serious here, smoking hot.
So there are a lot of different reasons why you might, when hanging out with them, get a
little, you know, worked up. In one way or another. And this can lead to tipping over the edge
into a delirium of obsession.
Eating at Kinnoruto is usually .................................................................................. Shared Reactions
The modern Kinnoruto costume is actually completely un-embarrassing they went

upscale about 12 years back after an incident with a pervert youkai, switching the Kittens from
maid- and butler-costume to formal exorcist kimonos, though the Kittens kept the fake cat ears
and sometimes the fake whiskers or cat-paw gloves that their predecessors wore. So when youre
lunching at Kinnoruto the whole nekomimi theme is cute and pervasive but pretty much not a
thing. You just . . . well, eat, probably while talking to your friends about stuff thats been going
on. You make a connection. Maybe you share a secret or something, you know, something to
earn you the vulnerability XP?
Thats Shared Reactions.
Visiting Kinnoruto is sometimes ......................................................................................... Slice of Life
You see something cool. You share your emotional response. Somebody responds, and
emotes their own reaction to the scenery or to you, maybe?
It sticks with you.

BOX Exorcism
The heart of an exorcists abilities is their Superior Holiness or Superior Spiritual Energy
Skill its not so much a magic they practice as a magic that they are. Theres generally no point
in training as an exorcist unless youre at least holy enough to quiet a sick baby with a touch or
powerful enough that a leaf on water will spin around when your hand passes over the cup
thats roughly Superior Skill 1. The natural cap for an exorcists ability is level 2; a few can push
past that to level 3, and legendary figures at the peak of their strength might make it to Superior
Skill 4-5. Developed properly, this Skill acts as a sixth sense for the activity of dangerous youkai
and other killers and increased efficiency in fighting them Spiritual Energy in particular, since
thats what the Skill is for, but Holiness also gives a good instinct for youkai movements and an
Edge in attempting to predict them.
In either case, in addition to their raw spiritual potency, the Kittens are trained in hand-to-
hand combat, simple ranged combat, tactics, the history and taxonomy of the youkai, and, of
course, all the various Skills they need to work at a nekomimi caf.
END BOX
(Superior) Holiness
Some shrine maidens, priests, exorcists, and monks have an inherent, shining spiritual energy or
holiness.
You use holiness principally to:
show/display the truth;

resist the influence of the Outside;
deal with, and predict the actions, of dangerous youkai and killers;
banish corruption, poison, and decay; and
strengthen and heal those of good or innocent heart.
In general youll lose some of the benefits of this if you dont maintain ritual and mental purity
corrupt thoughts and failing to take the time and effort to stay pure will cost your access to
healing power, preaching power, and some other miracles, but still leave you with enhanced
insight, poison resistance, and the ability to resist the Outside. This effect is not permanent in
any sense; a few days of ritual cleansing and consciously purifying your way of thinking can leave
the most corrupt and rowdy exorcist uncomfortably holy instead.
This Skill comes with a small Edge against youkai and unnatural forces but only gives its full
Edge against the worst of evils.
Heres what the various levels would look like:
Superior Holiness 0: Youre only a little [[ holds finger and thumb a little bit apart ]] holy.
Superior Holiness 1: Your spiritual presence is palpable and pleasant you can calm a
sick baby with a touch or make a leaf spin around in a cup of water by holding your hand nearby.
You have a small edge against the Outside and any particularly wicked monsters.
Superior Holiness 2: You can sometimes perform small miracles, stabilize the sick and
wounded and speed the process of healing, and perform exorcisms. Its not clear even to you
what the rules are for when you can call on your holiness and when you cant, so all you can do if
you hope for an effect is try.
Superior Holiness 3: Youre overflowing with sacred spiritual power. You can reliably call
upon it to perform miracles: plants bloom, sickness dissipates, and poisons and impurities fade
away before your outstretched hand. Things revitalize and calm.
Superior Holiness 4: The world around you is full of great and blossoming gladness and
peace. You know what will touch peoples souls, and can often produce it. The beasts and the
birds will come to listen to you preach.
Superior Holiness 5: Your power is as limitless as Heavens: you can raise up the dead,
catch a stone monkey in the palm of your hand, and speak such sermons as will live forever.
(Superior) Spiritual Energy
Other exorcists have an inborn gift that makes them hostile to ghosts, youkai, and evil magic.
They have a spiritual radiance that lets them touch on, feel, and dissolve the power of the
intangible.
This Skill has three core effects:
You may strike at the intangible, including magic;

You may sense patterns and disruptions in the weave of things;
Youre aggravating and attractive, a magnet for tsundere behavior from those at all
vulnerable to displaying it. (Which often includes other characters with this Skill.)
Im not sure what level 5 looks like, but the first few levels of this Skill would look like this:
Spiritual Energy -1: Youre kind of unprepossessing and either spooky, fragile, or meek.
Spirits and youkai tend to like you but they do not fear you. Not at all!
Spiritual Energy 0: You can yell very loudly at a youkai that makes you angry. Probably.
Spiritual Energy 1: Your spiritual presence is palpable you can intimidate an animal,
ghost, or intern with a glare, draw them near with a wink, or make a leaf spin in a cup of water
by holding your hand nearby. You have a small edge against the Outside and any particularly
wicked monsters.
Spiritual Energy 2: You have the raw power to sense evil, youkai, magic, the power of the
Outside, and other supernatural phenomena within your Region. You have the raw power to
strike at intangible things, break spells with a touch, and see through illusions. This is all clumsy
and unreliable unless you have a different Skill to formally train and channel your abilities, but
the raw power to do it exists.
Even without other training, with this level of Spiritual Energy you can resist evil magic,
push intangible spirits out of your way, and sense personally relevant evil in your immediate
vicinity. Youre a little magnetic, too: you attract people, but you also get under their skin enough
to irritate them.
Spiritual Energy 3: You have enough intuition to sense stuff like pain, fear, discord, and
the larger patterns like something is probably going to happen soon. In short, your spiritual
senses become predictive and not just active once you train them up. Magic tends to fray when
you pay attention to it, making your attention painful for ghosts and intangible youkai. You have
a kind of sizzle to you.
Spiritual Energy 4: You burn away magic in your presence you have to be careful and
meditative or you might accidentally set ghosts and fox-eared peoples ears on fire with a look.
Youre extremely high-contrast: people get obsessed with you super-easily, whether theyre
claiming you as a rival, enemy, friend, romantic interest, or employee. You tend to just know how
to get on somebodys nerves or, conversely, on their good side. You can pick up trouble coming
from outside your Region fully trained, though that would admittedly take another level 4
Skill, you can probably predict danger and magical threats as much as a century in advance.
Some Miscellaneous Youkai
Here are some of the other youkai you might see about.
Tree People. A number of the residents of the Shopping District are bound in some
fashion to one of the local sacred trees or groves. The tree people have pale, refined features
with a greenish, bluish, or acorn undertone; long fingers; flowers or leaves growing in their hair;
a love of dance; and naturally quiet voices that pain them, a little bit, to use. They tend to be
extremely long-lived and require very little sustenance, giving them the freedom to wander the
District without formal residence or career, sleeping in the branches of trees and resting at a
temple on extremely cold or dangerous nights.
Some of these tree people are plant spirits; others are orphans or runaways adopted by
the trees; a few are the children, grandchildren, or descendants of someone like that, who chose
to inherit their ancestors connection to the trees.
The Long-Neck People. Certain families of the Shopping District have the power to
stretch their necks to twenty, thirty, or even fifty feet in length, their necks gaining incredible
flexibility as they do so. In the past they could only do this at night; since the death of the
original sun theyve learned to do so even during the day. Theres a common prejudice holding
that long-neck people are incorrigible tricksters and spies, and for this reason most of the long-
neck people keep their abilities a secret. Town being as it is, I kind of suspect that theyre just
normal people with a really weird power, with maybe a bit of a self-fulfilling prophesy on the
side, but thats not the kind of thing I can really know!
Other Strange Creatures. People have also sighted large, strange spirit-creatures with one
or more eyes; bizarre monkey-human hybrids; transforming beetles and spiders; a lightning dog,
which may or may not actually have been a pair of foxes; a blue ogre; a gigantic foot, which
demanded that the homeowner it descended on wash it thoroughly; and a wild-eyed and
mouthless creature in cerements whose head bears tattoo-symbols of the sun and moon. Some
of these strange creatures of the Shopping District may be tsukumogami, wandering members of
the unworldly tribes (pg. XX), or unorthodoxies from Old Molder (pg. XX). Others are unique
existences, with no particular reason for existing save their own. As with the tsukumogami,
theres a distant possibility that any given strange creature is dangerous, but in practice thats a
once-in-a-lifetime threat.
Interactions with miscellaneous youkai are sometimes .................................................... Shared Action
You do stuff. They do stuff. You connect over it.

Interactions with miscellaneous youkai are usually ............................................................. Slice of Life
Youre out in the world. You see one of the tree people, or a strange creature, or one of the
long-neck people. Perhaps you communicate in words, or perhaps just with emotes!
(Superior) Plant Spirit
The baseline power for a plant spirit looks something like this:
Superior [Plant Type] Spirit 0: Youre just a normal person who, possibly, hugged a tree.
Superior [Plant Type] Spirit 1: You have a few plant-type features. Your life is bound to
that of a field, grove, or particularly great tree while it lives, your aging slows markedly at
maturity; if it dies, youll age ten years to every one. You dont need much food if you have
sunshine. Youre good at dancing. You understand the moods and needs of plants.
Superior [Plant Type] Spirit 2: Youre not a human or anything like it your default
form is that of an invisible spirit distributed across the whole of your field, tree, or grove. You
can emerge from this state with great difficulty to assume a semi-human form, and may shift
from there into a fully human form or back with difficulty. Returning to spirit form is easy when
at home and almost impossible (Obstacle 4) anywhere else. Your human form is remarkably
beautiful or, in rare cases, handsome. You may vitalize plants with a touch, using this Skill as a
botanical medicine Skill that needs no tools, and youre an excellent musician and dancer.
Superior [Plant Type] Spirit 3+: At this level you may shift between forms without effort.
You may also have or learn the power to assume additional forms, such as a swirl of petals flying
on a self-made breeze.
Long-Necked
If you have this Skill, you are of the long-necked people you may stretch out your neck and
twist and bend the lengthened neck around freely (like a very strong tentacle with your head on
the end.)
The levels of the Skill look like this:
Long-Necked 0: You could have a pretty long neck. Like, I mean, whoa. Or not.
Long-Necked 1: You have a weird mutation your upper spinal column is incredibly
squishy, resilient and flexible, as is the muscle and skin of your neck. You can twist your head
around, sometimes as much as 540 degrees, or stretch it out by up to a foot and a half. If this is
the limit of your potential, Long-Necked people will find you adorably laughable, like a pudgy
baby or puppy its like being a were-pug among were-wolves!
Long-Necked 2: Your neck can stretch out to twenty or more feet maybe more, but at
some point you start having trouble keeping it upright because of weight and leverage issues.
Your neck hairs are very sensitive to air currents around them.
Long-Necked 2 is the highest level youll see in Town, but I can imagine going a little further:
Long-Necked 3: Your neck is tougher and more compressible than rubber, can stretch out
like an elastic superheros, and is fully flexible and practically self-supporting all along the way.
The biggest limit here is that my head is half a mile away with my neck stretched out between
the two positions is not always the most tactically advantageous position; however, your neck
hairs are sensitive enough to see blocky shapes in their immediate vicinity, and your neck is
equally adjustable everywhere, so if somebody tries to chop your neck in half or something you
can generally dodge and loop your neck around their sword handle or whatever to stop them.
Long-Necked 4: With practice, you may even learn to stretch your neck through time, into
one mirror and out another, or otherwise do the kinds of remarkable tricks that make long-
necked entities so legendarily fearsome.
Long-Necked 5: Your neck can slim down to a monofilament thread or puff up like a
blowfish to shove buildings out of the way. Its strong as a titan, essentially unbreakable, has a
kind of psychic echolocation that maps everything around it, and can whip about at supersonic
speeds to practically anywhere you can see. You can manifest an oni-mask type protective shell
around your head itself to keep it from catching on fire or exploding from pressure changes or
whatever during all this, making your head and teeth basically as unbreakable as your neck.
Places to Eat
Wherever you go in the Shopping District youre sure to find street carts selling a variety of tasty
food, coffee, tea, or cold drink places, and random little sandwich, fish, barbecue, or noodle
shops.
Here are a few places that I can vouch for!
Mrs. Porridges Restaurant
This restaurant is one of Chuubos favorites it has comfortable booths, a nice veranda, a
range of amazing American-style dishes like yakinuku sandwiches, fried onion slices, fried
chocolate bars, potato slurries, tuna noodle casserole, two-patty hamburgers with or without the
egg, and sweetened milk, plus, of course, the best of all possible pies. It even has karaoke on
Wednesday and Saturday nights! Its a great place to come when you have something to celebrate
with your friends.
The Golden Phoenix Bun Shop
This incredibly tourist-y restaurant the roof has Imperial decorations marking it as the
residence of one of the highest notables of the Forbidden City, but the owner isnt even full-
blooded Chinese! is nevertheless the source of the most delectable meat buns in Town. And
theyre so cheap! You can buy a bag of meat buns and sit with them at the nearby benches or
stroll through a nearby garden. You cant actually eat in, though: the closest you can come is
sitting on one of the four high stools directly under the restaurants awning.
Steam Noodles
This is a pretty good noodle soup shop. Its cheap, and the soup is hot and good. The sign out
front talks about a revolutionary noodle-steaming process but as far as I could tell when I ate
there the revolution changed nothing. Your soup comes with a small salad but you have to get it
yourself at an extremely uninspiring salad bar.
Still, the noodles are good!

The Clever Crab
The crab was probably not actually that clever, since it was almost certainly eaten. But possibly it
was a Buddhist saint that wanted to be eaten to help advance the enlightenment of other life. Or
something. (I couldnt say.) This is a decent seafood, sandwich, and tea place with metal chairs,
lightweight tables. It has a bit of a Seattle atmosphere, which is pretty much why I went in!
Dunstans Pizza
This classic pizza restaurant bears the name of St. Dunstan. When the Devil troubled him at his
smithy, St. Dunstan caught the Devils nose in his red-hot pincers. That flattened nose
according to the legend of St. Dunstans Pizza House, deviating here from the classic doctrine inspired St.
Dunstans cousin to invent the first pizza spatula. Another version of the story holds that
whatever St. Dunstan was making melted down while he had his standoff with the devil, flowing
over the anvil to form a flattened spatula. Either way, whenever you put a pizza into or remove a
pizza from a comparatively flat oven, youre calling back to the legend of St. Dunstan . . .
Or so the pizza house claims. These legends are almost certainly complete fallacies, but the
pizza is pretty good. You can get a bucket of crisp French fries to go with it and a real imported
bottle of soda!
God Pancake
The logo for this pancake shop is a winged face floating above a pancake, looking skyward, over
a bed of clouds. Has the pancake achieved godhood, or is it a god contemplating a pancake? Its
a little hard to tell. Anyway, the classic god pancake is a thin blueberry pancake with a puff of
sugary whipped cream on the top, a circle of thick lemon syrup, and grated raspberries around
the edge; you can get it with tea, a side of spring rolls or chicken bites, and chocolate, or you can
order it rolled up into a paper cone to go.
Anything involving food is probably ............................................................................... Shared Action
You do stuff while youre eating, or you talk while youre eating about the stuff you do and
want to do.
Finding a new place to eat is usually ........................................................................................ Discovery
Is it neat? Mysterious? Or a little scary?

Cutting-Edge Stuff
The Latest Thing
One of the stores with a very strong mindshare among the students at School and the kids of
Fortitude is the Latest Thing. Its stuff is actually generally out of the student budget its
targeted at people who want neat things, and so it brings in a lot of weird and fashionable stuff
from Earth and the other worlds. Collectible toys, brand-name apparel, strange foreign foods,
the latest game or CD to get a shipment into Town, and peculiar upscale magical or
technological goods all find their places on the shelves here. Its pricey, but the students love it
anyway they may not really be able to go there to buy things, but its a great place to go to drool
over all of the awesome stuff!
The Steamworks
Obsessed with robots, cybernetics, mecha, battlesuits, supercomputers, or artificial people?

Youll find ample fuel for your obsession at the Steamworks, a Modern Science and Robotics
Shoppe tucked away down by the river in the Shopping District at Town. Its principal clients
are the businesses of Town, but theres a large sales area the Steamworks Gardens thats
targeted at casual shoppers and the younger crowd, selling toys, fad items, and promotional
devices, as well as giving talks about the glorious future of Town and offering tours to youth
interested in modern science. Imagine an airy bazaar combining elements of Italy, fairy-tale
Baghdad, and a modern science museum. In every corner of the gardens is something neat: dueling
robot scorpions, Tesla devices burning logos onto signs, gentle-voiced speaking engines, or
self-motivating gyrocopter fairies floating along the ceiling cleaning the soot and pollen from the
ceiling and the upper air! Remote-controlled steamboats and one dragon-faced submersible
patrol amidst the liles of a cultivated creek. The goal of the Steamworks Gardens is to be an
irresistible magnet to any child or geek with even the faintest interest in modern science, and in
this, it more or less succeeds.
Comparatively out of sight is the actual devicery where the engineers do their work. The
Steamworks devicery is much more interesting but infinitely less captivating than the Gardens its
full of machines of impenetrable design, half-finished robots and battlesuits barely
distinguishable43 from modern art44, engineers laboring over reams of plans, and young
apprentices hauling coal, twisting valves, and wriggling through vents to investigate various
calamities, potential calamities, and disasters.
43
if at all!
44
many will never function, you see, barring fundamental advances in design, so they could be rightly
understood as decorative in function.
Visits to cutting-edge stores are sometimes .................................................................... Foreshadowing
Something mobile or interactive catches your attention. You admire or watch it or listen to
the sales staff talk about it for a while. Then you react! Later, perhaps itll become important to
the story.
Visits to cutting-edge stores sometimes ..................................................... provoke Obsessive Actions
You get obsessed with something. Its just so cool! You get worked up over it. You do
something over the top, tipping over the edge into obsession do you spend money you dont
have? Rant from a soapbox about how awesome it is? Try to steal it form the shop? Its best if
someone notices and reacts!
Visits to cutting-edge stores are usually (about) ..................................................................... Discovery
What wonder have you just found?

Steam-powered Robots
The robots of the Shopping District are sleek creatures of brass and copper. Most of them are
clockwork organisms with a side of steam and electric power, wrapped in a metal shell. They
tend to have articulated clockwork or flexible-cable limbs; glowing eyes; legs, spherical wheels,
low-temperature jets, or helicopter blades for mobility; and a generically soulful appearance.
Robots are generally gentle, quiet and patient creatures. They have decent hearts but lack the
human need for company and entertainment. That isnt to say there arent robots heavily
motivated to seek family, friends, attention, thrills, or fun, just that theyre a lot less common
than the comparable human archetype.45
Roughly thirty robots in the Shopping District have achieved citizenship and bought off
their contracts with their makers; another seventy are in various stages of progression towards
this goal, still caught up in demonstrating or developing their intelligence or saving up the money
for their independence. Theres no outright exploitation of self-aware machines, what with
engineers holding the device-love towards their work and Town having anti-slavery laws on its
books, but the absence of standardized medical care puts them in an awkward position from
a legal perspective, what theyre buying when they buy their freedom is not so much themselves as
the maintenance contract that promises them long-term survival, and the cost of their
construction46 is simply folded in. Im not entirely sure what will happen when robots develop
sufficient resources to handle their own construction or repair history suggests an unpleasant
power struggle, but there might not be enough money, madness, or prejudice involved to turn
things messy.
The Districts humanoid robots have a relatively standard form, although its been refined
and smoothed over time an untrained human eye is probably best off identifying specific
robots by their nameplates rather than trying to catch the subtle differences in their shape. At a
rough sketch, there are 60 self-willed or potentially self-willed robots demonstrating the current
standard humanoid form; 10 identifiably older and 5 identifiably newer models; 8 undersized
chibi robots; 4 gynoids with overtly feminine features47; 3 sentient computers that are semi-
mobile at best; 3 hyper-mobile explorers designed around a head-sized spherical shell with
miscellaneous reconfigurable limb attachments; 1 self-aware train that mostly keeps to its
45
Theres an ongoing philosophical struggle between the engineers and robots wanting to target robot
development towards even more peaceful, content, and quiet robots that will love nothing so much as service
to humanity and those who want to aim them more towards being human. On the surface, this debate is
about whether robot consciousness is human consciousness, whether a truly docile robot consciousness is a
crippled personhood or a new kind of personhood, and whether a truly rebellious robot consciousness would
be an expression of humanity or simply firebrand fetishism, but there are underlying strains of how the hell
does friendliness actually work? are we even capable of building perfectly loyal or genuinely free-willed
robots? and is it better for humanity to have a child-species that honors and serves it or a child-species that
goes beyond or even supplants it? all mixed in.
46
offset by the marketing benefit that having them out in the world brings their creators
47
this pretty much means breast-bumps. Steam and clockwork are apparently pretty poor technologies to
work with when it comes to actual sexual function, robot parturition is considered an unprofitable line of
research compared to robot engineering, and most of the robots who have a gender identity at all tweak their
voicebox or clothing style instead of their physical form.
standard route; 1 intermittently self-aware hive creature; and a handful of other miscellaneous
variants. Robots do not seem to be able to become tsukumogami, although since most of them
feature at least some level of electric power and very few of them are older than the quarter-
century mark the evidence is ambiguous at best.
Debates over the future of robotics are sometimes.................................. Science, Faith, and Sorcery
Will you trust the robots with a potentially rebellious future, or humanity with the power to
deny the robots their agency? You think about this, explain what you know, come up with a
theory, and propose a risky test.
Studying robots, or showing interest in their technology, is usually ........................ Foreshadowing
Youre hearing exposition or reading description about this stuff, and you get caught up in
listening, watching, or reading. After a bit, you reach a new understanding or realization and
react!
Debates over the future of robotics are sometimes.................................................................. Obsessive
You worry about or become obsessed with the idea of a future involving recklessly
dangerous or miserably enslaved robots. You get worked up over it. You tip over the edge into
outright obsession!
Interacting with robots is usually ...................................................................................... Shared Action
You do stuff. They do stuff. Try to connect!

The Methodology Building
The twelve-story Methodology Building is a monument to the glory and ambition of the
Headmaster of the Bleak Academy. It towers over Arcadia like a gnomon over a sundial or an
angel spreading its wings. It is His shadow that it casts, metaphorically at least; it functions as the
embassy of the Riders, the Bleak Academy, and the Far and Sunless Land in Town.
To stand in the shadow of the Methodology Building is to be possessed of a wild, nameless

longing for the end of things for unshackling, for a dreamless peace, for a thing that is beyond
childhood and personal existence and can only be discovered somewhere in the far Outside. It
sends a chill emptiness through you but also makes you resonate to its calling; give up everything you
are, it whispers to you, and you may find eternity.
Thats the vision offered to you by the Bleak Academy: something soulless and wondrous,
like a Heaven spun from steel and glass. Something transcendent. Something bleak. Something
that can only ever be promises until you get there, and by then, whether its a Heaven or a Hell,
itll be too late to change your mind.
Staring up at the methodology building sometimes invokes .................................................... a Trauma
It gets to you. It gets under your skin. Under the surface of your thoughts. It makes you
think things. You break from reality, just a little, as its shadow moves across the world. You wind
up scarred, touched, even a little changed.
Staring up at the methodology building is rarely ................. Foreshadowing/Sympathetic Action
It catches your attention. You watch it for a while: the movement of the shadow as the day
goes by, the lights in the windows, the people walking to or fro, or the dreams it wakes in your
mind.
Its a long time later that you tear yourself away.
Or: it catches your attention. You watch it for a while. Youre distanced from yourself. Then
a shock! Someone touches your shoulder. Something speaks to you in your mind. You
flounder. You try to get some defensive distance, perhaps? Youre frozen up, in short, or messed
up, and someone else can take a Sympathetic Action.
Staring up at the methodology building is usually ............................................................ Slice of Life
That moment sticks with you. The mood of the place fills you up.
Taking the elevator in the Methodology building is usually ....... Symbolic (a Ritual/Transition)
Sometimes visits to the Methodology building will give you power. You ride in the elevator
and the world stops and a voice asks questions of your soul, and then when you come to your
senses again, youre not in the building any longer, but somethings different. Somethings better.
Somethings worse. Somethings new. Maybe youve picked up your visa to travel to the Far and
Sunless Land. Maybe youve learned something about the Bleak Method (pg. XX). Maybe youre
healthier, a sickness you had is gone from your system, only now you have a strange compulsion
to set aside the things of your childhood and prepare for a long journey. You wont know what
its going to be until you have reason to find out! Thats a Ritual.
If the HG prefers, then there may be something you need to do or something that needs to
happen, more than once, at the top floor of the Methodology Building. This would make
particular sense if you end up allying yourself to the Headmaster of the Bleak Academy, for
instance, and travel there to consult with him. In such a case the trip might be a Transition,
marked by stock footage. Imagine that theres a clip out there on youtube or something
showing your character ascending the elevator, with, presumably, dizzying views of the world
outside and beyond; since we cant actually show that clip in play, what with it not existing, youll
recite from an appropriate text instead. Ive included some suggestions for appropriate texts
below. Note that some of them are pretty long, so you may not want to use the whole text every
time just go for as long as it feels right!
First Text: A Far and A Sunless Land, by Jenna Moran
You dont have to stay, said the morning star

Run away, run away, run away to a far
To a far, to a far, to a far, to a far, to a far and a sunless land.
You can run, said the sun, in the middle of the day;
O I wish that theyd told me I could run away
Run away, run away, run away, run away, to a far and a peaceful land.
You can run away, said the sunsets light,

And it set its horizon in a hard flat line
Its OK, its OK, its OK, and youll find
A far and a sunless land. A far and a sunless land.
And the night rolls over and it makes me sick

Its a trick, its a trick, its a trick, its a trick
And I wish someoned told me I could run away
To a far and a sunless land.
Second Text: An Interpretation of the Katha Upanishads
Now a man, desiring a great reward, promised to give all that he possessed to Death; and as he
made these sacrifices, his son reflected as follows:
Unblessed are the worlds where a man goes after death

If the gifts he gives are barren
If he offers all he has to the gods
But holds back the better part for himself.
So he said to his father: To whom will you give me?
And that is how it came to pass that Ketas, who was that mans son, was made sacrifice to
Death. And as he went he turned and he looked back upon the world of dying people, and living
people, and he saw that they were the same, and he said: I go as the first, but many more will
follow.
A mortal ripens like corn; like corn, he springs up again.
Now Death had not expected this visitor to his home; truly, Ketas sacrifice was an
unexpected gift even to the god of Death; and so for three days and three nights, Ketas dwelt in
the house of death unattended. He received no drink and no food and no fire was lit for him. He
dwelt in silence and in darkness and the house of Death was barren unto him. When Death
returned, Death was greatly struck by this, and cried out: Hail to thee! You have dwelt in my
house three days and three nights without receiving food or drink, and no fire was lit for you,
and so Death shall grant to you three boons, whichsoever you may choose.
O Death, said Ketas, may my father be freed from anger to me; and may he know me
and greet me, when I am dismissed by thee.
Through my favor, said the voice of Death, this thing is done.
O Death, said Ketas, teach me of the fire-sacrifice, that a person may pass through
Death and unto Heaven.
I tell it to you, said the voice of Death, learn it from me; and know that this is the
attainment of the endless worlds, and their firm support, which is hidden in the darkness.
Ketas listened to the words of Death, as Death explained, and Ketas repeated it back as it
was told to him; and Death was pleased, saying, For this I shall give you a second-and-a-half-th
boon, that the name of this sacrifice shall be your name hereafter, and those who have three
times performed this rite, and been united through you with father, mother, and teacher, and
performed study, sacrifice, and the giving of alms shall overcome birth and death and obtain an
everlasting peace and rejoice in the world of Heaven beyond the reach of grief.
You are generous, O Death, said Ketas, and he bowed his head.
Choose then, said Death, your third boon, and all shall be accomplished.
And Ketas said: There is that doubt, when a man is dead some saying, he is; others, he
is not. This I should like to know, taught by thee; this is the third of my requested boons.
On this point, Death said, even the gods have doubted formerly. It is not easy to
understand. The subject is subtle. O great-spirited Ketas: choose another boon. O honored
guest, I beg you: do not press me, and let me off that boon.
On this point, Ketas agreed, even the gods have doubted indeed, and thou, Death, hast
declared it to be not easy to understand, and another teacher like thee is nowhere to be found
surely no other boon is like unto this.
Choose sons and grandsons, begged Death, who shall live a hundred years, herds of
cattle, elephants, gold, and horses. Choose the wide abide of the earth, be king of the wide earth,
I shall make thee the enjoyer of all desires
But Ketas was not moved; and so Death was forced to speak
Third Text: An Ominous Dialogue
Night: What are you?

The Sleeper: I am that which dreams.
Night: What do you dream of?

The Sleeper: I dream of peace.
Night: You may have peace without existence. It grows and blossoms in the far and sunless
land.
The Sleeper: I dream of a peace that writhes and coils in rejection of the dark.
Night: You dream of agony.

The Sleeper: I dream of agony. I dream of pain.

The Sufferer: I am that which conquers darkness.
The Sleeper: I am in envy of the night.
Night: How do you conquer darkness?

The Sufferer: I set myself on fire.
Night: Some would say it were a kindness to smother such painful flames.
The Sufferer: I am open to a third option.

The Sleeper: I dream of agony. I dream of pain.

The Fire: I am that which laughs at nightmares.
The Sufferer and the Sleeper: I am in envy of the night.
Night: What do you dream of?

The Fire: A fall to the endless dark.
Night: Is there no ground, then, to stop you?

The Fire: I shatter the ground when I strike it.
Night: Is there no wind to slow your fall?

The Fire: Im afraid it only speeds me on.

The Fire: I laugh at agony.

The Fire: I am the envy of the night.
The Sufferer and the Sleeper: I am in envy of the night.

Inside the Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine
Lilimund Cartaign, aka

The Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine
If you pull back the layers of metal and machinery from around the Marvelous Wish-Granting
Engines heart, youll see a gateway to a pocket world
Normally, a steampunk dimension, a clockwork world, run by a woman dressed in brass

Victoriana with a metal umbrella at her side. This Main Character is brilliant and awesome and
perfect, a muse of machinery, the grande dame of invention and hard-working wish-granting
goddess Lilimund Cartaign
Or, possibly, the masked wrestler Laodemus Schwan, or some other variant thereof!
Youll have the option when bringing this character into your game to choose a different
aesthetic for the world inside the Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine. Their PC, or the HG if
theyre an NPC, could choose a fairy tale world, or a land of pulp adventure; but most likely, inside
the Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine is a steampunk place that runs on the spiritual rules of
Arcadia.
It has about 350 residents, mostly robots (or fairies or whatever) but including a goodly
population of youkai. There are also many non-sentient or quasi-sentient inhabitants, people or
non-people anyhow to bulk out the feel of the place at least two or three thousand, but
maybe more depending on what you count.
As in the Shopping District, life inside the engine is a fast-paced whirl of fun, materialism,
and delight. The main difference is that the business of the clockwork dimension isnt shopping,
but rather maintaining the Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine, so you can replace the heading
Style on pg. XX with maintaining the Region and replace the electric train with whatever
transportation is appropriate and youll have a pretty solid picture of how life inside the
Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine works. For instance, shopping is very rarely Wicked and is
usually Discovery so, you know, when youre wandering the clockwork dimension and
thinking of getting involved with the stuff thats going on, thats rarely Wicked, and usually
Discovery!
Area: ~8 cubic miles of stuff happens here, surrounded by infinite space

Population: 333
(300 robots / 30 youkai / 3 miscellaneous non-humans)
Old Molder
Properties of Old Molder
People must act strangely.

People must want to climb up to the rooftops.
People must abandon things they dont really need.
Strangers must act worse than they really are.
People must make a mess anywhere that is completely
art by Tang Yuann
clean.
Typical Genre: Urban Fantasy
This Regions full of old metal, old buildings, and something wonderful of nature and color
taking hold in the ruins where industry used to reign. Amidst the crumbling brownstones and the
rusting cars is a resurgent beauty: wild and tame gardens creeping in to cover the broken streets,
traders and scavengers hanging bright fabric from the balconies of their upper-story homes, and
the gleaming golden metal of pedal-powered dragonfly-shaped flying machines darting through
the upper air.
It all began in the Celdinar Mayoralty, when industry came to Town. There was a time,
though youd hardly think it to see Town now, when progress was a fire in peoples hearts
when everybodys dream, when everybodys wish power, set itself on a future painted in
combustion, mass production, electricity, and brass. A wave of modernity broke across Town
and everyones mind was burning with the promise of a car for every traveler, a laundry machine
and dishwasher for every home, machine-made clothing for every man, woman, and child, and
palace-zeppelins and clockwork servants for every family of note. Old Molder was the
production center, the beating industrial heart of Town.
Then it stopped.
Peoplell blame the earthquake, if theyre talking casually, but the histories say that Old
Molder actually was half-dead already by the time the earthquake hit. There were people coming
in every day from all over the world, caps held to their heads and faces bright with hope and skill
and promise, but there werent enough of them; and the established families of Town were
turning against Old Molders development, more and more, as they realized just how much their
lives would have to change; and the factories were terribly unlucky, or poorly managed, I dont
know which; and the local workers, and the ship-captains who brought the new blood in, grew
disillusioned day by day. The future was dying anyway, drop by drop, and then the earthquake
hit.
Old Molder shattered, and Town left it to rot, and eventually the wild moved back in.
Area: 2.5 square miles
Population: 1,200
(1,150 humans / 20 clockwork people / 30 miscellaneous non-humans)
The Population
Old Molders been settled over the years since by people who cant find a place in Town. That
usually means people with a reason not to settle down people who value being eclectic or
independent in one way or another. This includes runaways from Horizon, young adults from
Fortitude trying to establish themselves away from their family, hippies and bohemians, deviant
scientists, misanthropes, near- or semi-human creatures difficult to categorize, a handful of
unfortunates, and just enough in the way of neer-do-wells, criminals, and predators to give the
place an unsavory air. Its a favored destination for Horizons orphans, who are rarely entirely
sanguine about the attrition rate as compared to the adoption rate at Horizons two orphanages
and would rather have done with the whole region; some of them organize into Dennis gang 48,
while others, like the Magical Detective, make a play for an independent existence.
In practical economic terms, the population breaks down roughly as follows:
What do the people of Old Molder do for a living?
~60% (live a) Subsistence/Independent Lifestyle

~30% Commute/Trade with Town
~5% Scavenge/Trade
~3% Engineering/Tinkering/Metalworking
~1% Utility/Construction/Maintenance work
~1% Something criminal, weird, or miscellaneous
About 700 of the residents live a subsistence lifestyle individuals, families, or small
groups grow their own food, make their own clothing, homestead their own condominiums or
factories, and in general provide for themselves without depending on others. Theres a lively
scattering of small markets throughout the Region and people trade regularly with neighbors and
wanderers, but such trade is for conveniences and luxuries, not necessities. Another 350 or so make
their living off of strong ties to the rest of Town they live in Old Molder but make a daily,
weekly, or seasonal commute to the rest of Town to work, trade, or otherwise obtain the
necessities of life. Somewhere in between are about 70 scavengers who hunt through the ruins
and wilderness of Old Molder for scrap metal, herbal medicines, and interesting treasures from
the industrial days; these they then trade with locals for useful goods or take out to the rest of
Town to sell. There are about 35 engineers, tinkers, and metal-smiths whose skills are useful
48
A gang of orphans, run by a young man named Dennis. It was hard enough to get the name; if theres
anything exciting, horrifying, or even interesting about him, I dont know it.
enough in Old Molder to put food on their table without doing anything else; 20 Utility Men49
whose contributions to the public good entitle them to pretty much anything they might happen
to need, on pain of social censure for the stingy; and a scattering of full-time shop-owners,
criminals, and special cases.
Most of Old Molder is technically owned by some family or other back in Town. Sometimes
someone even shows up with the paperwork to claim their rights a building newly sold to
somebody whod rather have formal ownership before moving in, a dreamer with a big idea for
the real estate, or a technical landlord in financial difficulty looking for a quick bit of cash. This
can lead to long-standing disputes or immediate aggressive action but its more likely to resolve
both peaceably and quick; the Regional Council of Old Molder is empowered to strip land rights
from outsiders or cut the electricity and plumbing to locals if either takes intransigence too far.
Talking to the Utility Men is usually.............................................................................. Foreshadowing
The Utility Men are impressive roving troubleshooters, even if their particular post-
apocalyptic domain is smaller than some university campuses. When they bring news, a warning,
or a mention that theyre going to be working in your area, its probably relevant to your
interests!
Subsistence is usually .......................................................................................................... Shared Action
Youre doing your thing your simple, honest thing. You skip ahead to the point where
someone else shows up in scene, or you go bother someone else whos doing simple, honest
stuff (because you cant earn XP for this alone).
Then one of you reaches out. You try to connect!
Scavenging can be ................................................................................................................ Shared Action
If youre bringing new blood along while you look for interesting things in the wilderness of
Old Molder, thats probably Shared Action.
Scavenging is usually .................................................................................................................... Discovery
You explore. You find neat, scary, or mysterious things!
49
The term is regrettably considered unisex.
Scavenging can also be ............................................................................................................. Slice of Life
You know what youre doing. The wilderness is just backdrop to you. You see something
cool or poignant or whatever.
That moment sticks with you.
Visiting a local tinker, engineer, or metalsmith is usually.................................................. Slice of Life
Theres fire, or cool metal things or blueprints, or apprentices, or whatever something a

little interesting to interact with.
Trading at the local markets can be either kind of ........ Setting Action (Discovery or Slice of Life)
You see something interesting or meaningful and the image sticks with you.
BOX The Utility Men
The Utility Men consist of the Spark Men, who provide electricity; the River Men, who keep the
plumbing in good order; the Ombudsmen, who handle miscellaneous points of difficulty; and
the Bridgers, who salvage scrap metal from below and use it to extend wirework walkways and
bridges between the various buildings upper floors.
END BOX
BOX The Magical Detective
One day an unregistered orphan stumbled into Town, wrapped in a cloak of night. This Main
Character is usually Edony Marguerite, a young elf the only elf, to my knowledge, in all of
Town, although there are rumors of some sort of kingdom under the Lake but you could
replace her with a catgirl or foxgirl or even a young werebear boy named Luther (with adorable
little bear ears!), if youd prefer.
The reason you can do this so easily is that the origin of this person is essentially unknown:
The road that the Magical Detective took to get to Town was so very long and hard that
theyve lost all memory of what came before, or even how they got there theres just this
vague sense that there was fire, and pain, and they were so very, very tired, when they staggered
into Town at last. The fire is scary to remember, and the pain is awful, but its the exhaustion
that gives them nightmares:
How can a person be that tired and still alive?
They even lost their teddy bear somewhere along the way. It was more precious to their
heart than life itself, but they lost it.
The road was hard!
The Magical Detective has a vague sense that they have a purpose here. A mission. That
they werent just lost they came here to do something. To fix something. To save someone.
Maybe it involved taking on cases to help random people? Saving them from themselves or
from other people, solving mysteries, and in general fixing Town? Maybe it did and maybe it
didnt, but it sounded plausible enough that the Magical Detective hung out her shingle as a
detective
Shes on the case!
This Main Character is 60-70% of the typical PC age and lives in horrifying poverty in an
abandoned Old Molder apartment. On occasion, when a parent is absolutely necessary for social
or legal reasons, the spirit of the Wish-Granting Engine (pg. XX) will help the Magical Detective
out by pretending to fill that role. For instance, thats how they got the paperwork for School
filled out, allowing the Magical Detective to sneak in and attend a class or two now and then!
Edony Marguerite, aka

The Magical Detective
art by Ciaoffen
END BOX
The Yellow Stair
The earthquake split the road from Horizon to Old Molder open and tilted them apart. The
Horizon side sank down a little bit and Old Molder lurched back; theres now a cliff where once
they were contiguous. Its twelve feet tall where the main road once ran.
Ascending and descending that cliff, for the sake of those who walk between Old Molder
and the School, there is a yellow metal stair.
Commuting to and from Old Molder is usually ................................................................ not a scene at all.
Most of the time youre going to just skip to a scene in Old Molder or Town or vice versa.
Returning to Town is sometimes.......................................................................................... Slice of Life
If youre traveling with someone, then heading back to Town from Old Molder can be a
Slice of Life (like most travel scenes can.) Find things to comment or emote on in the scenery
that you pass, and hope that one of your traveling companions will do the same.
Commuting to Old Molder is sometimes............................................................................ a Transition
If youre going to climb the Yellow Stair on camera, its time to get out the stock footage!
Assume that theres a nice clip out there on youtube or something of your character ascending
the yellow stairs and walking across the broken streets and into the Old Molder garden. Since
you cant actually show that clip during the game, youll need to use a Transition Scene instead.
Im going to include three possible texts for this transition. When youre climbing the
Yellow Stair, someone of the HGs choice probably you reads from the text that seems
most appropriate. If you dont want to take the time to figure this out in play, and you didnt
think about it in advance, then just read from the first one and ignore the other two for now!
If you find yourself stopping partway through because it feels like youve said enough, you
can either start over, skip back a verse, or pick up from there the next time you go up.
First Text: Baroque, by Jenna Moran
If the earth hated you, it wouldnt be a joke.

You would be in serious trouble.
It could engulf you.
It could hit you with a rock. Its got wolves on it.
It could wolf you.
Its got wild boars on it. It could boar you.
Then it could wolf you.
Then it could hit you with a rock.
Then take some magma from its core, you
Know, erupt, erupt, it could!
And burn you up.
If it dismally tolerated you, then it would swallow

All your works.
Then theyd be hollow.
Then it would hit you with a rock, but smalla
Than the rock with which it hits a hated foe
You know.
And when you were gone

It would flower over
And green would fall across the roads youd made
And trees would rise to tower over
All your works, and crumble
Them with all their roots, engulf them,
Cover them in boars, or wolf them,
And your buildings would no longer matter
Save as trellises: the wire ladders
Would spill over with the fruit of its great vines
And if it loved you

Then it would go pretty much the same,
Except when you were gone, and all your brass was fallen
And the clouds of smoke
Consumed by pollen
And the brownstones crumbled
And the towers fell
In the forests you would see steel and brass

Dragonflies arise, and glass
Flowers blooming, and coal-eating elephants
To belch forth the savory of your smoke.
If she remembers she will remember you baroque.

Second Text: excerpt from The Chimney-Sweeper, by William Blake
When my mother died I was very young,

And my father sold me while yet my tongue
Could scarcely cry weep! weep! weep! weep!
So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep.
Theres little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head,

That curled like a lambs back, was shaved: so I said,
Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your heads bare,
You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair.
And so he was quiet; and that very night,

As Tom was a-sleeping, he had such a sight, -
That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack,
Were all of them locked up in coffins of black.
And by came an angel who had a bright key,

And he opened the coffins and set them all free;
Then down a green plain leaping, laughing, they run,
And wash in a river, and shine in the sun.
Third Text: An Ominous Dialogue
The Rising Sun: I remember when I could see the factories below.
I liked that. I liked shining down
And shimmering on the glass and cars.
The Falling Man: And making their steering wheels hot.
The Rising Sun: Do you have a point?
The Falling Man: Just saying. If youd like I could remove the smoke
Sear it from the sky
Send an astonishing all-devouring noisomely-coiling cloud-bird
after it
Expose the steel like naked malice to your eyes.
The Rising Sun: That is all right, I think.
The Falling Man: It is?

The Rising Sun: The matter has been attended to.
Though
The Keeper of the Storms: Though?
The Rising Sun: Now that the smoke has cleared, this moldering junk pile does
not seem to be quite as I remember it to be.
The Keeper of the Storms: Yes, well.

embarrassed look
The matter is resolved; and should remain that way.
The Rising Sun: If it does not?
The Keeper of the Storms: Then I fear what has been kindled in this place.
The Garden
The earthquake cracked the ground, shattered the roads, broke and sprayed rubble across Old
Molder. The most dangerous portions were covered over or fenced off; none of it was ever really
repaired. Instead, the lower world of Old Molder, everything below the second or third story of
the buildings, became the Garden.
Nature has reasserted itself here with unnatural speed and force; to look at the clusters of
knotweed and blue flowers growing by the broken-asphalt pools is to think that centuries and
not decades have passed since Old Molders breaking. Green climbs the ruins of the buildings,
and even over some still occupied and whole; stands of young trees give way to near-jungle here
and there; and, to the fascination and (frankly) horror of such biologists as visit Town, the
Region has given rise to new species of insects, lizards, and flowering trees unknown elsewhere, with
major deviations from the norm. These Molder Anomalies include four-foot lizards, only
occasionally poisonous; silver-colored bees; shamblers (large shamrock-shaped shade plants,
which unfortunately do not actually shamble); and the Molder swallows, gliding/flying lizards
who would be a reasonable evolutionary link between lizards and birds if we didnt already have
birds around.50 Ive also heard rumors of weirder things, ranging from living swamps to crabs
that occupy abandoned cars and rework scrap metal into leg-extensions for this shell.51
Its not just nature responsible for Old Molders garden, of course. There are people
involved too. Theres a pervasive impetus in Old Molder to seek the heights that for many
natives verges on compulsion. People dont like being down on the ground here: so theyve given
up on standing and walking on the streets, on the ground levels of buildings, and in the empty
warehouses, and use them pretty much entirely for cultivating food instead. Corn and soybeans
are most common in fenced-off or otherwise contained properties, but edible plants including
fruit trees, berry bushes, wood sorrel, and violets have escaped their reservations, probably with
human help, and grow throughout the Region now.
Getting poisoned by a Molder anomaly lizard is..................................................................... Adversity
Theyre not really dangerous, in the sense that you have to be pretty unlucky to get bitten by
one of the lizards, and unluckier still for it to be poisonous even if youre randomly sleeping
on the Old Molder ground or poking anomalies with sticks you are most likely safe. That said, if
it happens, then your life really sucks for a bit. The scene often fades to black on you once
youve gotten tired enough from all the vomiting that you start to hiccup and/or cry.
50
which we totally do
51
I am going to assume that people are making this up, or, failing that, that some person is converting used
cars into freaky crab-shaped proto-tanks. You know that youd do that last thing if you had the time.
Everybody would yell, Look out! Tank! when you marched into Town, but then they would say, Or, wait!
Maybe its a giant crab! Or a new car! Crark! Its a crark! (Crab-car-tank.) Run! But by the time they have
figured out what to call you you have already dipped them in melted butter and croaked out in your crark
voice from your synthesizer, See. How. You. Like. That. Pitiful. Biped. :: In. Soviet. Old. Molder. King. Crab.
Butters. You! It would be, to coin a phrase, crarktastic.
Gardening, farming, and keeping or driving out bees is usually .................................. Shared Action
This usually isnt hard enough to qualify as adversity or trouble but isnt laid-back enough to
fall under slice of life either. Its just you, walking your path. Doing ordinary stuff.
Try to connect!
Exploring the Garden is usually................................................................................................ Discovery
What is this that you have found?
Enjoying the Garden is usually ............................................................................................. Slice of Life
You know what youre doing. Old Molder is just a backdrop to you. Take some food and a
friend down on a picnic, maybe, or something, or climb up to the roofs for a better view.
Anyway, youll need to see something cool or wondrous or poignant or whatever, and then
emote your reaction to it. And that moment, that mood?
It lingers.
Old Molders Web
Now its more or less impossible to avoid the ground entirely when growing food, but theres a
bit of a cultural thing in Old Molder against traveling on it. Scavengers go below. Animals go
below. The Utility Men go below, when they must. People go below for special reasons and for
special occasions. People going about their daily business, though? Theyd much rather keep
themselves to the heights.
Old Molder was already prone to second- and third-story pedestrian walkways before the
earthquake hit. The people building the place were very excited about filling the streets with cars,
but also a little nervous about them you know how people can be so here, in the heart of
Towns industrial district, people made it pretty easy to get from place to place without crossing
paths with the machines. Some of the high walkways shattered in the earthquake; a surprising
number of them didnt.52 Still, there werent enough left, or for that matter to begin with, to
support a fully second- and higher-story lifestyle.
Things are different now.
For decades now people have been salvaging scrap metal from the Garden and the unused
buildings and using it to build out the space between buildings with Old Molders Web a series
of shiny wire-grate walkways, bridges, and occasional suspended market squares connecting the
various upper-story residences with one another and with the tops of the shorter buildings. The
Web got its name from the classic painting by Mr. Holmstock showing the sunset from a tall
building and the wire laid out like a spider-web burning with orange-lit dew; in truth, from most
rooftops, it looks more like a corn maze than a spiders haunts, for which I personally am
grateful.
Finding a good view of the web is sometimes............................................................ Decisive Action
This isnt for seeing the web, like, spotting a walkway from underneath. Thats trivial. This is
for finding a good place to see most or all of it from, from above.
As you struggle to find a good place to do that it can actually be pretty hard when youre
a newcomer to the area, or if theres some obstruction on your usual route you talk with
someone about your life and whats on your mind. You catch their attention, which is probably
pretty easy because theyre bothering to accompany you on this search. Then you finally see the
web, and its amazing, and as youre looking down across the sweep of the shining web and all
Old Molder, you reach and then announce a decision.
52
It was really a very convenient earthquake in some respects.
Or do you do something decisive then and there? But I dont know what that could possibly
be unless youre going to grow fiery wings or something or push your traveling companion off of
the roof.53
Finding a good view of the web is usually .......................................................................... Slice of Life
You admire it. Or youre a freak and you express your disappointment. Freak! Then
someone else emotes, in response to you or to the web. Thats a good moment to treat as a Slice
of Life.
Youll remember that moment.
Walking on the web is usually just........................................................................................ Slice of Life
Find things to comment or emote on in the scenery as you go, and perhaps those images
will stick with you too.
53
Disclaimer: do not push people off of roofs.
The Dragonflies
A piloted dragonfly ornithopter treading the upper air is a characteristic sight of Old Molder.
The ornithopters are compellingly beautiful: golden, gleaming in the sun, deceptively ethereal and
fragile in appearance, hovering and flitting through the sky much as real dragonflies do. Theyre
brutally difficult both to steer and to keep skyborne, I understand, so theres never more than a
few of them visible at once but once you spot one its hard to look at anything else until it
lands.
The body of an Old Molder flyer is about 30 feet in length. Each wing is about 20 feet of
golden filigree with something like soap bubble or, well, insect wing, stretched between the gaps
in metal to make the lace of the wings airtight. Most of the power comes from pedaling; theres a
small onboard engine in some designs, but its not so much for regular use as for emergencies
like a nasty wind or a suddenly locked-up leg. (The engineers of Old Molder are pretty good
with engines, but its not good luck to rely on an engine here, and nobody likes a purveyor of
bad luck.) An Old Molder flyer is more likely to rely on winding for its power than combustion,
and some models for the weaker-legged take an hour or two of winding for each fifteen minutes
of free flight.
Words cant express how much I love these things. Theyre awesome. If youre incredibly
strong and fit and ideally engineering-minded and you ever find yourself in Old Molder, please
take one out into the upper air for me and tell me how it goes. Conversely, please dont take one
far outside it they dont take to the air outside Old Molder very well. Its not so much that
they dont work in, say, Horizon, and you do get occasional daredevils flying an ornithopter into
School and back, but the crash and casualty rates start skyrocketing once you leave the
environment of Old Molder. Some of this is aerodynamics and weather patterns and the like;
some of it seems to be that the things are only barely safe and functional in their native state.
Their apparent ability to function reliably within Old Molder is then the consequence of a
peculiar local blessing of luck, of dharma, or of fate.
Flight is almost never ....................................................................................................................... Trouble
The idea of something chasing you, or a disaster getting ever closer while youre flying, is
pretty awesome and dramatic, but you cant really have very many scenes like that in Old Molder
unless the skies become a lot more dangerous or, maybe, safer.54 Anyway, a scene like that would
work basically like this: trouble looms. You flail, trying to mitigate the problem, or maybe you try
to run away or hide from some sort of aerial danger. You seem safe until . . .
Theres a terrible moment of fear!
54
to encourage people who really shouldnt be flying to get out there and get into trouble.
Flight is often .................................................................................................................... Foreshadowing
Youre up in the air. Something down below catches your attention. You fly closer, your
attention caught. Then you see something more! Something interesting! You react!
Flight is sometimes .................................................................................................. Sympathetic Action
. . . or at least, it can be if theres someone who can talk to you like, if youve brought a
small walkie-talkie or radio with you, or youre in magical communication with somebody, or
someones flying another flyer next to you, or youve got a Fortitude rat or some other extremely
low-mass personage with you as your copilot.
If you do have someone who can talk to you, you can have a flight scene that starts with you
just kind of soaring, enjoying the air. Or, if you like, with you sweating and pedaling, totally
exhausted, taking the ornithopter somewhere where it needs to go. Then bam, suddenly you
realize that what youre seeing is absolutely shocking. You try to get some mental or physical
distance. You fail, at first. Someone expresses concern or sympathy. (Thats why you need
someone else around.) Their concern shakes you out of a mental lock-up or helps you push past
a physical difficulty, and you can act again!
Flying is often just ............................................................................................................... Shared Action
You do stuff. You connect with the world and the air and your flying machine. You make
yourself a little vulnerable, e.g., by flying way high in the sky in a fragile pedal-powered
dragonfly-shaped ornithopter. Or by making yourself emotionally vulnerable. You know.
Whatever.
This is probably isolating, but, heck, maybe you actually do connect with the world.
Unorthodoxies
Historically Old Molder has attracted an uncharacteristic number of Towns unorthodoxies55

semi- or non-human people of more or less unique circumstances, character, and extraction.
At present these include Nataniel Oldman, an amoeboid gardener entity alleging shoggoth and
nature spirit ancestry; the Morrow Square mass mind; a comatose mutate whose electrified skin
powers much of the Region (the alternative, letting him radiate freely until his building burned
down, is seen as even less humane); and, of course, the Magical Detective.
Trying to help the electrified man is usually .......................................... Science, Faith, and Sorcery
I figure that it is reasonable to come up with and test a theory for whats going on with him,
because your PCs are pretty awesome, but I cant promise itll work out. So you talk about what
you know. Then you propose your theory. Then you put yourself at risk maybe you risk
electrification, maybe you just risk your moral standing testing your theory out.
Meeting an unorthodoxy is often .................................................................................. Foreshadowing
Youre out in Old Molder. You meet someone/something strange. It catches your attention
and its strangeness gives extra weight to whatever it might say. You listen. It says or does
something more..
Visiting an unorthodoxy you know well is often .................................................... Shared Reactions
Once you know them, of course, theyre just a friend. So if you visit them and hang out, its
probably to talk about stuff thats been going on in your lives. You connect with them. One of
you makes yourself a little vulnerable, maybe? Thats Shared Reactions!
Moral debate about the electrified man is usually ................................................... Shared Reactions
Im not really recommending you get into this, because the guy is unconscious so youre
more likely to project player-level opinions onto the matter than to react naturally to social cues
in character. But if you do find yourself debating this, thats Shared Reactions. If someone gets
too worked up it might bridge over into Science, Faith, and Sorcery instead!
55
I feel a little weird talking about them like this. Because theyre people. But this is a storytelling game, and
this is how it works in stories, and Im using one unorthodoxy with permission and making up the other two,
so. Um. Something.
BOX The Lurker
Sometimes ornithopters and their pilots just vanish. Its not common once or twice a decade,
at the most. Its still a little puzzling, because Old Molder is not that big, and the ornithopters are
pretty visible. Youd expect them to go down in flames, or at least in screams, but you wouldnt
expect them to vanish. For this reason people talk about The Lurker, some kind of
combustion-powered monstrosity hidden in Old Molder that hunts down and devours
ornithopters and their pilots. Im pretty sure this is just the local equivalent of an urban legend,
but its such a good excuse for Trouble that The Lurker probably ought to exist in some form or
other in your game.
END BOX
Little Island
Little Island
Things cant change before theyre ready.

Things must show their true natures.
Things cant lie.
Things must be beautiful.
The sun must shine brightly.
You can never experience the night.
art by Ciaoffen Typical Genre: Pastoral
Little Island is a storybook island near the middle of Big Lake. Fluffy sheep dot its green
hills. Clouds float across its bright blue sky.
Its Towns memory of itself, I think, in a way.
To live on Little Island is to live in a story of the idyllic past. Its a place of your youth, of
the golden what-used-to-be. Because theres a Little Island, the people of Town get to say, ah,
the old ways arent really gone, those days arent gone, theyre not lost and theyre not forgotten.
The past never really went away, they say, it just moved to Little Island.
Its a clean and healthy place. Its a true place. Its beautiful. It isnt in the past because it
hates progress or is against the modern world or anything like that. It just hasnt caught up to the
real world yet.
It has a temple at its heart. Its a temple to Jade Irinka, who was in those days, as Im sure
you will remember, the goddess of the sun.
The spirits of the wind laugh and play among Little Islands wind farms spinning blades.
The people grow their grapes, catch their fish, raise their families, and tend their sheep, and
its all as it ever was, all as it always used to be; and they who live on Little Island never know the
sunless night.

Sheep: 1600+
Population: 155 (130 humans, 25 wind spirits)
The Golden Days of Fable
Life on Little Island is simple and pastoral. Its a peaceful place and its bathed in the light of
Towns bright sun.
The houses are mostly made from piled, mortared stones. The roofs are dark shingles. Most
houses have picket fences that surround them.
Not every house has running water. There isnt much in the way of electric. Theres a tiny
branch library on Little Island, basically a depot for relaying books in and out of Town, and the
post visits once a week. Theres no phone service or cell phone coverage at all, but the locals, of
course, dont mind whats the point of a telephone, after all, except to have people bothering
you all the time?
And why wouldnt you just walk a few miles and have a visit if there were someone you
wanted to see?
Most of the families of Little Island keep herds of sheep, but Little Island is also home to
fishers, vine-dressers and farmers, and a family of priests and priestesses. Theres also the
Merrons, the closest thing Little Island has to rebels, who keep a small vegetable garden, tend the
port for the ferry, and run the inn and general store.
Now Little Island is a folksy place, a once-upon-a-time kind of place, and you can tell
because theres a narrator someone to tell the stories of the place. You have to work pretty
hard to be conscious of it when youre there, and so its up to the HG and the players exactly
how much of this element to bring in.
Still, its not the kind of place where you get there and youre all what do I do now?
Therell be a voice to remind you what, somewhere in your soul:
Now on a day like this, Shokyou thought, theres nothing for it but to go and watch the wind-spirits at
their play . . .
And if you ever need to help fix a sheeps sprained leg, or find help when youre in trouble, or
build a picket fence, why, theres the narrator right there to help you, explaining the way people
handle troubles like that on Little Island.
BOX Bethany Lennox
Those who find that the simple life does not suit them eventually depart from Little Island
though, it can take a while. Theres a story that Bethany Lennox realized one day that life on
Little Island wasnt quite to her tastes. Seven generations later, her great-great-great-great-great-
granddaughter finished putting everything to rights and saying her goodbyes and took the ferry
over to Town for good.
END BOX
BOX The Goji
The fifth hour of Towns day is bound to the Goji family of Little Island: its a lucky hour for
them, and those who know them often find their thoughts turning to the Goji when it is five
oclock.
END BOX
The Mermaids and the Seals
People sometimes spot mermaids or seals in the rocks near Little Island. Sometimes the
mermaids sing. The people of Little Island dont trouble them at most, they nod or wave
for such is the custom of the isle.
Spotting a mermaid or seal is usually ............................................................................ Foreshadowing
It catches your attention. You watch or listen for a while. It does stuff. Then you react
and it slips away.
Im not 100% certain the mermaids are real and not a special effect of some sort; and if they
are real, then theres probably a reason people dont bother them, so trying to catch them might
not be wise. So thats why this is a Foreshadowing Action and not something more interactive.
Then again, its your game! You know best!
Life on Little Island is usually ........................................................................................... Shared Action
You do simple, honest things. Like, watch over the sheep, or fix a broken window, or dust
the house. You connect with somebody else over it or, if youre alone, with nature itself. You
make yourself a little vulnerable, because if you cant trust the people around you, either you or
they dont belong on Little Island! Thats a Shared Action.
Life on Little Island is sometimes ........................................................................................ Slice of Life
Something in the scenery catches your attention. You emote an emotional reaction to the
brightness of the day; to a fine new ribbon you have in your hair; to a sheep thats behaving
more finicky than is his or her wont. Or you sight a mermaid or a seal in the Lake, or the face of
your sweetheart in the clouds and rather than watching it and getting all foreshadowy, you
just share your joy in that!
Maybe someone responds, and follows up with an emote of their own?
Thats a Slice of Life.

BOX You Can Never Experience the Night
The natives dont tend to comment on this explicitly, but Little Island is always sunny and the
nights are kind of elusive. Its not so much that they dont happen, because obviously they must.
Its just that apparently nobody ever looks around and realizes, Hey, Im on Little Island, and
its night. Sometimes its because the narration just skips to
The next morning . . .
But other times its much subtler than that.
The bright sun of day is an intrinsic part of life experience on Little Island. In the summer, it
gives rise to a languid heat; in spring and autumn, aromatic breezes temper its heat; and in the
winter, the sun shines sharp and clean in the winter sky through days that seem somehow far too
short. If there wasnt the sun, would the island even really be there?
END BOX
Visiting
The most common reason for visiting Little Island is as a student of School, on a field trip
normally thatll happen during the summer when the days are longest and the Island most
accessible. On a field trip to Little Island students may experience the old-fashioned lifestyle of
the place, pet the sheep, roam the hills, see the fields of grapes, and help out with traditional
chores such as sheep-shearing or maintenance on the major buildings. It is a rare treat to witness
one of the evening rituals, since of necessity this requires staying overnight on Little Island and
may even require staying for several days.56
PCs might also visit Little Island to forget some trauma or trouble, visit friends (met at
School?) who live there, or take some action at the temple pertaining to the matter of the sun.
Healing spiritual wounds with a visit to Little Island is............................................................ Pastoral
A visit to Little Island can be good for the mental health. You dont necessarily spend your
whole time there actively healing, but now and again, youll talk to someone, or maybe just the
world/narrator/HG, about what happened and why you were broken enough to need the trip:
Shared Reactions.
And youll also probably do Shared Actions and Slice of Life Actions while youre there!
Scenes on Little Island are usually .................................................................................... Shared Action
If youre stranded and out of your element on Little Island, someone can help you. Helping
you is a simple, honest thing, and they can connect with you over it, and maybe they even show
you some trust if thats what you need, or accept your trust if that would work better. Either way,
that winds up being a Shared Action.
Or maybe youre in your element. Then its just like living here. You do simple, honest
things. Like, help watch over the sheep, or visit the temple, or hang out with your field trip
group, or wander the hills and admire the scenery. You connect with somebody else over it
or, if youre alone, maybe with nature itself. You make yourself a little vulnerable. Thats a Shared
Action too!
56
If somethings going to keep the priestess from performing it, she might not always know in time to send
people home.
Scenes on Little Island are sometimes ................................................................................. Slice of Life
Something in the scenery catches your attention. You emote an emotional reaction to the
vastness of the hills, to their greenness; to the clouds, or the calmness of the sheep, or the
splashing of the Lake. Someone responds, and follows up with an emote of their own.
The moment lingers.

The Temple
In the center of Little Island is a valley. It is reachable by dusty paths, kept up but poorly, and
marked along their way by birdhouses tied with sacred cords. At the end of that valley a steep
esplanade ascends the hillside and becomes a great long stair, leading finally to the grounds of
the temple to Jade Irinka, who was the sun.
The courtyard of that temple is vast and its architecture is stone and in the main hall of the
temple is a twelve foot statue of Jade Irinka, six-armed, crowned by the sun, and bestowing a
quixotic smile on those who visit her in these days after her death. Laid often but not quite
always at her feet are flowers and smaller gifts; behind her is a great tapestry showing the island
and the sun, and to her sides are gongs.
There has always been a family here whose duty it is to tend the temple and honor Jade
Irinka. Its possible that the temple will move on to honoring Jasper Irinka now, the Child of
the Sun, but in a typical campaign that hasnt happened and probably wont either the new
sun is too new and the world still doesnt know it should be worshipping her, or shes gotten used
to it and decided that the temple should keep to the old ways and uphold her mothers memory
and honor her as if shed never passed away.
In short, the only way this is going to become a temple to Jasper instead of to Jade is if that
happens during play.
Thus it is that there is no temple to the modern sun, only a small devotional in a side room
for those who wish to honor it; and the rituals of the temple still honor the dead sun, the lost
angel, Jade Irinka who passed away.
The only major change since the era of Jade Irinka is that the main entrance to the temple,
which once faced east, now faces west; and how this should have happened, or why it did not
require a more extensive change in architecture, even the priestess of the temple does not know.
Once upon a time it was possible to travel from the temple to the realm of the sun to
ascend through an archway that opened behind Jade Irinkas statue to the higher realm. This is
no longer so; if the tapestry is cast aside, and the arch opened by the ritual of passage, it leads to
nowhere good.
The narrator does not speak in the vicinity of the temple.
There is only silence from the heavens, there, that you may better hear what may be
speaking in your heart.
Pausing part of the way to the temple and talking is usually .................................... Decisive Action
You discuss the things that led you there. Then you make a choice!
The walk to the temple is usually.......................................................................................... Slice of Life
You see evocative things along the way, or you learn something about a traveling
companion. The moment sticks with you; the mood lingers.
Attempting to enter Jade Irinkas realm is usually .............................................................a Transition
This may change if youre in a campaign where Celestia is accessible
Then you may find yourself in a war zone, perhaps, assailed by the night-wyrms of the Bleak
Academy; or in an unmarred paradise; or in an empty, inexplicable ruin that you may rebuild.
But if the sky kingdom remains inaccessible, then this is simply a Transition:
You experience hints of a nightmare world, of shadowy powers, of endless, biting wind; you
read from an Outside-related Transition, e.g., the ones on pg. XX; the entire experience is
painful, incomprehensible, and inexplicable, and not one that you are 100% certain to have
survived.
BOX Celestia
At one time there was a kingdom in the sky a deep, a true, and a paradisiacal land.
It has drifted away from us with the death of Jade Irinka. At the time of this story, even her
successor, the Child of the Sun, does not know how to reach the kingdom of the sky.
But its touch lingers; sometimes I think that with the right route you could climb the
limestone cliffs of the northern beach forever, and maybe one day reach the sky.
The Sky Kingdom
You must reconcile the divided and the antithetical.

You must keep things in good order.
Your emotions must have a tangible impact on the
world.
The lake must be tranquil.
You must see far, and see clearly.
You must have a talent for expression.
art by Tang Yuann A terrible beauty must reside in everything, though it
may hide beneath the surfaces of things.
END BOX
Wind-Farms and Wind-Spirits
Little Island has a bit of electric mostly for refrigeration, sewage treatment, ventilation, and
charging up boat motors, although the power outlets in the inn can save a trip to the mainland if
a kid wants to charge their PSP. If you ask a Little Islander where the electric comes from, theyll
explain with a straight face that they get static electricity from rubbing sheep theyve been
telling that joke to visitors for years, and theyre not going to stop until theyve sheared it bare of
every last wisp of humor but the more correct answer is the wind farms that cover several of
the islands hills.
Little Islands wind farms have attracted wind spirits to them fairly important wind
spirits, if their own accounts are trustworthy. These aristocratic spirits treat spinning the windmill
blades as a game or contest and squabble over whose territory in the region is the best. Many
of the people of Little Island have a hereditary blessing from these spirits, or even a bit of wind-
spirit in their own bloodline, which inclines the wind to treat them kindly. Those who dont have
such a blessing are best advised to avoid the squabbling princes and princesses of the air
theyre noble of heart and have no real desire to hurt anybody, but theyre also prickly, fickle,
possessive, and playful, and prone to dream up clever tricks.
If youre troubled by wind spirits, you can earn a substantial respite by tossing a hat or
ribbon into the wind and daring them to chase it, or offering it to the noblest of those that
torment you. Unfortunately, this only postpones the problem leaving your hat in the
possession of wind spirits can slowly deplete your solid material grounding and infect you bit by
bit with the nature of the wind. This is not inherently bad so much as invasive, peculiar, difficult
to control, and a bit open-ended in how long it may last and how far it may go.
Giving your hat to the wind is usually ................................................... Science, Faith, and Sorcery
You tell the wind about the hat, or your friends about the trick, or the narrator proposes
that this is a thing that you will do. You test the theory that theyll leave you alone and that youll
get what you want if you do it!
Giving your hat to the wind sets the stage for later ........................ Corruption or Metamorphosis
You find yourself unexpectedly touched by the nature of the wind. Reality gets a little weird.
Corruption or transformation sets in.
Being troubled by the wind is usually ....................................................................... Obsessive Action
You get worried or worked up about it. They stress you out with their tricks, or you decide
to repay them with tricks of your own. You go a bit too far, a bit over the top. Someone notices!
(Or does something happen to render the matter pointless, instead, like the Headmaster
wandering up and unexpectedly killing off the wind?)
Enjoying the company of the winds is usually ........................................................ Shared Reactions
You share news with them. You connect with them, or with others nearby. You make
yourself a little vulnerable, whispering a secret to them or letting them play temporarily with your
hat.
Enjoying the company of the winds can be ........................................................................ Slice of Life
You hang out. Something moves you to emote. Someone else replies!
BOX Wind-Charmers
Certain cherubic innocents possess something called the wind-charm wind-spirits love
them and treat them kindly. The weird thing is, the wind-charm is heritable. Even an extremely
worldly jerk, supposing they had a sufficiently cherubic ancestor, may possess the wind-charm.
This is measured by the Skill Superior Connection to the Wind 1. It probably shouldnt rise
past level 1 barring a pact of some sort binding ones spirit to the wind or a truly legendary fairy-
tale friendship or love for the wind.
By default, wind-spirit blood is a Defining or Setting Perk (pg. XX), making you Seventh
Earl of the North-Northwest Morning Breeze or whatnot, with no attached magical powers and
no real use for a shepherd or shepherdess except to establish their position in local wind-spirit
society and maybe contact a relatively recent ancestor for help at need. It doesnt even really
make them safe around wind-spirits or particularly palatable to wind-spirits not directly related to
their line it just makes sure that the danger is the danger of extended family politics rather
than the danger of randomly becoming an interesting new toy. Someone with wind-spirit blood
may wind up with Superior Wind-Spirit 1-2 and/or Superior Celestian 1-2, as described on pg.
XX and XX, making them substantially more like the wind spirits themselves and even
potentially allowing them to turn into the wind and fly.
END BOX
(Superior) Celestian
This is the Skill of those whose natural home is the upper air those whose spirits dream of the
sky kingdom where lived Jade Irinka, before her death.
Normally youd need to spend a complete story in the sky kingdom to pick this up but since
it doesnt seem to be there any longer, since you can go higher and higher and just find, well,
sky?
Ill let you pick this up some other way.
The Air of Celestia
In the old days, when the creatures and bird-faced spirits of the sky kingdom visited Town, an
air of Celestia would linger upon them. While the air lingered,
mortals saw the spirits actions as the actions of a bird, the wind, the heat, the snow, or
something else like that, and wouldnt recognize the spirit as a spirit unless they actively,
consciously looked.
even then, mortals had difficulty seeing the spirits unless the spirit spoke to them or
threatened them or something that they cared for.
the Properties of Celestia continued to apply to the spirit
the spirit resisted (but did not wholly ignore) the Properties of other places.
while the air of Celestia lingered around a spirit, it smoothed their passage back into the
upper world.
The Skill Itself
So the levels of this Skill look something like:
[Superior] Celestian 0. Sometimes you dream of the endless sky.

[Superior] Celestian 1. You seem to have boundless energy, though technically you
dont. You like climbing a lot and youre absurdly good at it. You occasionally have
whole conversations while asleep. Birds like you. You fade into the background when
seen in the distance. When you depart Celestia, an air of Celestia clings to you for up
to half an hour.
[Superior] Celestian 2. When you depart Celestia an air of Celestia lingers about you
for up to three full days and three full nights. You need only a crumb or two of food a
day, and either you dont need sleep at all or you can sleepwalk with great vigor and
intelligence.
Thats actually as far as it goes proper Celestians only had two levels of this Skill, so I dont
even know what a third level would mean. Possibly youd need . . . a crumb or two of food a week
and youd be so awake that youd bleed coffee? I. dont. Know!
(Superior) Wind-Spirit
Between the lower world and the upper world there was a glassy medium which the Lady Irinka
called Heavens Lake, Heavens Shell, or the Hull of the Sky. Across this medium blew the wind-
spirits, shaping it and re-shaping it according to their whims and plans. Now that art is lost,
together with Heavens Lake and the kingdom in the sky; but the wind-spirits still have powers
that touch upon it and the Skill (Superior) Celestian 2.
Their more wind-spirit-specific powers are represented by (Superior) Wind-Spirit, a Skill

ranging from level 1-4 and generally a lot more customizable than the rules below suggest if
you want to have a wind-spirit thats a specialist in blowing out flames, or capable of violent
storm winds but only for short durations, or able to turn completely into wind but only into a
gentle breeze, thatll be completely fine! You can strengthen or specialize these abilities a bit or
weaken them quite a lot without breaking the rules of the game.
Heres what the levels of Wind-Spirit look like:
Wind-Spirit 0. You are not a wind-spirit. Possibly you have a bit of wind-spirit blood in
you but how could anybody tell?
Wind-Spirit 1. Youre faster than most people. You can use light foot practice to make it
seem like youve cut up to two thirds off of your density and mass but technically this is
balance-related trickery and deceptive strength, rather than an actual reduction in density, and if
youre ever unconscious or paralyzed you revert immediately to your normal weight. Youre hard
to visually track. You can interact with the glassy medium as if it were rubber instead of the usual
thick glass.
Wind-Spirit 2. Choose:
You can adopt a wind-shape, difficult to see and identify and able to squeeze down
or expand outwards by a factor of about two-fold. or
You can control or wield a wind that blows around you.
Either way, you can reduce your mass to a fraction of an ounce, or to anything between that and
your normal mass. If you give in entirely to instinct (that is, to the HG) as to where youre going,
you can fly at up to 25 miles per hour. You can interact with the glassy medium as if it were thick
pudding, rubber, or glass.
Wind-Spirit 3. You can turn into wind and blow where you wish. You can be, or control, a
gale. You choose many of the material properties of the glassy medium around you.
Wind-Spirit 4. Youre comparable to one of the twelve emperors57. You can turn into a
hurricane-force wind to fill most of a Region, blow for weeks without tiring, and do tricks like
briefly turning a hand into a violent wind to blast enemies away with or sculpting the glassy
medium into a miles-long path or an elaborate sculpture with just a puff of breath.
57
the greatest of all winds, responsible for blowing for weeks on end, shifting whole regions worth of cloud,
and capsizing or speeding along even the strongest ships. They include three humanoid winds, the wind-dog
Emperor Chou, the Waking Dragon Eme, and the Seven Sleeping Emperors, dozing wind-dragons who go
about their work by a process of unconscious action. They probably wont show up in play, but the wind-spirits
talk about them quite a bit!
The Walking Fields
Properties of the Walking Fields
Animals are wise.

What happens is what has always happened.
You will meet with others in the proper Hour.
What happens is what must happen.
There is something you were supposed to do.
Things are not as you remember them.
The world is bigger than you imagine, and full of more
art by Ciaoffen brightness and tragedy.
Typical Genre: Adventure Fantasy
To the west sprawl the Walking Fields that are Towns agricultural base. The land is wild here,
full of animals and plants and life, and waiting, and ready
Though for what I am not sure.
Its the kind of place where sometimes the rocks that you grow up climbing will groan and
creak and stretch and wake and regard you with their craggy eyes; and humph, perhaps, and
settle again, and tumble back to sleep. Its the kind of place where you can imagine that at any
moment the houses will loose themselves from the burden of the ground and sail through the
fields like ships. Its the kind of place where just a moment ago, something happened; or in just a
moment, something will happen, if you wait; a child lost, or an empire gained, or a dryad chased
from the brambles by a wild and monstrous hunt.
Thats how it seems, anyway, although in truth most of the time Ive spent there nothing
particular happened at all.
Its a place under a burden of destiny. Its a place thats filled with the Call with
something thats been waiting, something that will demand something of you, or take something
from you, or give you a gift that you cannot repay.
Its an autumn place. Its mostly fields, but there are thick stands of trees and there are wide-
spanning meadows. The colors here are gold and brown gold-brown grass, and brambles;
golden wheat and calfskin-colored trees; brown-gold birds and crisp gold autumn leaves, and all
in the suns warm glow.
Its beautiful. Its vast and open and full of the little things of birds and small animals and
insects. Its a place thats speaking to your heart.
Population: 20,000
Out in the Wild
Theres a lot of pretty scenery out there in the Walking Fields, at least if you like stuff like
brown-gold grass and little birds and hedgehogs and free-range goats or deer and foxes and
iridescent insects and spiderwebs swaying on wind-blown stalks.
Wandering the Walking Fields is sometimes ............................................................................ Decisive
Youre out in the world. You think through stuff . You talk through stuff. You come to a
decision, or you act!
Languid days in the Walking Fields are usually....................................................... a lull in the Trouble
Languid days in the Walking Fields are sometimes ....................................................... Shared Action
Theres a weight of destiny here. Even the peaceful days dont feel like a casual Slice of Life.
They dont feel ordinary. They feel like somethings coming.
The world is asking you for something.
Or talking to you about something.
Its always trembling on the verge of something happening.
So even if youre just hanging out enjoying the scenery, it doesnt feel like a Slice of Life. It
feels like you need to connect to somebody, or the world; or, if not, like trouble is coming (back)
soon.
Exploring and admiring the animals is sometimes ................. Setting (Slice of Life or Discovery)
You see something some glimpsed animal, artistic arrangement of branches and wind-
blown grains, fairy fluttering from a flower, spider catching an insect, or scrap of cloth fluttering
amidst some leaves. Or you feel something, a breeze or emotion.
It sticks with you.

Weather
Theres a lot of rain in the Walking Fields. Theres a lot of sun, too. Theres always at least a little
wind. The weather shifts pretty suddenly so a lot of the buildings have big eaves to them
thats so you can run under them in a storm.
Sudden rain is usually .............................................................................................. Sympathetic Action
Youre not really paying attention to the sky. Or you are, but you dont realize just how fast
the storm is coming. Then wham, lightning in the distance. Or whoosh, rain all over the place.
Somebody in the scene kind of reels, confused and taken aback, because theyre shocked. And
you notice, and youre all sympathetic and like: Come on, dummy! Weve got to get inside!
That shakes them from their shock and they make a dash for it.
Thats your Sympathetic Action!
Watching the rain from safety is usually .............................................................................. Slice of Life
Later, the weather clears up!

Houses
The houses of the Walking Fields are made of good, solid stone. The stone gets stacked up and
white plaster seals the cracks to make it prettier.
Some of the storehouses, mills, and barns are pretty tall. They look like lighthouses or the
masts of ships.
The houses and shops always lean a little I mean, theres this impression, I think, even
when theyre new. Its like theyre wanting to move. Its like theyre eager and waiting and
wanting to be free. I imagine them talking to one another at night, the wind carrying their voices,
saying:
O if the earth would only let me free,
the wind could catch me and Id sail away!
The roofs even have figureheads, like ships. They have a sweep like the Viking longships and the
front of them comes forward to the figure of a horse, or a dragon, or a woman, or a fox, or a
bear, or whatever else!
I think there will come a night when they really do slip free from the bonds of the world and
glide like ships through the Walking Fields; though I cannot say what that will mean, or what will
happen after.
On the Way to the Door
Theres often a fence around a house. It tends to lean.
Sometimes the fence is just around the house and its main yard. Sometimes it covers a lot of
ground. But the house wont be in its center, not if the fence is large. Youll be able to see the
house from the front gate.
Theres often something, some structure or object, between the gate to the fence and the front
door, off to the side of a dirt or a cobblestone road. A bicycle rack? A wooden table for eating
outdoors? An anvil? An old wagon wheel? A meat drying rack? Laundry?
Its a halfway marker, and thats something in the culture of the place a thing to say, here
the wild meets the tame. Something that you can meet the fairies at, or a prince of the animals, or
whatever, that isnt the fence (so they dont feel kept out) but isnt your front door (so you dont
have to invite them in.)
A Bit of Space
Theres a long way between houses. Youre said to be rubbing elbows with someone if you can
see their house from yours.
A house you dont know is sometimes ....................................................................................... Trouble
Destiny reaches its fingers out for you. You could try to run, but would that work? You
could try to hide. You could try to assert control. But something is coming, something is luring
you in. Ghosts? Murder? Someone who needs you? With your cooperation the HG builds a
sense of horror and threat.
Often it seems like everythings fine right before the next heart-stopping moment of fear!
A house you dont know is usually ................................................................................ Foreshadowing
Somethings off. Somethings unexpected. A flash of color from the birds nest under the
roof. A fox catches your eye. You see the rust on an abandoned wagon wheel. You look more
closely. The more that happens is the HG describing it more, going into more depth. Or a
sudden movement the fox runs away. The bird takes off. You lean over to touch the wagon
wheel, at the HGs prompting, and it dissolves to rust. You react!
A house you do know is usually ....................................................................not a scene at all, but possibly

Shared Action
I mean, seriously, once you know who lives there, it is probably just a house. But if you do
have a scene focusing on the house of friends or family in the Walking Fields, its likely a Shared
Action scene. You do your thing. Or someone talks about their thing yeah, we spent months
building this fence. Had to bring in the wood from a fair ways north. Anyway, you bond over it.
. . . maybe with just so, what do you think?
A house you dont know is sometimes .................................................................................... Discovery
You approach. You find neat, scary, or mysterious things. You emote a response!
Transportation
Theres a lot of dirt roads through the Walking Fields.
The people used to travel a lot by horse and cart, and then for a while trucks were in vogue,
but bicycles are the hip thing now. Theyre usually kind of cheap and poorly-made, but what
does that matter? You can go twenty miles in an hour! Or fifteen at an easy pace.
Theres a School bus that comes to the Walking Fields, but it doesnt go very deep in. Most
folks who live in the Walking Fields go to little 20-kid schoolhouses for elementary and middle
school and then either skip high school as too fancy or board in Horizon during the week.
Travel in the Walking Fields is generally ...................................................................................... Setting
Half the time its Slice of Life, just like in a typical place, but theres also a lot of Discovery
when youre taking a long bike or walk in the Walking Fields. Theres always a neat bit of
something that you might see!
Dryads, Field-Spirits, and Flower-Spirits
The spirits of nature are not common in the Walking Fields, but theyre a real presence.
The most common are probably the dryads and similar creatures. They may melt into the
stand of trees, field of grain, or bed of flowers that gives rise to them; emerge from it in a semi-
human, semi-floral form; or anthropomorphize themselves all the way down to humanoid
shapes with flowers in their hair, soft voices, and a tinge of blue, green, gold, or acorn color
under their pale skin.58 They are excellent dancers, meager eaters, unnaturally healthy and long-
lived, and they bring fertility and vigor to the plants wherein they dwell.
There are fairies, too, and wise animals, but Im going to leave them in the HGs hands for
now.
Dealings with the dryads and field and flower spirits are usually ........................................... Trouble
These creatures are the favored prey of the Excrucians (pg. XX) and this Regions genre
skews towards adventure, so a lot of the time, when you meet them at all, its because theyre
fleeing from the Excrucians Great Hunt.
Thats not actually the biggest feature of their lives or anything
Its just going to be a comparatively common encounter type in play. And its likely to be
Trouble.
They can also be Trouble if you start messing with their trees or territory at that point
the dryads and spirits can themselves get a little scary. Even the nicest rose-spirits have their
thorns!
58
pale in that they appear somewhat ghostly and somewhat drawn theyre not necessarily Caucasian.
The Twig-People
The twig-people remind me of stick-bugs, only beginning not with an insect but with instead a
human form. Theyre brown and green and big-eyed and their fingers are long knobby sticks.
I think they are a different kind of dryad, or possibly that they are immature or underaged
dryads.
They live in the Walking Fields, anyway. They have a small settlement, and there are some
of them who wander. They trade with the humans of Town. Im not aware of them being able to
cross-breed with humans, which means that unless they are underaged dryads theyre one of the
rare examples of an unambiguously intelligent, unambiguously tool-using, and unambiguously
non-human species in Town.
Field-Dogs and Forest-Dogs
Another common spirit type is the field-dogs and the forest-dogs. These spirits are bound to a
wide range of territory, or possibly not actually bound to it at all they roam freely through the
trees and fields. (There arent really full-on forests in the walking fields, for clarity thats just
what the woodsier dogs are called!) These dogs dont have a human shape at all, or even a fully
mortal-looking dog form, but they do sometimes have a grasp of language. Much more than with
the dryads, their power over plants is outright magic: when they choose they may bend trees or
move their branches to their whim or cause grass and flowers to grow in their footprints.
Dealings with twig-people, field-dogs, and forest-dogs are sometimes ................... Foreshadowing
You watch one. You listen to it. It does stuff. Maybe, if its a twig-person or a bizarrely
articulate forest-dog, it says stuff. After youve processed for a bit whats going on you react!
Dealings with twig-people, field-dogs, and forest-dogs are usually ............................. Shared Action
Theyre doing simple, honest stuff. Connect to them.

BOX Superior Agrarian
The spirits of Celestia, otherwise very similar to the dryads and the like, have a Skill that defines
them as spirits of that land. It would be reasonable to have a similar Skill for the dryads, in
addition to the general plant type Skill on pg. XX:
[Superior] Walking Fields Spirit 1. You seem to have boundless energy, though
technically you dont. You like climbing a lot and youre crazy good at it. You
occasionally have whole conversations while asleep. Birds like you. You fade into the
background when seen in the distance. When you depart the Walking Fields, an air of
the Walking Fields complete with a bit of its Properties clings to you for up to half an
hour.
[Superior] Walking Fields Spirit 2. When you depart the Walking Fields an air of the
Fields lingers about you for up to three full days and three full nights. You need only a
crumb or two of food a day, and either you dont need sleep or you can sleepwalk with
great vigor and intelligence.
Im going to assume that they dont need it. Im going to assume that carrying the air of the
Fields with them isnt useful in the same way that the air of Celestia is for instance, it doesnt
keep them from being seen by mortals, and it isnt necessary to make an easy crossing into the
Walking Fields. However, if you think that something like this is necessary or useful, you can
either roll it into the first two levels of [Superior] Plant Spirit, or you can assign it to any local
spirits as a separately-purchased Skill.
END BOX
Taken Children
Sometimes children in the Walking Fields vanish. I dont know why. Youll find bits of their
clothing left hanging on the trees.
Sometimes they come back.
The taken children are not human any more when they return. Theyre shrunken, and their
teeth are sharp, and their skin is hard, and they wear red-dyed caps. Theyre wise and theyre
tricky but they dont know anything they dont need to know59 they turn into right proper
exposition machines, they do, each of them only able to say such truths as drive towards their
purpose. They dont even necessarily know everything they need for that.
For what? you might ask. What is their purpose?
I cant say, in general, because it varies. Sometimes the taken children have come back to
save people who were in trouble. Sometimes theyve come back to clean up their old business
to remove their last regrets in leaving by, say, telling their family where to find a treasure of gold
or buried oil under the Walking Fields.
Theres a story, though, that they have to catch and kill seven mortal children before they
can go back to being human again themselves; and that some of those children, the third and the
fifth, become taken children themselves.
Heres my best guess. Children get taken by something. I dont know what. And some of them
get offered a chance a chance to go back, and with exactly enough information to do what
they want to do. And maybe they do have to kill, or maybe they get confused by the story and
think thats what they have to do, and maybe some of them who choose the killing choice are
wicked and others are just too young to understand the full depth of what that implies. But the
big thing is, I think theyve all bargained with something for the right to come back and do, not
what it asks them, but what theyve asked of it.
So I think that while theyre weird little changelings, theyre still enacting a human (or fox-
person, or ghost, or ogre, or robot, or whatever) will.
Dealings with taken children are sometimes .......................................... Science, Faith, and Sorcery
You explain your position and what you know about them. You build up towards venturing
a theory that they can be trusted, or they cant. Then you risk yourself on that.
59
not counting some random woods-wisdom
Dealings with taken children are sometimes ................................................................ Foreshadowing
You watch one. You listen to one. It does stuff. It says stuff. After youve processed for a
bit whats going on you react!
Dealings with taken children are usually.......................................................................... Shared Action
The thing is, theyre kids. Theyre not human kids, and theres a story that they kill kids, but
they. are. kids.
So maybe your HG can sell them as mysterious and dangerous enough to get you into a
Science, Faith, and Sorcery or a Foreshadowing mood. But probably what happens is that you
show who you are in how you choose to handle damaged, monomaniacal kids you find out in the
Walking Fields.
You do something simple and honest. And theyre there. And if they interact with you over
it, if they dont just stay shy and distant, you can connect with them, and thats Shared Action.
Investigating the taken children leads to ................................................................................. Discovery
Youre trying to figure stuff out. And theres no real story or XP Action here until you do,
but when you do finally understand something or learn something, you can earn XP by declaring
it mysterious, scary, or neat!
The Jotun
The world woke up, one day, and found itself at the edge of Town
Found itself with the tents of the youkai sprawled across it, the markets and the revels that
were there before ever humans came to Town scattered upon it. And here is how the world
woke up: it cast up shapeless, unfinished giants from itself, still trailing their spiritual tendrils
back to the living land.
These were the Jotun.
They were species-less: they bred with insects, birds, clouds, and rivers. Their children with
humanity would one day be the most numerous of all: would outbreed them, leave the original
Jotun a footnote on their own peoples history, and then merge back into the thronging masses
of ordinary humanity with only a handful of families keeping the Jotun cultural identity alive
But back then, they were giants and near to gods; they were strong as humans are not
strong, magical as even the youkai were not magical; they wielded the lightning and could roust
up the forests to a march. They were long-lived and durable creatures. Some had specific gifts,
others generic prowess, able to shape the weather, speak terrible curses, enchant items, perform
transformations, turn invisible, and fly. The most powerful were also the most vulnerable,
however, poisoned by the touch of iron and driven back by a brandished cross or the name of
Christ.60
Someone with the blood of the Jotun might have a Superior Strength and Health Skill at
level 1-3 as well as some sort of magical Skill (pg. XX) or Superior magical gift. High levels of
these Skills will often correlate with apparent deformity and/or vulnerability to iron and the
cross. The greatest of them might even have access to the miraculous Arcs, Primordial or Child
of the Ash.
60
Im not actually a Christian, or anything, so I cant account for this at all, but Im not going to pretend this
was some generic faith thing either. They didnt like the name of Jesus. The cross could send them howling
back into the night. The stories are very clear on this and some of the people from back then are still around in
one way or another to tell them!
The Excrucians
The Excrucians, or Riders, are a people of the Deep Outside. They ride white horses. Their
eyes are fields of night-black space punctuated by the occasional falling stars.
They sometimes come to Town in peace. They have a presence there. They sometimes even
mix with humans or other peoples, giving rise to hybrids with intermittently Excrucian eyes. The
ones who wear business suits or I Town T-shirts or whatever are safe enough to mingle
with, even though technically they have an agenda to destroy reality and their time spent in the
Deep Outside has likely driven them insane.
In the Walking Fields, though, the important Excrucians arent the peaceful visitors. There
are a few Rider-blooded families that matter there, sure, but mostly?
There is the murderous Great Hunt.
The Great Hunt
In the great hunt, the Excrucians ride in from Outside and what they set their eyes upon they
chase down and kill. Sometimes its a bird or a fox. Sometimes its a spirit of nature. Sometimes
its a person. Once it was the entire Juuniji family, save only for those hidden faraway at School.
A typical hunting pack is a group of 3-7, although larger ridings have been known. They
advertise themselves: they go about accoutered for war, and they will sound a hunting horn.
Perhaps this is done in mockery of those they hunt, or as a way to increase the challenge of the
hunt. Perhaps it is something that is done to clearly distinguish them from the others, for the
sake of their more peaceful kin.
Excrucian Riders
A typical Excrucian rider has 8 Will and the following mundane abilities
Equestrianism 2. Theyre good with horses.

Archery or Sword 2. Theyre good with either the bow or the sword.
Sword or Archery 1. Theyre familiar with the other.
Woodcraft and Hunting 1. Theyre familiar with hunting and living in the wilds.
Socialize 0. Theyre not that good with people.
They also divide two points between the following special Skills:
Superior Torment. Superior Skill in inflicting torment and encouraging

despair.
Rider Necromancy. Magical Skill in controlling the dead and deceiving the
living.
Changeling. Magical Skill in concealing themselves among humans.
The Night-Craft. Magical Skill in crafting nightmarish minions.
Encounters with the great hunt are usually .................................................................................. Heroic
Encounters with the great hunt can be ..................................................................................... Adversity
They hunt you. They torment you you or something else near you.
You might fight for a limited tactical victory, perhaps. Thatd be OK even if youre in
Trouble. Try to escape, or hide, or take down the lead rider, block their path, disarm one of
them, steal their hunting horn, warn the local farmers about them, get someone that theyre
hunting out of the middle of the road, something.
Or you might go well beyond yourself and decide to Never Say Die.
Or you might simply suffer from their torments until you fall into a delirium of pain.
Encounters with local Excrucians are sometimes ............................................................... Corruption
They get to you somehow. They summon you to them, or poison you, or fill your mind with
their own strange thoughts. The world gets weird. You break from reality. Then, unless over the
course of the scene that follows youve managed to defend yourself, you suffer a corruption or
transformation of some sort.
Rider Necromancy
This is one of the magical Skills of the Riders, or Excrucians, who live in the deep Outside. It
offers a comparatively limited selection of techniques but its still pretty scary because they dont
have to do much of anything to use it if they can speak, if they can move their hands, they can
invoke this power. There is little if any complication to its rites.
Its basic, non-magical technique is:
[Obstacle 1] sniff out corpses, graves, and places of death at an unnatural range
Known magical techniques include:
[Obstacle 1] Speak in voices not your own.

[Obstacle 2] Summon someone or something within a mile, twisting its travels so that
they lead to you.
[Obstacle 2] Make a specific person unable to recognize something
[Obstacle 2] Make something unrecognizable in general
[Obstacle 3] Wake and bind a corpse or ghost into your service.
Note that people can oppose effects like these with their own mundane actions e.g., using a
perception Skill to recognize something through the magic. Effective Rider necromancy needs
high-level Intentions and thus tends to burn through its users Will fast.
BOX Suggested Bonds
Traditional Bonds for the practitioners of this necromancy include:
Bond: I hunt from the twilight to the dawn.

Bond: I may not harm those with whom Ive shared my drink.
Bond: I forget that the dead are dead, and speak to or fall in love with them.
Bond: I cannot make emotional connections with the living.
Bond: I may not raise the virtuous dead.
Bond: My powers only function in wild, untamed, or broken-down places.
Bond: I am uncomfortable in reality, and soothed by the Outside.
Bond: I ride a pale horse.
Bond: I may not wear machine-made clothes.
Bond: I may only hurt those whose sins I can discover and name.
Bond: I flee my name, or the name of the Creator.
Bond: Even if I was human once, Ive picked up the Rider eyes: all night and falling
stars.
END BOX
Changeling
This is another of the Riders magical Skills. It gives you the power to seem human even though
you are not.
To slip in and live among the families of the Walking Fields, or somewhere else.
To take those eyes of night and falling stars and make them green, or blue, or brown.
Known magical techniques include:
[Obstacle 1] Conceal your eyes behind an appearance of normalcy.

[Obstacle 1] Fit in with the local humans; conceal the behavioral signs of foreignness
[Obstacle 1] Conceal scars
[Obstacle 2] Conceal and partially suppress wounds and sickness

[Obstacle 2] Mimic a particular individuals appearance and mannerisms
[Obstacle 2] Fit seamlessly into a family, so that they forget you were not theirs
[Obstacle 3] Poison someone with a shard of dream, driving them into a psychotic
break and filling their eyes with night and falling stars.
Many of these effects become quasi-permanent with regular use the changeling doesnt have
to sustain the magic, but in theory might find the effects fading and have to renew them later on.
BOX Suggested Bonds
Traditional changeling Bonds include:
Bond: I feast on the life of my family.

Bond: People dont like me.
Bond: I can be exposed as a changeling through certain hedge-magic tricks.
Bond: I turn into an animal, insect, or spider at night.
Bond: Im driven to climb to high places.
Bond: I cant eat my vegetables.
Bond: I dont have a shadow.
Bond: I have an extra eye on my stomach, and on the back of my neck.
Bond: Im an inhumanly good kisser.
Bond: I dont breathe.
Bond: I dont feel pain.
Bond: Im not burned by fire.
Bond: Im burned by the touch of a friend.
END BOX
Night-Craft
The soil of the ground in the Bleak Academy is peculiar stuff a dank, unformed firmament,
like the stuff of the unconscious mind, like the stuff in the back of your head that you dont
think about.
Rider children at the Academy learn to mold little life forms from it, venomous and
malformed things that fall apart, sloughing off their skin and organs, to dissolve back into the
primordial mud. A few learn to make substance there, instead to shape that nothingness into
things. This art is not entirely lost from them when they travel into Town:
It is named Night-Craft, and one may use it together with bodily fluids, shadow, mud, and
soil to build minions and poisons even in the world of forms.
The common techniques of this Craft include:
[Obstacle 1] Mold unusually sturdy things out of dirt, mud, and sand.
[Obstacle 1] Spin out your nightmares into steel-strong thread.
[Obstacle 1] Distill shadow and soil into various nasty poisons.
[Obstacle 2] Wake things you mold out of dirt, mud, and clay into servants
[Obstacle 2] Animate your blood or saliva, using will to move, solidify, or liquefy
them.
[Obstacle 3] Given sufficient time, construct elaborate creatures out of your blood,
soil, and your nightmares.
If you practice this art too much in Town, it will affect you; your saliva and blood will become
thick, black, and viscid, with a smell like slightly rotten fruit.
BOX Suggested Bonds
Traditional night-craft Bonds include:
Bond: I always have dirt under my fingernails.

Bond: My saliva and blood are distinctively black.
Bond: I have a morbid imagination.
Bond: My dreams leak out around me as water when I sleep on the ground.
Bond: My fingernails grow into claws no matter how much I cut them.
Bond: I remind people of their nightmares.
Bond: People see their nightmares, and not night and falling stars, when they look into
my eyes.
END BOX
Soma Village
Soma Village
Truth arises from mystery, but the mystery remains.

This moment is like no other moment. It is Now.
Go and look, and you will see the vastness of the
world.
Go and look, and you will see events and landscapes
staged for you.
The world is showing you the pieces of your heart.
Enchantments and spiritual forces haunt you.
You may find peace with your misfortunes.
You are at risk of becoming a legend, or a god.
Typical Genre: Pastoral or Fairy Tale
Follow the Track north through the Walking Fields and out of Town; into the Outside, and out
again. It will take you to Soma Village, in the shadow of Kailas Mantras peak.
Its a pretty little place. Its a magic place. Its full of old, sun-bleached buildings, steep
slopes, and majestic views. Theres a monastery and a labyrinth and a bunch of rustic houses and
sheep and goats and ducks and St. Vitas Academy for Wayward Girls.
I will tell you more of it, I think, but not right now; that will come much later on.
Area: 54 sq. miles

Population: 19,400
The Outside
The fundamental phenomenon of the Outside is that when you leave Town, you wind up in a
place that doesnt really exist or make sense. But if you learn the way around that place, it
becomes real, or you find yourself in reality, or something that works like that. If you learn the
way to Soma Village, for instance, then after a while you stop feeling like youre Outside when
youre on that road. Its just a weird road that goes to a weird satellite village of Town. The first
time you sail to another world via Big Lake youre passing through the Outside and
nonexistence; eventually, though, its more like sailing a weird, Outside-flavored magical route.
So . . . why? Whats going on? What does it mean?
There are at least three ways to understand it. I dont know which is right!
The first option is that the Outside is a pall of fear, deconstructive chaos, and tension that
falls over the places you dont know. Its not really a physical phenomenon so much as a
psychological one. The Earth continues to exist, and people live their lives there. Aelfscienne,
Heaven, Hell, Jotunheim, all the places on what used to be the tree of worlds theyre all there.
Theyre all fine. Theres just a barrier that keeps Townsfolk from really seeing it. Instead, they see
the Outside.
The second option is that the Outside is a physical thing that drowned the world, but that
the worlds information was preserved. So if you learn the way to sail to, say, Santa Cruz, then
youll find that everybody in Santa Cruz is still living as if the Earth is real. But its mostly not
its mostly gone, mostly lost, with just a few places like Town and the places that Townsfolk have
found still extant.
The third option is that there never really was an Earth except by implication. There never
really was a World Ash, a Heaven, a Hell. There was always only Town. As you travel into the
Outside, you can find pieces of Earth and other worlds there but thats not because they
existed. Thats because they congeal out of the Outside when you with your preconceptions
travel into the near Outside and try to make sense out of it all.
The Near Outside
Properties of the Outside (Level 1)
You are disoriented.

You are confused.
There are subtle contradictions in the world around you.
There are things that you cant explain.
The sun is distorted and strange.
You can see. You can hear. You are in possession of your senses.
The Outside recedes and a normal world returns in the paths and
places you know well.
Typical Genre: Adventure Fantasy, or, Fairy Tales
Go a few miles down the Track, or sail out past where you can see the land. Head past the
farmers fields into the wild regions, or catch a fever and set your soul free from its shell.
You will find the Outside.
The first layer of the Outside is confusing and stressful. It is fearsome and surreal. It is not
dangerous. Not yet. It is simply . . . strange.
The world contorts. It shifts. It stops playing by comprehensible rules. It stops being a place
that you know and understand. It becomes . . . something else.
The sky is full of multicolored clouds. Drip orange ink, purple ink, and blue ink into water
and youll see something like those clouds. The wind is hot. The wind is dry. There can be rains
and snows and days of stillness but mostly the wind is dry and hot and there is a barrenness to it,
out in the Outside.
The sun is strange. It is always a little strange, but in many different ways. Sometimes it is
absurdly geometric. Sometimes it seems like clockwork. Sometimes it is smiling, and sometimes
it is swirling. Sometimes it has arms that are beams of light. Sometimes its arms stretch down all
the way to the horizon, and bend though straight; you must remember that the world is three
dimensions projected down onto your eyes to coil around the sky.
There are always roads. Paths spread across the near Outside like veins through a leaf held
up against the light. Theyre often marked by road signs but no one Ive ever met can read them
not linguists, not cryptographers, not even angels, who mostly claim that the signs have no
meaning to them at all. Theyre in no human language, at the least, and probably not anything of
Earth.
The ground bends in strange ways, in the near Outside.

Trees tend to have white leaves, or leaves in many colors.
Theres a childrens story feel to the place, I think I once saw a grove of trees with shoes
hanging from them instead of fruit. One time a drag racer motored by; it had no driver, which
was weird enough, until it had driven past; then I saw that it had no back, it was just a front and
single-side faade.
The Outside nullifies and betrays your expectations. There is no predicting it. You are at the
mercy of the world.
Vital Stats
Napkin math suggests to me that the first layer of the Outside is at least as big as Fortitude, and
thats assuming that its just a mile-wide ring around Town. The truth is, while I dont want to
give the impression that you can safely wander the first layer without stumbling on the second,
because you cant, the first layer is probably closer to 7-10 miles deep at the median and
presumably theres more of it around every pocket of reality still out there. So were talking an
absolute minimum of 120 square miles but my practical expectation that its size is somewhere
between 20 million square miles and, well, infinite.
Its population is probably equally immense. It is possible to stumble on someone else in the
Outside. Not common! But possible. So I figure there might be as many as 1-2 rootless drifters,
trickster figures, shamans, fever-dreamers, travelers, and heroes per ten square miles of the first
layer of the Outside. Napkin math then puts me at a multi-million population consisting almost
entirely of unique legends, terrifying names, and special cases assuming, of course, that its
not infinite. That breaks my suspension of disbelief something hard, though, so Im going to say
that its closer to a few hundred, and maybe just a bakers dozen, plus the occasional scattered
ridings of Excrucians who dont actually live there but do from time to time pass through.
Note that people pretty much cant settle in the near Outside when I talk about rootless
drifters and travelers, its for a reason. If you spend long enough in the Outside that you learn its
rules, it stops being the Outside. If you find a settlement, it isnt the Outside at most its an
Outside-tainted view of a more normal world underneath. When you get to know that place, it
stops being the Outside, and you fall into the normal world. I dont know how it works for the
Excrucians: most likely its the same for them, or exactly the opposite, because I do know that
they dont have actual settlements in the near Outside either.
Area: 120+ square miles (estimated 20,000,000-)

Population: 13+ (estimated 200)
Traveling the Near Outside
Anywhere you cant normally get to and anywhere you dont normally go can fill up with the
Outside. Youre pretty safe in Town, although the Outsides always blowing in off Big Lake and
seeping past the edge of the Walking Fields, but once you get outside it, well, youre Outside it,
beyond reality, in the place of magic, nightmare, uncertainty, and dreams.
Theres only one real point to traveling Outside: to get through it to somewhere else. You
might be heading straight past the early layers of the Outside to get to the Bleak Academy; or
exploring the landscape of wonders, looking for something sane; or, most likely, tagging along
with somebody who already knows the ropes of where youre going, and can lead you down paths
that arent even really Outside to them to get to the non-Town bits of reality that scatter through
the Outside like gems.
You need to go through the Outside, usually, for instance, to reach Soma Village or the
other satellite villages by bus, car, bike, or on foot. You need to sail through it to reach the seas
of Earth, the Moon, Eris, or other worlds. Given sufficient dedication and determination, you
could probably even reach somewhere further from Town by land Im not familiar with any
routes to major cities, but youd think that if Russia, or America, or China, or Africa, or
Greenland, or whatever, youd think if they actually existed, which they do, right? that you could
get to one of them by road. Even if Town is in Australia or something unexpected, you could get
to Sydney, right? You cant just drive around in circles forever in the Outback? Because if Town
is just in the Outback then I will be really embarrassed indeed.
And OK, I lied. Theres one more reason you might travel the Outside. Its a rare one but
its a real one. If youre into magic or meditation or spirit journeys or whatever, then sometimes
the Outside is the place to go. It can strip you from yourself. It can show you your spirit. Id say
that Soma Village is usually better for that, but maybe youre the kind of shaman or totemic
dreamer who needs the vast emptiness of the Outside.
Traveling with someone who knows the path is sometimes ........................................ Decisive Action
Occasionally youll get a kind of symbolic path through the Outside a road that means
something. Your guide explains that, explains what it means or how they found out or whatever,
and it leads up to an important choice or decisive action that plunges you back into the world.
Theres a story in Nobilis: the Essentials of Semane Menheneott Pass, where the choice in
question is which traveling companion do we throw off of the world?; for the most part,
however, paths in the near Outside are much safer than that, and the worst thats likely to
happen is that youll have to admit whom you love, choose something to give up, or apologize to
somebody that youve wronged.
Hunting for magic or wisdom in the near Outside is usually ............. Science, Faith, and Sorcery
You talk about something thats going on with you. You explain what you know about it.
Then you ask something, or for something. You basically tell the world: look, judge me here; or,
look, give me what I need here; or, look, world, make the call. You put yourself in a position
where the worlds harsh judgment might hurt, or at least sting a little, and then you wait to see
what the world will do. Thats a Science, Faith, and Sorcery Action!
Being lost, feverish, or adrift in the Near Outside is often..... Passionate (Obsessive/Adversity)
Youre worried. Youre confused. You get worked up and panicky. You tip over the edge
into obsession or delirium!
Being lost, feverish, or adrift in the Near Outside is often......................................... Never Say Die!
Or: youre overwhelmed by whats going on. You defy it, defy your confusion or your
circumstances, and try to assert order or reason on the world. You narrate your actions as
awesome and doomed, ramping up your struggle every time the HG raises the stakes, and at the
end of it, win or lose whether youve made sense of things or otherwise asserted control over
the situation or not you end up exhausted and probably fall down.
But: Never Say Die!
Traveling with someone who knows the way is often .................................................. Shared Action
They lead the way. They talk about what theyre doing. You connect.
Exploring, looking for another island of reality ends with ................................................... Discovery
What kind of reality did you find?

BOX 136199 Eris
Eris is a massive dwarf planet orbiting the sun. It is populated by melancholy, sentimental bat-
folk convinced of the imminent victory of evil but content to remain more or less humane
themselves on any given day. Their principal exports are music, liquor, and carved bone
divination sticks (which may or may not be efficacious); their principal import is pillow-teeth tea,
which they consume for reasons as yet unknown. They give me a vaguely Mythos vibe, except
for the way that theyre not actually incomprehensibly monstrous I guess its something to do
with how they live their lives out there in the cold and barren dark.
Purportedly the planet was set into its orbit by Nightmares Angel, a nightmare scientist
who returned to Town after a stint at the Bleak Academy. By default this Main Character is a
PC-aged boy named Leonardo de Montreal, although you could substitute in a girl named
Dulcinea de Montreal, a priest and sorcerer with the last name dAvignon, or an amazing
mechanical person named Leonardo or Dulcinea VII.
This Main Character is sometimes titled the Rival it depends on whether theyre focused
on showing up Chuubo with their Incomparable Nightmare Engine or more engaged in doing
their own stuff.
Leonardo de Montreal, aka

Nightmares Angel
END BOX
BOX The Earth
What remains of the Earth?
Its impossible to know.
The Earth drowned in a tidal wave of the Outside the Unknown. And if we go to the
places that we do not know, to the places we cannot verify remain, then we will find the Outside
there waiting in all its roiling chaos. And if we explore them, if we dig through them, if we hunt
for the sense and the understanding and the reason and the world that remained beneath, then
we will find something. We will distill reality from the chaos
But was it always there, waiting? Was it buried, and then restored? Is the Outside a real or a
perceptual phenomenon? Is the place that is re-discovered the same place that it was before, or is
it remade to match the remnants of our conceptions?
I dont know. I cannot know. That was a casualty of the Outside wave.
What I can say is that most of the world carries on just as it used to. Theres still television
beamed into little communities, little solid communities, from the vast chaotic drowned. Theres
still mail service. Theres still phones. Theres really no way you could even tell that it all
drowned, except maybe that things have gotten a little weirder, and visitors a little rarer, and if
you travel off the well-known paths youre liable to find yourself amidst the strange.
Properties of the Surfaced Earth
Its locations are relative;

Its particulars are measurable;
Its particulars are explainable;
Its particulars exert causal force;
Its events have causes;
These causes are impersonal;
These causes are amoral.
END BOX
Storms from the Outside
The levels of the Outside behave a little bit like temperatures of air. Currents in the Outside and
shifts in the pressure can send roiling clouds of the Outside into Town or plunge a section of
the near Outside suddenly into a deeper layer. You can see these storms roll in over Big Lake or
at the edge of the Walking Fields; by the time they reach Town proper they are weather in truth,
rainstorms or hailstorms or hot dry winds accompanied by spiritual phenomena and strange luck
and a glittering trail of the mildly toxic particulate essence of the Outside. In the near Outside
these storms are both harder to see and more dangerous. Sometimes the spiritual pressure of the
normal world rises and becomes pervasive, your ears hurt and your nose may even bleed, and the
world snaps unexpectedly down into normalcy even if youre nowhere that you understand.
More dangerous is when the pressure drops, the void of the Outside seems to pull the breath
from your lungs, your ears ring, clouds race across the sky and light and shadows whirl, and
suddenly from some direction often difficult to see from the ground a deeper layer of the
Outside washes in.
Ordinary storms are usually just bookends for Slices of Life, but storms from the Outside
can portend situations of the following types.
A storm in the Near Outside is usually...................................................................................... Trouble.
You see the first signs. You can feel it coming. Its an approaching threat. You run, maybe,
heading for Town or a shelter or in a direction you think is opposite the storm. You hunker
down or freeze up with panic. You try to do something to keep the storm from hitting, maybe
establishing a little bulwark of normalcy to turn it aside, or generating spiritual pressure to
mitigate the pressure drop fighting for a limited, tactical victory at best. Maybe it works. More
likely it just seems to work, gives you a lull in the pressure before a terrible moment of fear as the
deep Outside washes in!
A massive storm coming in from the Near Outside is usually.................................................. Trouble
This is the same deal.
Watching an Outside storm from the beach or the edge of Town is usually ......... Foreshadowing
It catches your attention. You watch it for a while. Things happen. Then, you react!
Its best if you see things in the storm that have the potential to be actual Foreshadowing,
but, if you dont, maybe the scene is just foreshadowing something about you, or people vs.
nature, or the upcoming presence in the story of the Outside.
Sailing the Near Outside
It is a particular characteristic of the Outside on Big Lake that it bridges distances that, or,
possibly, its a particular characteristic of the Big Lake itself. Most of the routes people sail that
reach faraway lands pass through portions of the Outside and if youre hoping to get to
somewhere really far away, like Eris, youre likely to need to pass through a part thats relatively
deep. If youre sailing its much more possible to avoid storms or ride their edge, staying at a
desirable level of reality but the down side is that if you do get rolled over into the Deep
Outside, you could find yourself anywhere, and lost.
Sailing the Outside is a kind of traveling the Outside, so it can be. . .
Decisive, if youre on a symbolic path;

Science, Faith, and Sorcery, if youre hunting for magic;
Obsessive/Adversity, if youre lost, feverish, or adrift
All these things as described a couple of pages prior. But the core sailing Scenes are these:
Sailing the Outside is often ............................................................................................................. Trouble
Threats approach. You tack away from them, maybe, or try to ride them out, or do
something to win a limited, tactical victory. It depends what the threat is: giant sea creatures are
one thing; childlike divine entities riding storm clouds are another; pirates, zombie pirates, and
the ships of lost or current militaries are a third thing; and storms of various sorts require a
completely different approach than all of the above. But no matter what it is, its something
overwhelming youre outmatched!
Sailing the Outside is often ........................................................................................................... Adversity
Sailing the Outside isnt limited to Trouble, though. It can also provide more than its fair
share of Adversity. Youre becalmed, or short on food, or theres a sickness in the ship, or youre
lost, or creatures are tormenting the crew rather than assailing it. You suffer, in short. When it gets
to the point where its too much for any normal person to bear, you tip over the edge into
delirium.
Sailing the Outside is often ................................................................................................ Shared Action
You do simple, honest things on board the ship. Or maybe you talk about the simple,
honest things you want to do when you get home or to where youre going. You connect with
your fellow sailors over it.
At its best, sailing the Outside can be .................................................................................. Slice of Life
You sail gently and sweetly through magical lakes, rivers, cloudscapes, mists, and seas. You
see something cool. You share your emotional response.
It sticks with you.
When things are weird but not terrifying, sailing the Outside can be ................................. Discovery
You explore. You find neat, scary, or mysterious things!
Or you can handle a long journey as ................................................................................. a Ritual (8).
You start with a ritual phrase like, Weigh anchor or Sail away!
describing things you do aboard the boat;

posing or otherwise showing off how your character interfaces with nautical
life;
summarizing strange encounters or weird things that you see or find
o weird, magical islands;
o strange sea creatures;
o uncomfortable experiences;
o tall tales;
o daring adventures;
o strange weather;
o brushes with death
talking about what you hope to find at the end of your journey; or
Invoking an unrelated symbol of power (e.g., the Wish-Granting Engine) to
merge the two ritual invocations together.
The phrase that ends the ritual is usually something like Land ho! and the HG determines
when and whether a given character can call it out to bring the ritual to an end. The usual benefit
and outcome of the ritual is, well, safe travel across great swathes of the Outside to wherever the
characters need to go.
The Low Outside
You are far from home.

You are frightened.
Reality mixes with the abstract.
Currents of emotion flow past.
The sun is distorted and strange.
To orient yourself is to drive the Outside away.
Typical Genre: the Road of Trials
The world becomes more stressful as the Outside presses in. It becomes harder to distinguish
between things and experiences when youre not looking at things, and sometimes even when
you are, they fade into a welter of sensation or bits of abstract form. Your ship can remain
entirely real while riding a wave thats nothing more than a wash of blue watercolor. You can
spend an hour talking from or running from a man before you really notice that he had a metal
sink instead of a face. The low Outside begins to slip from the surreal into the lyrically abstract,
and youd think youd be able to laugh at that or play around with it but underneath it all is this
pulsebeat of fear and distress. Its not a magical Toontown or fairy tale land. It doesnt feel like a
magical Toontown or a cool abstract painting. It feels like youre being starved of reality. It feels
like youre in a desert of sense, where the world itself is so desperate to hang on to form and
meaning that its using abstraction and bizarreness to paper over its terrible lack.
You are lost.

You are frightened.
Abstract forms and swirls of color intrude upon the world.
Currents of emotion flow past.
The sun is bright and painful.
To orient yourself is to push the Outside back.
Abstract experience becomes a progressively greater feature of the world as the Outside
descends. After a while it stops making rational sense at all you may be able to hang on to
your own reality, your friends reality, your ship or car or roads reality, but everything else is just
a maelstrom of color, light, impressions, and emotional or spiritual or occasionally even cognitive
experience. Youre navigating the nothingness, really, for all that there is an appearance of
somethingness. Your cues, your road signs, are feelings even when theres no longer such
things as mountains, wind, and trees, a skilled navigator of the Outside may recognize a
sensation like the taste of a coming winter, the warmth of coming home, the smell or aching
bones of an impending rain, or the frisson of fear that is encountering a stranger in the dark.
You look up and the way the sun hurts you reminds you of a stubbed toe, so you go onwards.
When you get the jarring sensation of being trapped in a place of loud noises, its time to tack to
the right! You travel through the sense of a wild jungle; when you hit the sense or feeling of a
sunlit garden, instead, its time to adjust your course. The language of the navigators of the low
Outside is full of records of sensations; they are the currents and the landmarks for travel,
whether theyre comprehensible enough to pull you back to level 1-2 while you follow them or
so subtle that even when you recognize them you dont understand them and remain mired in
the low Outside.
Vital Stats
Its impossible to really measure the size of the Low Outside; proper dimensionality is a thing
that it does not have. I can however state with reasonable confidence that it is essentially
unpopulated: Id imagine that there are a few completely bizarre cases where someone has set up
a residence there in some fashion, but even then, thats probably more like an artistic statement or
outpost than a settlement; it just isnt the kind of place where people live.
Area: N/A
Population:
Scenes in the Low Outside
You can still have Decisive Actions, Science, Faith and Sorcery Actions, Shared Actions, Slice of
Life, and Discovery Actions out this far, but theyre much rarer and generally better served by
the Near Outside.
Traveling the Low Outside is usually ..................................... Passionate (Adversity or Obsessive)
Youre afraid. Youre mired in the unreal. In theory orienting yourself and figuring out
whats going on drives the Outside back but its hard to do, and when youre deep enough in
the Outside it isnt that effective. Being out here is scary and it hurts and its fundamentally hostile
territory.
You struggle through the Low Outside. Its confusing. Its worrisome. It hurts.
Traveling the Low Outside is sometimes .......................................................................... Never Say Die!
You refuse. You wont let this defeat you, overwhelming as it is. You defy it! . . . defy your
confusion or your circumstances, and try to assert order or reason on the world.
The Deep Outside
Everything is fragmenting.
You cannot trust yourself.
You are being judged by standards that you cannot understand.
The world simplifies as you progress into the void.
The sun is a yellow circle, or some other simple shape.
Somewhere, something hurts.
Further out and the world begins to break down entirely. There are no longer washes of abstract
color and sensation. Theres no longer even a real sense of self or, rather, you may retain your
sense of personal identity and presence, but theres no longer reference points to ground that in.
Your body and mind and soul remain intact, but without a clear interface between them and the
world its not like you can just look down at your hands and see them or think a thought and
hear it the self you can directly perceive through the fog of the Outside is rendered down
to something as simple and barren as the world around you.
Theres a certain neo-plasticity to the place youll often find the composition of your
perception aligning onto the parallel and perpendicular, with hardly anything between the
vanishing lines that either run to meet at the horizon or refuse to ever intersect. Youll feel
yourself as a circle or square of substance progressing along a track. Youll see things devolving
or abstracting into the primary colors; sounds organizing into pure tones; and scents relaxing and
differentiating into the key notes of kyara, rakoku, manaka, manaban, sumotara, and sasora. It
wouldnt be surprising if this were entertaining; it wouldnt be surprising if it were disorienting,
frightening, and traumatic, like a sensory deprivation experience; but in fact its something worse.
As you enter the deep Outside it begins to pull at you. It begins to catch at you. You start to
have this dizzying, terrifying feeling like its not the deep Outside but reality thats the mistake.
You want to unravel the form and body and reality that has been given to you and reach for
something empty and cold beyond it.
The sensation of the deep Outside is thus characterized as an overpowering demand, like
the world has picked you up and is shaking you, demanding to know, what is real?
What does it even mean, for something to be real?

Everything is fragments.
Everything is dissolving.
You are alienated from yourself.
You are driven.
A mad drive pulls you to destroy yourself, to
throw yourself into the void.
Somewhere, something hurts!
You are not sure whether there is a sun.
The world has fallen apart into geometry and psychedelia. Reality unravels. You unravel. The
world is pulsing bursts of black and white, or chaotic diamond patterns, or a riven violet lattice
on a field of unbeing. It is tearing apart all the things you were attached to. It is freeing you from
yourself. You may lay down yourself at last. You may let go of the burden you have been
carrying all these years, to be yourself. The clods of dirt, dung, and star-matter that are the mortal
flesh. All the pains and old wounds and old abandoned dreams youve been carrying. Everything.
You can let it go. You can give it up and fall, ripped open like a cannon-stung zeppelin, into the
great endless emptiness.
The world is hot. It fevers you.
You are not sure if there is a sun, but somewhere, you are sure, there is the sound of drums.
Vital Stats
Its possible to live in the deep Outside. I dont recommend it, you understand, but the deep
Outside wont revert into normal reality just from living there. You could theoretically build a
house, a city, a world full of people, and it wouldnt necessarily force the deep Outside into sense. It
would be a place to live where youd constantly be under the glaring eye of Unbeing and
wouldnt really know what was going on, but I imagine that children could be born there, and
live out their lives there, and die, and never experience anything else but fragments, external
judgment, alienation, and the urge to throw themselves into the void. They would doubtless
treasure their brief moments of falling into the low Outside and being merely lost and frightened,
but they would not know how to take advantage of them save perhaps to seize that moment to
learn the shape of their own bodies and minds and find someone to love.
Its possible, and so the math says its inevitable if there can be cities, continents, and
worlds lost in that void, then there must be, and in infinite numbers. Yet it is our good fortune as
people of conscience in such a world as this that when it comes to the deep Outside the math is
not an infallible guide. I have heard that there are cities, foundering in the deeps, so I will record
the population thus, but I refuse to believe that there are an infinite number of them, or even a
vast (if finite) number. There are no worlds that float out there and know nothing of being real.
It must not happen, and it need not happen, so I will say that it does not. I suppose technically
that is an act of Sorcery (or maybe Faith) on my own part.
Area: N/A
Population: estimated 1,020,000 +
(20,000 Excrucians / 1,000,000 human unfortunates)
Scenes in the Deep Outside
You can still have Obsessive and Never Say Die actions here. You can still have any kind of
Scene, really. But when you get this deep the Outside is all about Adversity, lurid Corruption,
and Vice.
Traveling the Deep Outside is usually ..................................................................... the Road of Trials
Youre drowning. Youre losing yourself. If there were time, if time were not kind of melting
down into a misshapen globule of timelikeness, then maybe you could spend a lot of it
experiencing relatively tame if abstract scenery and phenomena but the comparatively gentle
experiences like I know I am wandering in a garden, and biting into an apple, even if all I see is
lines and a touch of green are usually overwhelmed by your awareness of your fragmentation.
After a timeless time, you will realize that you are falling apart. That you cannot take it any
longer. You emote your suffering, or the rigid control that holds that suffering at bay. Then
theres a heart-wrenching moment when you realize that no matter how hard you fight, youve
lost something else or where you give up, you give in, and turn your thoughts to throwing
yourself fully into the void.
Traveling the Deep Outside is sometimes ................................................................................. Wicked
You know you shouldnt listen to the call. You know you need to follow a known route
through the Deep Outside, or, if there is no such route, you know you need to get back to the
lower straits as soon as you possibly can. Anything else is unhealthy and quite possibly immoral.
But you do it anyway. You stay in the Deep Outside, or follow the awareness within you to
further regions yet. The world goes awry. You break from reality. Maybe thats just the HG
talking up the abstract environment youre in, or you playing up your sense of dissolution. Maybe
its something else, like a brief dip into the Low or the Far Outside or even a visitation from
Soma Village or somewhere else in Town. Maybe the HG even explicitly reminds you of the cost
of staying or going deeper into the Outside. You do it anyway.
Thats a Wicked Action.
Traveling the deep Outside is very rarely ................... a Setting (Slice of Life or Discovery) Action
That said, it may be hard to resist going into a Slice of Life or Discovery action on your first
visits to the deep Outside in play. Its weird enough to be interesting, you know? You see stuff. It
sticks with you. You marvel, or youre scared, or youre lost in the mood!
It doesnt fit, really, because the place is all about Adversity, Corruption, and Wickedness
But sometimes gaming funs more important than is sense.
The Far Outside
Your wishes are dying. Your hopes are dying.

The world is empty.
The world is lifeless.
The world is gray.
You are alienated from yourself.
The light of the sun cannot reach you.
You can no longer hear the voice of your
own heart.
Typical Genre: Epic Fantasy
In the far Outside, it is said, there is form again and space again and time again, but to no avail. It
is lifeless, bleakness, dreariness, and gray. The sky is reborn monochrome, or sepia at best.
It is real again, or like reality again, like realism, at the least, but it is soulless.
It is the soulless antechamber of despair.

Properties of the Outside (Level 7):
The Bleak Academys Gates
Your heart is dead. Your hopes are dead.

Your wishes are dead.
You are gone all lifeless, cold, and gray.
You are held in a long moment of weariness
and decay.
The world could drown and you would not
care.
A starry tide is rising. Let it rise. You stand
Before the bleak and lightless gates of a Far
and a Sunless Land.
You are drowning in stifling conformity. In bleak perfection. In facelessness, somberness, and
despair. You are no longer any sort of person at all, here, before the gates of the Bleak Academy.
You are a machine. You are a thing. You are a cog.
This is a place without wish power. It drains it, sucks it all away. This is a place without
heart, at the heart of the Bleak Methodology.
It is the seventh level of the Outside, and you must pass through here to enter the Bleak
Academy or the farthest reaches of the Outside.
Passing through the Far Outside is usually ................................................................................. Wicked
The Gnostics propose that God is evil, and they seem to make that theology work for them.
The canon of Dadaist art includes a urinal. There are philosophers who doubt their own
consciousness, and people who arent hopeless admirers of Jack Vance. What Im getting at is
that it takes all kinds of twisty weird ideas to make a world, and Im not going to say that it has to
be Wicked to court the Far Outside. Its possible to wind up in a mental place where you think the
Far Outside is good, where you can prove that, where going to the Far Outside is just Shared
Action; or maybe Adversity, but not Wickedness; Obsessive, but not Wickedness; Decisive, but
not Wickedness; . . . and so forth.
But all that said, this place is a form of Wickedness, as conventionally defined. Its the
opposite of wish power, and thematically that means that having it be anything but Wicked to
seek it out is as weird as Gnostic theology or even Dada. You have to work pretty hard to get to
that point, and until you do to go to the Far Outside is to do something unhealthy and/or
immoral.
And you know what?
Ill even give this place its own Wickedness variant, just to make sure:
Wicked Action (Variation)
Condition: You damage your hopeful, wishing heart.
Or, you willfully indulge the prideful impulse to despair.
Action:
Fall under the Bleak Academys dismal spell.
Because this place is wrong.
Its wrong, but you go there anyway.
Because its Wicked, because theres a cost to go down that path, Im going to say
you have a choice. Im going to say that you can fail out of the Bleak Academys test right there
and fall into reality that if you turn against Wickedness, there at the Gates, and decide you
dont want to fall into despair, you can actually reject it and it will fling you all the way back to
sanity, to the Near Outside at the least. That Town is fundamentally reachable from those gates,
that someone who finds themselves there can escape it, much more easily than from the Deep
Outside.
You can take your stand here, at the gates, and reject that Wickedness; though, that isnt a
Wicked Action, of course, nor brings the XP for one, since that isnt any form of wickedness at
all.
The Bleak Academy
The Bleak Academy
Here is the True Thing, beyond perception.

Here the red world and the falling stars.
Here is the dream that dreams do dream of.
Here is the nightmare that nightmares hath.
Here the wish that is beyond wishing.
Here is the thing beyond the world; the Bleak
Academy, that is beyond the end of life.
There are at least two perspectives on the Bleak Academy, and here is why.
You can understand the Outside as a mist of fear and trouble over an underlying world.
From that perspective the Bleak Academy is the pall that hangs over well, Heaven. Perfection.
Nirvana. An endless, beautiful paradise.
Its presence is then the most monstrous of crimes, because, well, where there should be
Nirvana, theres the Bleak Academy. Where there should be a beautiful afterlife, theres the Bleak
Academy. Where we should be able to aspire to be as gods, we can only hope to be such mad
gods as herein Leonardo de Montreal became.
Or maybe the Outside is the thing from which reality congeals. In that case, the Bleak Academy is
a primordial Heaven. A proto-Nirvana. Its the thing thats going to become the perfect future of
our dreams. Or could become that, at least, if the Headmaster were on our side, or was defeated
by someone who was.
All that aside, though, what the Bleak Academy is . . . its something worth attaining.
Past the gates of madness and despair, instead of more madness and worse despair, you find
a True Thing thats worth having. Thats what, anyway, I think.

Population: 20-60 (according to firsthand reports); 12,300 (according to the catalog)
(~80% Excrucian, 20% other)
The Academy
I assume its sort of like a school campus. Its probably in the model of a European campus or
monastery, complete with ancient architecture and mad-eyed scholars hiding in the stacks or
labyrinths. There are grad-students chained to their cubicles as they process insane, ancient texts,
because thats the place where their nightmares led them. There are god-students in their
onmyouji hats floating amongst the clouds, exchanging thunderbolts, because thats the direction
of their dreams. The place pulses with a sense of hidden marvel but also madness. Its curriculum
focuses heavily on independent study as each person builds a Hell or godhood for themselves.
I assume its walls are stone and brass and etched with figures.
I assume its sky is sunless and alive with stars.
Confronting the Headmaster is usually ................................................................ a Defining Moment
You talk about what led you to this confrontation. This leads up to a defining choice or
decisive action on your part.
Or you talk about what you know about him. You propose a theory about who he is, or
who you think he should be. You put yourself at risk to test that. Thats Science, Faith, and
Sorcery!
Confronting the Headmaster is sometimes ................................................................................ Adversity
He binds you. He traps you. He is ahead of you at every turn and he controls you. You
suffer. It is breaking you.
You tip over the edge into delirium.
Studying at the Bleak Academy is usually ....................... Corruption, Metamorphosis, or Wicked
If you are studying there, if you are trying to learn there, if you are working with the
Headmaster of the Bleak Academy, then he has his hooks in you. He has the power to influence
you. And as that influence seeps into you, you will experience supernatural or psychosomatic
effects. Then, as you see the outcome of your study, corruption or transformation will set in.
I will set aside an exception: if you are a native here, or Epic Fantasy is your native genre,
then this is merely Wickedness instead.
Tours of the Bleak Academy are usually ....................................................................... Urban Fantasy
Therell be wonders around every corner. Discoveries. Foreshadowing. Things to freeze you
up in shock and prompt a Sympathetic Action. The mysterium fascinans and the mysterium tremendum:
here are things to awe you, to make you tremble, to make you fear.
Confronting the Headmaster is sometimes ..................................................................... Never Say Die!
His power is overwhelming. He is breaking you. But you defy him. You struggle to remain
yourself and overcome his power
Even in the Bleak Academy itself!

The College of War and Nightmare
The college of war and nightmare is where the weaponry of the Bleak Academy is bred. Its
students are those who harbor perverse visions of creation who have a thing that they wish to
build, generally in defiance of the world. Theres a pure major in this college for those whose
creation is not perverse, and may be built within or at least without crushing or stealing from the
pre-existing world; and theres a practical major for those who are amoral, who simply like to
work the stuff of dream and nightmare and science, and care not to which end their work is used.
Most of the students, though, aim to be Warmains of the Bleak Academy, and build their
desired future in outright defiance of the world. They are those who dream up night-wyrms to
assail Celestia, set loose horrors in the sea of the Outside, and gather up the armies they will one
day lead to conquer Town and put the Child of the Sun to death.
They are in the mold of the Headmaster, with a dream they dream of, and caring not whom
it hurts.
At first, the campus of War and Nightmare is generally .......................................................... Trouble
Theres horrors loose all around. Nobody exerts proper vigilance. Spend much time there
and a threat will approach.
Nor will it end with a single encounter.
There may be a lull in the terror, but the pressure after, most likely, stays on.
Once youre used to it, the campus of War and Nightmare is generally ........................ Slice of Life
Eventually, youve gotten used enough to the place that its safe for you. You wander the
campus. You emote. You see something piquant oh, look, that chimera is eating its middle
head!
The image stays with you.
But its not a threat. Not any more.

The College of Natural Philosophy
The college of natural philosophy is home to those who study the True Thing who seek to
understand the nature of existence and the Far and Sunless Land. They learn a great and
overpowering love from that contemplation, for people and for things; but they learn, too, that
we have built the mortal world from lies. Town, and Earth, and existence itself is to these
philosophers a jungle of deceit that we have put up to keep from seeing ourselves the way we
really are.
They love us but they love not that lie.
It is their aim, it is their zeal, it is the infection of their ideology that they long to unmake the
world for us. They dream to help you forget the Eyes and Ears and Nose, the Work and Home
and School, the Trees and the Wind and the Laughter and the Hearts and Hope.
They think you marvelous, they who study the True Thing, whatever it is they think you are
but they love not what you think yourself to be. They will make you repent of it if they can,
strip you of it, show you not the self you see in the mirror but the something alien that they know
instead. And they and you will laugh and you will thank them for it; but will it be you that speaks
those words, or something else?
Scenes involving Natural Philosophy are generally......................................................... Epic Fantasy
You talk about the things that you know and you believe in. You propose a theory. You risk
yourself on that theory on the belief that the world, or a person, will honor and fulfill your
trust. Thats a Science, Faith, and Sorcery Action.
Or you talk about the things you know and that you believe in. This builds up to a choice or
decisive action. Thats a Decisive Action!
Or theres a bit of Wickedness youre persuaded that the worlds a lie, but you cling to it,
a little, anyway; or, you dont think that, youre a hero of the world, you want to stand up for it,
but you admire or hang out with or hide among these the enemies of the world anyway.
The Colloquium of Magi
The third program is for those who have transcended the mortal world61 and come to study at
the Bleak Academy, but have not elected in particular to join one of the other schools. It is a
program created to liberate its students from the lingering ideas and ideals of mortal life.
It is normally the case that before they may go on to join one of the other schools, or for
that matter undertake an advanced study in the Colloquium of Magi, the student is presented
with a challenge designed such that they must wholly break down who and what they were
before they can defeat it. Only when they have shed the detritus of who they used to be can they
move on.62
Scenes involving the Colloquium of Magi are often ............................................... Obsessive Action
Setting aside mortality is hard. Dealing with those who are trying to set aside mortality is
also hard. Its like trying to achieve enlightenment by banging your own head repeatedly into a
dodgeball its a horrible lot of trouble, and you dont get far!
61
That is, places like Eris or Town
62
More or less like an ordinary thesis defense, I guess.
The College of Emptiness and Dream
The last college is home to the students of moral theory, law, righteousness, and the true
emptiness that preceded the Outside. It is home to those who find the world unsatisfactory and
wish to mold it towards their own bleak principles those troubled by the sickness of our
times, including both the worst dogmatic horrors and the most starry-eyed idealists in all the
Bleak Academy.
The College of Emptiness and Dream is on the surface of an egg, or possibly a writhing
mass of gods in the rough shape of an egg, or possibly an unborn existence, suspended in the
middle of nothingness by a series of golden cords. It is separate from the other colleges, full of
bleak wizards who set themselves apart, with a gravity that is local in nature. Those who master
its principles become the Magisters or Strategists of the Bleak Academy; those who are still in the
process of learning them are called jurists or students at Emptiness and Dream.
It is generally understood that the greatest athletes and most fearsome theorists at the Bleak
Academy will come out of the college of Emptiness and Dream, while the more practical sorts
pursue either War and Nightmare or Natural Philosophy.
Scenes involving Emptiness and Dream are often ........................................................................ Lurid
You do something wicked or unhealthy or someone does something wicked or unhealthy to

you. Reality becomes unstable. The truth molds to their principles. Things get really weird. Then
either you double down on what youre doing, or they go forward with hurting or changing you.
Wickedness. Trauma. Metamorphosis. Corruption. Its all here, under the aegis of Emptiness and
Dream.
Scenes involving Emptiness and Dream are sometimes ............................................ Foreshadowing
Youre walking along the trembling golden bridges to the college at the egg. The camera
spins around that shape in nothingness. The Headmasters voice whispers to you, maybe, about
the death of worlds and the birth of gods, the murder of Jade Irinka, and a far and a sunless land.
Something catches your attention.
That may seem like a weird understatement, but you know how it can be. Even the craziest
marvels and most abhorrent horrors can be normal. You can get used to them. But in this
particular case, you dont. Something catches your attention. Something reaches you. You listen
to it, or watch it, or notice it, or feel it. It keeps happening. Then you react!
Scenes involving Emptiness and Dream are rarely .................................................................... a Ritual
The nature of the ritual will vary depending on events in play, but its reasonable to imagine
that you can find some way to tap the power of the egg or call upon the wizards and Strategists
of the College of Emptiness and Dream. However you do so, its likely to play out in the form of
a Ritual Scene.
BOX The Dream-Witch
Long ago a prodigy of despair and hatred a Magister of the Bleak Academy came from
Emptiness and Dream to end the world. Its name was either Melanie Malakh or Reginald
Malakh.
It seduced young Hideo, of the Hayashi family (pg. XX).
Together they made a glass dragon, and taught it to hate the world. But it shattered, instead.
And so did the magister, Malakh.
This Main Character is whats left. The Dream-Witch is usually a girl named Miramie
Mesmer, but they could be a boy named Reynard Mesmer instead. Theyre not a prodigy of
despair and hate. Theyre not the whole of the monster that came to Town. Theyre just
somebody touched by its power, or maybe a reduced version of that prodigy, withered into
humanity and then bound (see pg. XX).
An older, wiser, and more worldly Professor Hideo Hayashi runs an Archive and a kind of
halfway house for troubled and unusual teens now. Thats usually where this Main Character
lives, along with four or five other foundlings; that said, if itd be more fun for you, you could
decide that one of the shrine families took the Dream-Witch in instead.
The default Miramie Mesmer is sweet but kind of anxious and tightly wound. Shes trying to
refurbish a manor down the street from the Archive and set up an art shop, garden, and caf.
Except for a vague association with masks, dreams, glass, and Melanie Malakh, shes really a
pretty OK person you shouldnt judge her on her title alone.
But theres this ominous angle to her: its possible that Melanie Malakh might still reform.
The Dream-Witch isnt necessarily a big part of Towns story as a whole but will be a key
player in the first major campaign, Fortitude: the Glass-Makers Dragon.
END BOX
The House of the Sun (Hypothetical)
The Headmaster of the Bleak Academy shot the sun; she died
But I am told that she is not dead. The Child of the Sun is certain of it: there was some
sort of miracle. Meta miracle, maybe, since the sun was an angel. There was something.
Somehow Jade Irinka is not gone.
And it is my belief that if she is not gone, if she is not dead, then she must have found
herself fallen into the Bleak Academy or the Far and Sunless Land.
It could be either.
Lets call it a canon flexpoint what happened to her I dont know, you dont know, youll
have to find out during play. Maybe she did die. Maybe she put on Marx Brothers glasses and is
sneaking around in Town. Maybe she fell into the farthest Outside and is burning there.
. . . but maybe theres a new-made House of the Sun in the Bleak Academy, instead,
dedicated to keeping her contained. Maybe theres a whole new College, a whole new line of
eminences comparable to the Strategists and the Warmains, named something like The Keepers
of the Sun.
Maybe shes struggling even now in their great spherical auditorium, struggling to burst free;
or even wrestling, not against the folk of the Bleak Academy, but against the True Thing or the
Emptiness itself, struggling to devour it or become a part of it while the faculty aid or hinder her
along the way.
I dont think that shes weak enough that the Headmaster can keep her captive personally. I
think itd take a whole campus, and even then shed be at all times on the verge of breaking free.
I think hed need to funnel a ton of resources away from one of the existing colleges in order to
hold her, and the first Keepers of the Sun would accordingly be ex-Warmains, ex-Philosophers,
ex-Strategists, or ex-Magi. Their students, though, if she doesnt break free, are likely to be
something new.
The HG shouldnt force a given genre for this stuff, but they should pick one of the genres
below to aim for when and if it seems like youre going to discover that this is what happened to
Jade Irinka.
One possible genre here is ................................................................................................. Epic Fantasy
The House of the Sun is spun off from Natural Philosophy. They hold her in a cage of lies,
ideas, philosophy, and conceits. She tells you about it. She whispers it to you. She tells you her
plans, her decisions, her choice. Will you help her? Can you help her? What is the cost?
Another is.................................................................................................................................... Adventure
Theyve found a way to kill her. Or, when they find out you know shes there, theyre going
to kill you. Something like that. Youre outgunned, outnumbered, and outmatched!
But you?
Youre going to win.
A last option is ................................................................................................................................. Gothic
The struggle is constant. She is impossible to contain. Her chains are impossible to break.
Dealing with one of these dual dilemmas obsesses you.
You try to connect to her. You try to help her.
But this is beyond you. This is impossible. There is nothing you can do.
What you see in this place will remain with you for all the years of your life to come.
The Far and Sunless Land
The Far and Sunless Land
The wind puts out the fire and

Stars are falling from the sky.
That which is eternal, ends.
Seek nothing, gain all;
Reject nothing, transcend all;
Hold to no conceptions, rule all
This is a far and a sunless land
Typical Genre: Pastoral
Beyond the Bleak Academy is the land the Headmaster comes from a land he claims, to
Town at least, to represent.
Maybe hes its King. Maybe hes an apostate, rebel, or reject. Maybe hes just an academic,
missionary, or civil servant from that place, who runs an outpost between the sunless land and
Town.
Its a strange place to visit.
You can. You can get a visa, and go out to the Bleak Academy, and get on its tour bus, and
go on a ride through the endless darkness, and marvel at a far and a sunless land. I cant
guarantee that youll come back, and I cant guarantee that youll come back human, even if
thats the way you start, but
There is a place there, where the wind puts out the fires and stars are falling from the sky.
Theres a place beyond the Bleak Academy where that which is eternal, ends. Its real. Its there.
Its the farthest reach of the Far Outside.
Its there.
Its just a little hard for mortal eyes to see.
Scenes in the Far and Sunless Land are usually ...................................................... Shared Reactions
You talk about stuff thats happened. You talk about the stuff thats in your heart. You
connect with the people around you.
The Far and Sunless Land is sometimes ............................................................................ Slice of Life
Dont expect the HG to describe whats around you. They might. They might not. Its a lot
to ask. But still, something is there. It moves your heart. You get lost in the mood.
The image . . . -lessness?
It sticks with you.
Trying to pay attention to the actual vistas around you may trigger ....................................... a Ritual
It starts with a ritual action pointing towards the furthest Outside, or saying, Oh! I see!
or, if you happen to be a Lewis fan, perhaps, Further up and further in!
And the world stops.
Talk about memories that are dear in your heart.

Talk about what you love about other people.
Pose or otherwise describe how your character conducts themselves on the
trip.
Say things you thought youd never say.
Quote bits of poetry that come to mind.
And the HG replies with things like
a candle flares; it is sheltered by your teachers weathered hands, but the wind
blows out the fire.
the stars are falling, one after another, faster and faster, until the sky is ablaze
with light.
a clock strikes its final hour.
seek nothing, gain all.
reject nothing, transcend all.
hold no conceptions, rule all.
(and then points to the next person they want to prompt for a ritual action.)
The ritual always ends with someone saying, This is a far and a sunless land. And then
someone else echoing it, to bring the journey to its close.
BOX The Sun, in a Far and a Sunless Land
So what happens if Jade Irinka wound up here, or if Jasper Irinka decides to visit?
Thats a canon flexpoint. I dont know. You dont know. You cant know. Something will
happen. Something appropriate.
And if you dont know what happens? If you cant think of anything appropriate?
Break the game there, stop, take 5-15 minutes, and when you come back, the bit where you
noticed the sun in a sunless land, or where the Child of the Sun tried to get in, is over.
Congratulations. You broke the world.
Working out what exactly happened, and how existence survived that break, is something
you can do later on, in flashbacks, or as the resolution to an Issue, or something else like that.
END BOX
BOX Falling Stars, by Rainer Maria Rilke

For general use in Transitions related to the Outside
Do you remember still the falling stars

that like swift horses through the heavens raced
and suddenly leaped across the hurdles
of our wishes--do you recall? And we
did make so many! For there were countless numbers
of stars: each time we looked above we were
astounded by the swiftness of their daring play,
while in our hearts we felt safe and secure
watching these brilliant bodies disintegrate,
knowing somehow we had survived their fall.
END BOX
BOX excerpt63 from The Tyger, by William Blake
For general use in Transitions related to the Outside
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright

What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder, & what art.
What the hammer? what the chain?

In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
(&) When the stars threw down their spears,

Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
END BOX
63
My apologies to fellow Blake admirers for the mutilation of this poem; I felt I could afford to clip some lines
and make it a better fit to the Outside, since you all know the real poem anyway.
Example Quests
Heres a few more examples of what a quest might look like.

A New Hobby
35 XP Quest 25 XP Quest (Variation)
:1 :1
:2 :2
:3 :4
Youve started a new hobby! Isnt it about time you got into manga, or American television, or
the limitless world of Fortitude model car collecting?64
Then this quest is for you.
You can repeat this quest in a later Arc to continue your studies of the hobby or take them
to the next level.
I recommend the 35 XP version for normal use. If youre repeating the quest, though, and
not really trying to take things to the next level if you just want to keep the hobby fresh and
relevant in your life, rather than taking it to the next level? consider a short, 25-XP version
instead.
64
Almost. THREE. Manufacturers!
Quest Card
A New Hobby (Peaceful Version)
Major Goals
The HG can award you 5 XP towards this Short Version

quest when . . .
Youre dazzled by a visit to a great

collection or store for this hobby;
Someone demonstrates why you shouldnt
underestimate the depth of complexity and
heart put into this hobby;
You become involved in a fan project for 25
creating, modifying, distributing, or
building upon the things of this hobby.
Full Version
You can earn each bonus once, up to a total of
10 XP in the short version and 15 XP in the
35
full.
Quest Flavor
1/chapter, you can earn a bonus XP towards this quest when:
youre enjoying or thinking about the newest thing youve bought for your hobby
you have a geeky discussion with a fellow hobbyist
you daydream hobby-related elements into the world around you
you attend a large hobby-related gathering
you put work into the hobby (e.g. organizing an event, working on a fan project,
building a model, or parsing a complicated story.)
you experience the wistful sorrow of someone who cant afford to buy the latest
thing
Quest Card
A New Hobby (Passionate Version)
Major Goals
The HG can award you 5 XP towards this Short Version

quest when:
you have a fierce, hobby-themed battle

with someone;
you get sick from spending too much
time and money on your hobby
instead of carefully attending to rest,
nutrition, and health; 25
you receive and must carry forward
the dreams and often the symbol or Full Version
nickname of a great geek/hobbyist
who is retiring or stepping back from
the hobby due to, e.g., injury or the 35
birth of their child.
You can earn each bonus once, up to a total of

10 XP in the short version and 15 XP in the
full.
Quest Flavor
working on hobby-related stuff

getting worked up about your hobby
supporting your hobby in ways you probably shouldnt.
using your hobby or hobby-learned skills to help overcome the problems in
the rest of your life.
A New Job
35 XP Quest
:1
:2
Youve just started a new career! You have taken your first steps into what is most likely a
dazzling world far bigger than anything you could have imagined.
Are you entering the shocking maelstrom of the fish canning world?
Are you working for an ex-enemy?
Have you just founded the Fortitude Young Adults Detective Agency? Signed on daringly
to help keep the books at Cramsie Hospital in Horizon? Are you maybe even dabbling in
customer service or in the dizzying world of temps?
Then this quest . . . is for you.

Quest Card
A New Job (Comedic/Stylized Version)
Major Goals

quest when . . .
You uncover a secret fighting tournament

(possibly actually just a bridge/dice
tournament or something) related to the
job;
You make a new friend, often a troubled
kid, overburdened and meek person your
own age, or kitten;
You use the first (or other long-awaited)
money from the job on an unexpected
expense for someone else.
You can earn each bonus once, for a total of

up to 15 XP.
Quest Flavor
the business struggles with money

the authorities fail to understand your problems
an enemy appears!
a new client shows up
an older mentor explains the dizzying scope of the work
youre transfixed with interest in something seemingly completely unimportant,
but related to the job
that unimportant thing comes into play sometime later on
Quest Card
A New Job (Pastoral Version)
Major Goals

quest when:
someone is injured or goes into labor

at work and you help them to the
hospital;
somebody brings you snacks during a
festival because youre stuck at work;
you have to take over for the person
who originally taught you the ropes.

15 XP.
Quest Flavor
working on relevant chores

talking about your work
doing or taking advantage of stuff you learned at work
showing people your work at the office
Bind
50 XP Quest
:1
:2
:3
:5
I cannot say if this is possible on Earth. I cannot say if it is possible in Horizon, or Old Molder.
But in places like Fortitude, like Little Island, and maybe even like Arcadia
It may be possible for even the worst of horrors to be redeemed.
So in this quest, you will imprison a defeated horror in a sacred place in one of the well-
loved houses in Fortitude, in the Kinnoruto Temple in Arcadia, in the old temple on Little
Island, or maybe in the mystery world inside the Wish-Granting Engine and there you will
strive to teach it humanity or humaneness.
Witches, murderers, demons, and even cosmic horrors like the Headmaster of the Bleak
Academy can be rehabilitated in this fashion, although any non-consenting horror must first be
thoroughly defeated. Human and human-like horrors must also meaningfully and plausibly
repent.
What Happens
Youll set up containment of some sort for the defeated horror. This usually means restricting
their movements (at least at first), setting up some way to monitor their actions, and sealing,
blocking, or interfering with any dangerous superhuman powers they may have.
Some horrors are genuinely nave. They undervalue human life because it never really
occurred to them to do otherwise. Or perhaps it had occurred to them, a long time ago, but after
millennia of evil theyve so thoroughly lost touch with the moral portion of themselves that
theyve reverted to a peculiar kind of innocence.
For creatures like this, the story of this quest usually has parallels with raising a child. Its
traditional in stories, anyway to trap them in a weak human body or a small, cute version
of their normal form. Even if you leave the creature physically intact, youll seal their power,
mitigate the appearance of threat they give, and possibly stifle or seal their more evil instincts. At
this point even if the creature retains a bad personality, boredom and pride will help to redeem
them. Unsatisfied with an empty or structure-less life, the horror will eventually seek out human
company, imitate human behavior, and inquire into the philosophical underpinnings of a
humane existence. Like children, they are often petulant, contrary, or chaotic; like children, they
are capable of randomly having fun with the essentials of human existence; like children they are,
ultimately, biddable.
Eventually bound horrors start to feel a real affinity with the values of their captors and
around this time, theyll usually recover or unlock some measure of their power. At this point
they become cognate to teenagers and express much the same range of behaviors: they become
concerned with what other people think of them; they struggle to establish space and
independence for themselves; they suffer from poor impulse control; and they adopt a teen
archetype such as self-loathing emo horror, prideful jerk horror, or diligent mini-adult
horror. This is the most dangerous time for their rehabilitation, as theyll want things (whether
to redeem myself or to return to who I was before) that theyre not really ready to achieve; if
they weather any appropriate trials and come to terms with their nature, the quest completes.
Other horrors werent nave. They hurt people and they knew what it meant to hurt people.
However, as subjects for this quest, theyre presumptively salvageable some combination of
they had limited choices and theyve found genuine repentance makes it worth trying to save them, at the
least. A story like this requires a more psychologically realistic depiction of redemption and
forgiveness, so its going to be a bit harder to tell. Usually the horror that youre binding will
have to work hard: training their self-control, working to repay their victims or society, practicing
redemptive and self-disciplinary labor, or some combination thereof. The horror will also need
to talk through a lot of things with a therapist, priest, parent figure, or confidant who accepts
them. If you can get the horrors buy-in first65 it can help to shatter the root of their
wickedness breaking the pride, starving the gluttony, or impairing the capacity for wrath that
drove them to their acts. Eventually theyll do something heroic or self-sacrificing (either a single
event or a long time of doing good things) that earns an appropriate measure of forgiveness and
acceptance and thereby ends the quest.
65
not so much a practical requirement as a way to make sure that you arent becoming a horror yourself
Quest Card
Bind (Dramatic Version)
Bonus XP

by proposing a theory about how the bound
horror should approach human existence. This
could manifest as:
speculating about how to connect to

the horror and make it understand the
human world;
attempting to explain the human world
to it;
helping it understand how its past and
future actions fit into the human
context.
. . . but ultimately it just boils down to this:
propose a theory, earn an XP.
Your character must propose the theory aloud or, at minimum, in their official internal
narration it cant just be you, as the player, at the table, it has to be IC.
Quest Card
Bind (Casual/Comedic Version)
Bonus XP
Arrange for a sign. It says Over the Top.

minutes) when your interaction with the horror
gets, or the consequences of binding it get, a
little over the top.
Or, for that matter, when you decide to

make them a little over the top.
When that happens, hold up the sign or

otherwise declare/observe that things have
gotten over the top and you can claim the XP.
You dont even have to say anything in

character! You just have to be willing to hold
up a sign. Its even OK if sometimes youre
being ironic or making a suggestion instead of
an observation, as long as an observation is
more typical.
Over the Top

Concentrated Awesome
20 XP Quest
:2
:3
:4
:5
Youll usually only take this quest once youve gotten a level 4+ Connection with someone or
somewhere
The quest is about being a total master of some environment or being totally in synch with a
partner, lover, friend, or even rival. It pretty much just focuses on how amazing, with that
Connection, you are.
Quest Card
Concentrated Awesome
Major Goals

quest if theres a scene where youve been cut
off somehow from your normal power
sources, memories, or sense of self, but use
your deep connection to this environment to
still be pretty awesome.
You can earn this bonus once, for a total

of 5 XP.
Quest Flavor
having a montage of incidents showing off your situation mastery

hanging out admiring the thing or situation
exaggerated tongue-in-cheek drama about the thing in question
having a casual conversation while doing what should be exciting or difficult
things in the situation or with the person in question e.g., arguing over laundry or
talking about stuff youve been reading with your Connection 4+ SO while fighting
to stabilize a storm-tossed ship
Connecting with Someone
25 XP Quest
:1
:2
Youre consciously trying to make a connection with someone to get to know them. Youre
looking for ways to deepen your understanding of them and get closer.
Or, youre consciously trying to fit into a place or situation.
You work hard. You pay attention. Its a kind of dedicated, intentional learning.
Quest Card
Connecting (Casual Version)
Bonus XP

by declaring that what youve been doing in the
current scene is to build your connection with
something or because youre learning how to live
with that person or thing.
Pick a standard phrase to indicate this, and

then just say that phrase or some close variant
when you want to claim the bonus. For
instance:
I want to know you a little better.

Im getting the hang of this place.
I think we really connected.
What I recommend is figuring out what youd say towards the end of the first scene youre really
working on this quest in if you find yourself saying something goofy, like Lets work hard to
be friends! then your quest phrase will be goofy. If youre being all refined and stuff and wind
up with just Im emoting, yeah, youre . . . pretty OK, then thats the phrase instead.
Regardless, you find something that says
this scene? Its an Ive been connecting scene
and then you say that, seriously or ironically, to earn a bonus XP for this quest.
What do you say?

Quest Card
Connecting (Dramatic Version)
Major Goals

quest if you:
get in trouble trying to reach out to or

connect with the target of this quest;
get in trouble trying to help the target
of this quest, and it or they in some
fashion support you.
You can earn each bonus once per (repetition
of the) quest, for a total of 10 XP.
Quest Flavor
listening to stories about (the target of this quest)

consciously trying to connect with (the target of this quest)
for a person:
o helping out with the daily life of (the target of this quest)
o talking about (the target)s life, or sharing a bit of yours
for a place/situation
o exploring how to live in (the target of this quest)
o talking to people about how they live in/with (the target of this quest).
spending time with the target and thinking about the parts of that that are
different from your usual life.
The Door into Memory, as a Quest
25 XP Quest
:1
:2
:3
:4
Youve learned to open a door into somebodys memories (pg. XX)
Now, you explore someones memories, in the hopes of changing something either
changing the world of the present, if youre really in the past somehow, or the way they feel
about something, or the way that you do.
What Happens
There are relatively few stable elements to this kind of thing.
I think that memory should mostly be a safe country to visit, but not always. Maybe you get
hit on the head early on and forget that youre just visiting someones memories. Maybe youre
deliberately visiting a place of trauma.
I think there should be a light estrangement from events at first, like the world has trouble
setting its hooks in you, but thats not certain either.
I think its almost inevitable that youll meet yourself, if you were there, or your parents or
ancestors, if they were. Similarly I think its almost inevitable that even if you try to avoid the
person whose memories youre visiting (and just spy on them, I guess), youll wind up
interacting in the past.
I think that the world is probably most detailed in the immediate presence of the person
whose memories youre visiting that the world beyond their knowledge fades easily into the
Outside. You may also be anchored to them in some respect, unable to get more than a few
hundred yards away. That said, people have more information about the world around them than
even they may understand, and the power the Door Into Memories fills in a lot of the rest.
I think this quest plays out mostly as an investigation, but sometimes therell be a heart-
breaking element anyone you meet there arguably doesnt exist, after all, and if they do, they
are older now. Some of them are dead. It can be pretty brutal. There can, of course, be touching
elements too, since youll have the opportunity to comfort people (or memories of them) whose
traumas earned no comfort at the time.
In the end theres often a choice to make. I dont know what kind. I dont know how that
makes sense yet. But some kind of choice. And then youre done.
The Door into Memory
Major Goals

quest if theres:
a heart-wrenching scene in the past;

an incredibly touching scene in the
past.
You can earn each bonus once each, for a total
of 10 XP.
Quest Flavor
Once per chapter (. . . subjective, I guess), you can earn a bonus XP towards this quest by:
making a friend in someone elses memories

having an ironic encounter
having a goofy encounter with yourself
having a great time with some lost attraction
failing utterly to stay uninvolved with and out of sight of events
having a sudden reason to worry that you can alter time or the hosts mind
manipulating their memories
doing something you really know better than to do in the past
seeing something youd much rather not
getting stuck or lost and having to find your way out
watching something historical play out
having a meaningful conversation with a PC or important NPC in the past
talking in the present about the things youve learned in the past.
Mental Training
40 XP Quest
:1
:2
:3
:4
:5
You engage in an intensive program of study. You vanish into piled books of lore, intensive
training, or a fully-occupying academic environment.
Im not going to tell you what you learn. Im not going to tell you what happens.
That would be difficult.
Instead Im going to give you a little mental training of your own!
The Toad
Once upon a time, there was a toad that swallowed a stone.
Inside that stone was an entire world.
Eventually the stone digested away and the world boiled out. Every time the toad hiccupped
thered be roads or straw or wind and stars all over the place.
What an unfortunate toad!
from Sineus Observations
While scholars are generally in love with the story of Sineus toad, the general public hardly
remembers it they just occasionally mention stuff like swole like Sineus toad or choking
like a toad, in the same tone they might use for wow, almost got shaved by Occams razor!
when they survive an improbable incident.
A Verse
`The lark does rustle in the ripe corn, and the eagle returns
From nightly prey, and lifts his golden beak to the pure east,
Shaking the dust from his immortal pinions to awake
The sun that sleeps too long. Arise, my Theotormon! I am pure,
Because the night is gone that closd me in its deadly black.
They told me that the night and day were all that I could see;
...
`But silken nets and traps of adamant will Oothoon spread,

And catch for thee girls of mild silver, or of furious gold.
Ill lie beside thee on a bank, and view their wanton play
...
`Arise, you little glancing wings, and sing your infant joy!
Arise, and drink your bliss, for everything that lives is holy!
Thus every morning wails Oothoon; but Theotormon sits
. . . hear her woes, and echo back her sighs.
a bit of William Blake, from Visions of the Daughters of Albion

Quest Card
Mental Training
Major Goals

quest:
In the unlikely event that you witness a
toad swallowing a stone containing 1+
worlds, or do so yourself;
When grief or some monster haunts
you in your studies;
When something corrupts you or is
eating you slowly;
If you get the chance to use your
increasing knowledge and diligence to
help on a major research project;
If financial (or other pragmatic)
reasons not to continue this training
raise their heads.

up to 25 XP, although Id be surprised to see
you get more than 15 of these XP.
Quest Flavor
you travel strange roads through campus

youre discovered sleeping on your books
you join or do things with a strange group of students
you study something in nature
you build a project with 1+ other students
you study or discuss your studies with 1+ friends
theres a montage of classes, term papers, tests, and/or other studies-related stuff
you reflect on or discuss a bit of poetry
The Object
40 XP Quest
:1
:2
:4
Theres some object that has become a big part of your life. It soaks up and comes to represent
your life. It could be a hat. It could be a detailed diary or journal. It could be a rare-won prize. It
could be a nametag that you dont take off even outside of work.
Basically theres this thing that represents you, for a while.
You can probably adapt this quest to basically handle an event, title, or connection that
becomes the center of your life, but it works best with an object, so you should probably pick a
representative object even then. Not a noble title but a writ of nobility; not a friendship but a
friendship ring; not a party, but a hat.
What Youll Do
When youre on this quest youll keep the object handy at all times.
If youre taking detailed, careful notes on your life, then youll keep that notepad or diary on
you constantly. If youve got a new addition to your outfit, youll wear it, rain or shine!
Youll notice that the object keeps getting involved in wacky misadventures.
This is not the kind of hat that wants to stay on your head. At least for the duration of the
quest, this is a hat that wants to keep blowing away in the wind. This is a hat that gets confused
with a different hat that gangsters from Chicago are hunting for. This is a hat that becomes
imbued with the power of the Bleak Academy. That kind of hat. If it is a diary, then its the kind
of diary that is always getting stolen, borrowed, lost, or read.
Youll refer to the object a lot.
It becomes a symbol. You hold it up a lot. If its a book, you read from it a lot. If its a
journal, you write in it but also read or cross-reference from past entries a lot. If its an umbrella,
youll use it to emphasize your every gesture.
Youll play it up.

Finally, youll treasure the object. You wont let people mess with it easily. If you share it with
anyone it will be a powerful gesture of trust. If someone takes it from you theyd best be ready
for your wrath! (Or at least your simulated wrath, if no harm was actually done.)
What Youll Know
Youll know all kinds of stuff associated with the object. For instance, the longer you keep a
journal or diary the more surprised youll be at how little youve previously kept track of in your
life and how much is going on around you. Youll be surprised at how many things you werent
saying and how much you werent noticing. The longer you wear an awesome hat, the more
aware youll be of other people with awesome hats around you
How did you live so long without tipping your hat to them? Its amazing!
Quest Card
The Object
Major Goals

quest if:
your object is stolen;

your object serves as a useful reference
in deciding some conflict or solving
some mystery;
the object helps you sort out your
head on something;
your object either contains some
important secret, or people falsely
believe it does.

up to 20 XP.
Quest Flavor
Pick a Region. 1/chapter, you can earn a bonus XP towards this quest when:
you use the object as the framing device for a monologue/montage

the object is involved in an interesting incident from the daily life of the Region
you and the object witness a detailed, interesting sight from the Region
people act goofy about you and the object
you refer to your object for organization, inspiration, or security
Keeping a Record of your Life
20 or 40 XP Quest
This section shows you how to adapt a generic quest like the Object to something more
specific. In this case, Ive turned it into Keeping a Detailed Record of your Life:
Youve always got a notepad, diary, or journal at hand; youre always writing or sketching
little observations, ideas, or notes on current events. Is this just a personal record? Are you a
scientist, artist, or writer? Or are you trying to work through some problem in your life by
keeping better track of what you do?
If youre here because you actually just wanted to start keeping a regular diary, an ordinary
evening-writing diary at home that doesnt have much plot weight, Ive included a simpler bonus
quest card, Keeping a Simple Record of your Life, below.
Quest Card
Keeping a Detailed Record of your Life
Major Goals

quest if:
your diary is stolen;

your diary serves as a useful reference
in deciding some conflict or solving
some mystery;
keeping better track of events in your
life helps you sort out your head on
something;
your diary either contains some
important secret, or people falsely
believe it does.

up to 20 XP.
Quest Flavor
Pick a Region. 1/chapter, you can earn a bonus XP towards this quest when:
you use dear diary as the framing device for a monologue/montage

you record an interesting incident from the daily life of the Regoin
you record a detailed, interesting sight from the Region
people act goofy about you writing a given incident down
you refer to your notes for organization, inspiration, or security
Quest Card
Keeping a Simple Record of your Life (20 XP variant)
Bonus XP

any time (by only once per scene/15 minutes)
by proposing a theory about how something is
going to get framed in your diary.
The classic version of this is reinterpreting

the events around you in a comedic fashion
with stuff like Dear diary, today my friend
Jessie choked tragically to death on a handful
of French fries, when that hasnt even
happened, or at least, Jessie isnt actually dead,
just yet.
Your character must propose the theory aloud or, at minimum, in their official internal
narration it cant just be you, as the player, at the table, it has to be IC. However, you dont
have to belabor the fact that its a theory about how youll record something in your diary just
saying it, as in the example above, is fine.
Physical Training
40 XP Quest
:1
:2
:4
You engage in rigorous physical training. Is there a big game, tournament, battle, or adventure
coming up, or is this just something that you do?
What Youll Do
Someone engaging in rigorous physical training is always wanting to do a little more.
It can be really hard to get started. And every time you take the training up another notch,
that feels almost impossible too. But once youve really gotten going
Its hard to stop. Its hard to pull yourself away from it.
Youll feel preemptive guilt sometimes, when you think about stopping; guilt for how you
might fail, someday, and all because you didnt push harder now. And training gives you clear
direction and forward motion . . . making it harder to face the rest of your life, which does not.
Hm. What else?
Someone engaging in rigorous physical training is always just coming in from a workout.
You can obviously clean up before any formal occasion or appointment, but a lot of scenes
will pick up just as youre coming back from your training. Youll be sweaty in a lot of the game.
Youll have a towel around your neck. That kind of thing. And if youre not coming back from a
workout, you were probably heading out on your way.
Someone engaging in rigorous physical training eats a lot, and eats weirdly.
Theres something about a push for health that makes you want to drink things with raw
eggs in them. Theres something about training all the time that makes blending up a giant mug
full of okra, ice, milk, wheat grass, and cauliflower sound just peachy and! Oh, thats right! You
should throw in a peach!
Theres something about heavy physical training that makes you not only a sucker for weird
nutritional ideas but also much more likely to be excited by random foods you hear mention of
(because your body remembers a trace element in them that sounds really good right now) and
any legitimate but gross nutrition approach.
Someone engaging in rigorous physical training is generally troubled.
Its not that it makes you troubled, exactly, and its not that its something that troubled
people do. Rather, its that the longer you spend running, stretching, doing weird training
exercises, sparring, doing katas, punching bags, and etcetera? The more that becomes the only
expression for the stuff thats boiling inside you. It lets a lot of it out, but the rest just clots up
inside you.
It lingers.
Inside you, it builds up.
On the same note, someone engaging in rigorous physical training is usually taciturn.
Its not always that way! But as you get more used to expressing yourself with your body,
youll wind up with less need to express your existence in words.
Quest Card
Physical Training
Major Goals

quest when:
You get in trouble someone tries to

shut down wherever youre training, or
keep you from attending it;
Your training is interrupted with a
chance to help deal with some disaster
(where heavy physical work is useful in
prevention, mitigation, or recovery);
You have a vision or flashback of
some sort as you pass out from
exhaustion.

up to 15 XP.
Quest Flavor
you wander home exhausted but happy after a lot of exercise

someone comes upon you as youre training and watches for a while
theres a training montage
you struggle against a (training) barrier you cant get past
you bond with someone through fighting/competing with them
you let out your emotions through exercise/training/practice
Poisoned
35 XP Quest
:3
:4
:5
Youve been poisoned by Outside dust, or maybe by something else. And from that point
forward you keep having these horrible visions, or possibly even real, physical manifestations,
of yourself as something else.
Something wicked. Some other you.
Something wrong.
What Youll Do
Youll be haunted.
Youll be pale and drawn. Youll be agitated. Youll look tired. You will overreact to sounds.
Youll be frightened of the dark. Youll be frightened each time your friends depart that youll
never see them again. Youll be afraid that someone will trust you and it wont be you that they
trust, itll be that thing. But youre afraid to tell people about that, or to have them really believe
that, because what if they think youre it? Or what if you really are?
You wont be thinking clearly.
I want to emphasize that. Youre not just floating through a sea of surreal experience on an
iceberg of your cold reserve. Youre not making clever, careful plans to foil your alternates
attack. You are not well. You wont be well until its resolved. Its possible that youll still be
under threat when things resolve, its possible that its all a misunderstanding, its possible that
its all psychological or that your duplicate is actually your friend, but for right now, youre not in
your right mind about whats happening. Thats an element of this quest.
You wont trust yourself.
I dont just mean the natural concern that arises when you see something that looks like you
doing things that you would not. I dont just mean there but for the grace of God go I, and I
havent been feeling all that graced. Its more that your identity is partially displaced onto your
alternate. You wont know for sure that you havent been infected, changed, corrupted,
perverted, stolen. You wont even always be completely sure that youre the real and original you.
Quest Card
Poisoned (Storyline Version)
Major Goals

quest when:
something horrific happens to you

because of this quest;
you have a climactic confrontation
with your other self;
something happens to tie the other
self to one of the other active stories
or quests.

15 XP.
Quest Flavor
1/chapter, you can earn a bonus XP towards this quest through:
a dizzying vision of the enemy

wrestling with your sense of self
an impossible encounter
dealing with some relevant internal baggage
trying to understand what is happening
suffering a bout of more general sickness/hallucinations
Quest Card
Poisoned (Any-Time Version)
Bonus XP
This quest comes with a division of states

theres the you who is stable, grounded in the
world, and is also the only you; and then theres
the you who is sharing existence with at least
one thing making dizzying defiance of the
boundaries of yourself.
Ive made a sign for this a reversible

card, which you could in theory have on the
table in front of you in play to show which
state youre in. You can earn a bonus XP at any
time (though only once per scene/15 minutes)
by flipping the card, showing that youre moving between states that youre grounded and
things are fine, or that youve either gone into a state of distress or are actively being haunted.
If you cant actually keep the card in front of you, holding up the card with the relevant side
facing people or just saying or emoting something appropriate can earn you the XP instead.
Divided Self-Possessed
(image) (image)
Preparing for a Festival or Event
35 XP Quest
:2
:3
Youre getting things ready for a big upcoming event Im particularly thinking about Fortitude
festivals, which include a number of events and attractions, but this is also a suitable quest to use
if youre putting on a play and it can work in a pinch if youre getting a party or concert put
together.
This quest assumes that youre working on a team, but its a cosmetic point
You can still use it if it is just you.
What Youll Know
Why would they tell you anything? Youre only on the committee.
What Youll Do
Someone whos preparing for a festival event looks sleepless.
You will be harried. You will be tired. As much as you ever do Im making allowances
here for the occasional always-cool-no-matter-what type you will seem like everything is
completely out of control and about to fall apart at any minute. Even if its actually under control
right this second, youll probably have forgotten how to not look overwhelmed, harried, and out of
your depth.
You will give speeches about what the festival means or how it should be put together.
The reason Im listing this here instead of as part of the quest card is that theres only one
time when this actually matters that moment when it makes things gel for the players and
HG, if they hadnt gelled before. Otherwise, its just part of the constant background noise of
getting things ready: that everyone, from the lowliest supreme festival manager to the loftiest
volunteer stage hand, has opinions and gives speeches on the task at hand.
Youll keep coming up with (OOC) and encountering (IC) new ideas for things that are part of the festival.
The world of theater and events is a world of endless wonder. Theres always a new hitch,
cool thing, or thing that has to be done that youd never thought about before it emerged.
Quest Card
Preparing for a Festival
Major Goals

quest when:
You help to define/establish (for the

players, I mean) an important part of
what this event will be about;
Its the week before the events
supposed to happen and nothings
ready!
0-3 days before the event, a huge
problem comes up or remains! And
then you solve it.

up to 15 XP.
Quest Flavor
1/chapter, you can earn a bonus XP towards this quest for:
planning the layout (of festival booths, stage props & lighting, etc.)
coming to consensus on the events biggest features (e.g., music, attractions)
preparing and rehearsing for things
constructing the things youll need (festival booths, props, costumes, &c.)
posting bills
getting people the equipment that theyll need
dealing with completely goofy problems
Taking Care of a Small Child
40 XP Quest
:1
:2
:5
You raise and nurture, or help with, a small child. For our purposes, thats anyone up to the age
of 7 the final celebration of Shichi-Go-San marks the end of this quests efficacy and often
the introduction of the child as an independent Main Character or NPC.
What Youll Do
Youll spend a lot of time in little interactions with the kid.
Theyll be around. Theyll be the focus of small exchanges youll pick the baby up, hug
and bounce it, talk to it, and put it back down to bed. Youll answer random questions from the
kid. Youll wipe their nose.
Youll make faces at them really, making faces back and forth to kids is where its at. Youll
play little silly games. Youll tell them your grandiose stories, and youll listen to their own.
Youll emphasize your connection to them.
This is a big thing. Youre always calling a kid over and introducing them to other people, or
showing other people things theyve drawn; whatever. Youre explaining the kids fantasy world
to others: if theyre a knight, and their teddy bear is their horse, youll be the one to tell people
that. Even if youre kind of annoyed by the kid (e.g., the kid is an obnoxious tag-along younger
sibling, or youre a really tired parent) the tenets of your relationship with the kid are really
important to you:
Youll be all this is my kid sister, shes really annoying and thinks goblins live in noses
rather than waving her away like youd wave away an equally annoying gnat. In fact, itll be
intensely important for you to spend time making it clear to people that this kid is the one who is
annoying to you, and exactly why: you want it to be as big a deal to others as it is for you.
Youll be tolerant. At least, if youre in a relatively Pastoral campaign.
I dont mean tolerant of their behavior, per se. I dont mean that youll let them do things
they shouldnt be doing. Thats a minefield and Im not even going to talk about it! I mean that
youll be tolerant of their existence; of their experience; of the fact that theyre there, and often
want a lot from you, and that their presence often means trouble and mess and makes demands
upon your time.
Unless youre playing in a Gothic game, youll take them seriously
There are a lot of places out there where you might feel like you dont have the time for kids.
Like the weight of kids on your daily planner pushes everything else out. Like youre running all
the time just to keep the pieces of your life and theirs together, and cant manage anything else at
all.
Thats not how it usually is in Town.
Theyll take up a lot of time! But you can still do whatever else you need to do, itll just take
you longer.
Unless youre in a Gothic game. Then you might really not have time.
Youll tend to be pretty trusting..
Town tends to let its kids manage a lot more of their own lives than you see in the modern
West. Theyre not quite free-range but theyre on a pretty long leash and their parentsll tend to
take their word as pretty good.
You will get memetically infected.
The three most infectious sorts of catch phrase in the world are the ones that kids come up
with, the ones kids discover and repeat, and the ones that you accidentally come up with that
infect a kid. A suitably-aged kid can, with a mere half-hours exposure, corrupt an entire roomful
of intelligent adults into a peculiar, squamous clade liable to refer to feet themselves as boots
(two boots!) and reject a proposal for a hearty round of family-friendly boardgame play with
an out-thrust hand and a declaration of No Monolopy!
Finally, youll get a lot more tolerant for goop. Kids produce many variegated goops! Your
tolerance does not automatically reach the level of immunity parental resistance to mess and
unpleasantness often plateaus at a kind of pained acceptance but youll still get an order of
magnitude better at coping with someone randomly deciding to wipe their nose and then rub their
hand clean upon your face.66
What Youll Know
Lets start with some stuff that might not be obvious.
Youll learn which places near you are kid friendly and who has kids of their own. Youll
learn many things that are basically magic tricks, like various ways of strapping babies to you,
calming or distracting kids, one-handed stroller folding and unfolding techniques, and the
masterful interpretation of patterns of silence and sound.
66
Because its gross to have mucous all over your hand!(FN)
(FN) Duh.
Youll know that Fortitudes the best place in Town to take a kid to. Oh, sure, theyll love
Arcadia, and most of Town is pretty good, but the thing about Fortitude is:
The place is practically hostile to wickedness and adversity.
For instance, tantrums are difficult here.
Let me take a moment to savour that. Tantrums are difficult here. They fall under the same
general rubric as wickedness. Most of what kids do when theyre bad isnt proper wickedness,
and tantrums often are part of being a kid and not wickedness at all, but . . . still. This is a place
where screaming and stomping your feet and all that feels a little silly even when youre 2. It
hardly ever happens. This is a place where kids are inclined to be oddly tranquil and grounded
from the day theyre born.
Even better, adversity is rare.
That means not only is your kid probably safe right now, wherever they are I mean, you
can check, obviously, Im not saying you shouldnt, but they probably are but that you are only
going to have like half the mind-bendingly gross messes that youd get with kids anywhere else.
Adversity. (in Fortitude) Is. Rare.
On a similar note, dont shop for childcare stuff in Arcadia. Get bio-diapers from a deviant
scientist in Horizon, or just use cloth. Import formula from Earth or breastfeed. If you go to
Arcadia for your childcare stuff you will end up broke. You must spend more than you
expected. is not a spiritual property you want governing the process of raising a child. Its bad
enough on the rules for Earth!
Be prepared for the kid to wander into the Outside. This will happen. You will have to
retrieve them. Its an inherent part of youth, no more avoidable than wet beds, skinned knees,
and runny noses. Trying to stop it completely is likely to lead to bad places. Just . . . make them
feel as safe as possible, during and in advance, in order to maximize your ability to get them
safely home.
Now for the obvious stuff!
Over the course of this quest, youll learn the kids interests. Youll learn the state of their
education what theyre learning about, what they care about, what they already know, and
what they dont.
Youll know the names of their favorite toys and blanket, and where they get stored.
Youll know the books they like and the ones they dont.
Youll know all about their health. If youre a parent, youll know way too much about their
health. If youre just helping out, youll know . . . a lot. Allergies, weaknesses, conditions, things
that happened, reasons to worry or not to worry, all that.
Youll know the patterns of their behavior how they react to various things, and what
you can reasonably trust them with and what you oughtnt.
Taking Care of a Small Child (Dramatic Version)
Major Goals

quest if:
something happens to the child that

gives you a reason to panic, but at
some point afterwards things are
mostly OK.
you celebrate Childrens Day, Shichi-
Go-San, or Christmas with the child.

up to 10 XP.
Quest Flavor
taking the child with you on a walk, light chore/adventure, or to a PC gathering

having a conversation with the child about something goofy
having a conversation with the child about something surprisingly relevant
teaching or telling stories to the child
teaching or telling stories to the child about the PCs adventures
having a meaningful conversation with a PC or important NPC about the child
actively taking care of the child
Taking Care of a Small Child (Casual Version)
Bonus XP
You make faces at that baby! You cuddle that

kid, or let them drag you around, or answer
their questions, or show them off.
Basically you emote:
Kid. Kid. Kid kid kid.
or some variant thereof.
Anyhow, you can fuss over the child or

whatever you do habitually, which might be
squinting at them, wiping their nose, or rolling
your eyes at them for an older sibling for a
bonus XP up to once per 15 minutes/scene.
The best way to do this, I think, is to get a prop probably a cloth doll or amigurumi,
because those are easiest to fuss over. Dont worry so much about what you say or emote: pick
up the prop and physically fuss over it for the XP! You can attempt to use a real small child here
but they are unruly, intermittently available, and demanding: they may even require a share of the
earned XP!
If you dont have a prop or child available, you can do without one: earn the XP by saying
or emoting whatever seems appropriate to show that youre off in interacting-with-small-child
world.
If the environment is appropriate and the HG is OK with it, you can use picking up the
prop or saying or emoting whatever as a way of indicating that the kid in question has just come
onto the scene.
Example Quest Sets
Heres a few examples of more generic quests, organized into self-contained sets that you could
play through sequentially or even more than once.
A Scientific Adventure
a preamble
These quests form a generic structure to play through as a scientist, magician, or hard-headed
person of faith.
Youll play through three to five of these quests, as fits your Aspect, Bindings, Emptiness,
or Otherworldly Arc.
Science!
20 or 40 XP Quest
:1
:2
:4
This troublesome situation has been dumped in your lap. It bothers you. But it also interests you
as . . . a scientist, or magician, or whatever you are.
Theres something here that wants an exploration by the brilliant mind of, well, you!
Theres a problem here thats worthy of your talents.

Quest Card
Science!
Major Goals

quest when:
you fall under the burden of the quest:

something explicitly puts the problem
in your hands, or you explicitly take it
up;
you construct some sort of defensive
perimeter;
you encounter Jade Irinka, the former
sun, or the Headmaster of the Bleak
Academy;
three chapters slip by without obvious
IC progress on the quest.
20 XP.
Quest Flavor
sympathizing with, or assisting, the outcast and the wrong;

your dreams are calling you to a place of danger
listening to stories of strange things happening in Big Lake;
regaling people with a legend of some epic danger related to the quest typically a
legend invented by your player but occasionally forwarded from previous discussions
with the HG;
complaining to the other PCs about the progress of your investigations/work;
reluctantly allowing yourself to be dragged away from it; or
reluctantly allowing others to get involved with it
Quest Card
Science! (Simplified)
Major Goals

quest when:
you fall under the burden of the quest:

something explicitly puts the problem
in your hands, or you explicitly take it
up;
you construct some sort of defensive
perimeter.

10 XP.
Quest Flavor
Once per week, you can earn a bonus XP towards this quest through:
witnessing the fates of the wicked.

dragging other Main Characters into your work.
proposing new theories about the subject of your investigation or calling e.g., the
Outside, tsukumogami, Bluebell Park, the Bleak Academy, or the Titovs.
Someones in Trouble!
20 or 35 XP Quest
:2
:1
Someones in trouble. Usually its a relative innocent and someone or somehow related to the
meat of your current Arc.
You help them out!

Quest Card
Someones in Trouble!
Major Goals

quest when:
You formally commit (aloud or in an

emote) to trying to help this person;
They open up to you while talking to
you in their home or important
haunts;
Some element of their problem
bridges from the metaphorical or
emotional to the real e.g., a gate
opens from their nightmares to the
world, or a fear turns into a curse, or
someone who always gets a little too
carried away gets physically carried
away shortly after a reference to that
tendency.
15 XP.
Quest Flavor
1/chapter, you can earn a bonus XP towards this quest when you:
catch eerie glimpses/foreshadowing of a threat to them

have a sleepover/slumber party/visit to their dreams
listen to them explaining their despair
are shown one of their secrets
hunt down some specific bit of trouble
drag them somewhere they really shouldnt be
Quest Card
Someones in Trouble! (Simplified)
Major Goals

quest when:
You formally commit (aloud or in an

emote) to trying to help this person;
Some element of their problem
bridges from the metaphorical or
emotional to the real e.g., a gate
opens from their nightmares to the
world, or a fear turns into a curse, or
someone who always gets a little too
carried away gets physically carried
away shortly after a reference to that
tendency.

10 XP.
Quest Flavor
Once per week, you can earn a bonus XP towards this quest when you:
identify or hypothesize about the real threat that will emerge

feverishly work on an idea to help
dig into their secrets
invoke or bargain with some terrifying power to save them
Engineering!
25 or 35 XP Quest
:3
:5
:4
You know enough about whats going on now that the problem is simply a matter of diligence.
The title of this quest is usually either appropriate or amusingly ironic; if its not, you can scratch
out Engineering! and substitute in A Conscious Life.
You move forward in a thoughtful and organized fashion to solve the problem at hand.
Quest Card
Engineering!
Major Goals

quest when:
You complete a major inventory, map,

survey, or other exploration of the
territory (often dream- or dream-like
territory) at hand;
You work towards a reconciliation
between apparent rivals, enemies,
opposing forces, or even with
something oppressing you or someone
you care about;
You find a hidden well or spring of
pure or untainted water.

15 XP.
Quest Flavor
clean, prepare a ritual space, or do maintenance work

eat with someone strange in a literal or metaphorical cave
catalogue or explore the territory at hand
groom a dog or similar animal connected somehow to the quest
are penned in somewhere by rain
bear witness to strange visions
Quest Card
Engineering! (Simplified)
Major Goals

quest when:
You find or gain access to a major

inventory, map, survey, or other
exploration of the territory (often
dream- or dream-like territory) at
hand;
Youre recruited or asked for help by
what had previously seemed to be a
rival, enemy, opposing force, or even
oppressor;
You find a hidden well or spring of
pure or untainted water.
You can earn up to two of these bonuses, for a

total of 10 XP.
Quest Flavor
write off some portion of the situation as a loss, and trash/seal it

imprison someone or something
call upon some terrifying or mysterious power connected somehow to the quest
present yourself to your public in a dramatic pose for admiration; put on airs
declare what must be done
Above the Fray
20 or 35 XP Quest
:4
:1
:5
You rise above the conflict and . . . mess . . . of things. You seek objectivity. Maybe youre
affecting to the role of a god: deciding what somethings worth, where it comes from, and what
its destiny should be.
Or maybe youre just trying to think things through and understand whats really happened
(recently/in your life).
Quest Card
Above the Fray
Major Goals

quest when:
You stand in a storm, overlooking a

pit or dangerous depth;
You stand before a dead power that
was or is greater than yourself;
You have a moment of spiritual
insight and forgiveness, and are able to
explain or solidly commit to both.

15 XP.
Quest Flavor
trust yourself to a dangerous (and Arc-relevant) part of the setting, e.g., if the Arc is
focused on the Outside, going out to sail on or meditate in it.
explore daily chores in that part of the setting
deal with a child who lives/hangs out there
get sucked into goofy fun there a ridiculous game or silly experience, despite
a tense situation or environment.
Quest Card
Above the Fray (Simplified)
Major Goals

quest when:
You enact a meaningful judgment

impose a penance, punish a criminal or
enemy, or forgive someone in an
official capacity;
You seek and receive some sort of
divine guidance;
You have a cathartic breakdown.

total of 10 XP.
Quest Flavor
review reports or records of a dangerous part of the setting, e.g., the Outside or
Bluebell Park, somehow relevant to the substance of this Arc.
chores pile up while you figure out what to do
someone cooks for you, brings you a hot drink, or puts you to bed
walk and talk decision-making scenes
Walking the Boundaries
25 or 40 XP Quest
:5
:3
This quest explores the aftermath of the previous quests. Its generally kind of slow and quiet
whether youre wrestling with the terrible damage thats been done to you, or admiring the
victories youve won, this quest is all about having space and time to experience the matter in
full.
Quest Card
Walking the Boundaries
Major Goals

quest when:
You walk among flowers in a place

where somebody died;
You read or tell someone the stories
of a places history;
You share a precious drink or meal
with someone, where precious is
relative to your available resources
(and not necessarily absolute);
You say goodbye properly to an old
friend.
20 XP.
Quest Flavor
tending a garden or caring for a bit of wilderness

making repairs
staring into a fire
watching children or animals playing
playing ball, Frisbee, or something of the sort
having an encounter with something that seems at first to be dramatic and scary,
before turning out to be perfectly safe and friendly
waking up with water dripping on you, moss growing on you, or an animal nosing
you
Quest Card
Walking the Boundaries (Simplified)
Major Goals

quest when:
You walk among flowers in a place

where somebody died;
You dream or share a story or two of a
places history;
You say goodbye properly to an old
friend.
15 XP.
Quest Flavor
indulge in a lazy routine (e.g. wearing pajamas all day)

indulge in slightly less lazy morning routines
tend a shrine, grave, museum, or mausoleum
are pointlessly cleaning or organizing, and a visitor interrupts
play with a dangerous thing
Looking for Trouble
a preamble
These quests form a generic structure to play through as an adventurer, two-fisted hero, or
troublemaking kid anybody actively looking for danger, excitement, and mystery!
Youll play through three to five of these quests, as fits your Knight, Mystic, Shepherd, or
Storyteller Arc.
Adventure GET
20 or 35 XP Quest
:1
:4
Youre on an adventure!
It can be sucky. Like, you could be poisoned. Or people could be dying. But youre still all
dazzled by the newness and interest value of it all. It could be scary. It could be traumatizing. But
its an adventure!
Quest Card
Adventure GET
Major Goals

quest when:
Trouble starts or gets much worse in a

well-staged way whether thats
accidentally walking backwards into an
enemy camp, breaking into a
supposedly empty manor during what
turns out to be a dinner party, or
declaring that everythings fine as long
as there arent any werewolves around
just before werewolves show up;
Someone rescues you;
You stand in a shadowed place and tell
someone a secret, then run away
before they can react.

15 XP.
Quest Flavor
sneak into somewhere you shouldnt go

risk trouble by digging into somebodys secrets
drag others into your affairs/arrange their lives for them
propose a theory about the underlying situation youre in
tell someone a story related to the underlying situation youre in
get into trouble trying to help somebody else
risk trouble in the name of adventure!
Quest Card
Adventure GET (Simplified)
Major Goals

quest when:
You stand in a shadowed place and tell

someone a secret, then run away
before they can react;
Trouble starts or gets much worse in a
well-staged way whether thats
accidentally walking backwards into an
enemy camp, breaking into a
supposedly empty manor during what
turns out to be a dinner party, or
declaring that everythings fine as long
as there arent any werewolves around
just before werewolves show up.

10 XP.
Quest Flavor
discover a secret
express your boredom and interest in adventure
drag someone somewhere they really shouldnt be
whatever troubles been dogging you shows up and/or escalates
Lets Doing!
20 or 35 XP Quest
:2
:3
The problem here is pretty massive, pretty complicated, pretty big. Youre going to try to bull
through it with sheer can-do gumption anyhow.
Lets doing!
Quest Card
Lets Doing!
Major Goals

quest when:
You meet a new antagonist, ally, or

romantic interest. (As designated by
destiny/the HG if someone
unexpectedly becomes something like
that, it may or may not count);
Three chapters pass without obvious
IC progress on this quest. (That is,
whatever problem youre trying to
solve gets no closer to being solved.)
You can earn each bonus more than once, up

to a total of 15 XP.
Quest Flavor
narrate your impression of a PC, Main Character, Arc-related NPC, labyrinth,

high place, or key location for the Arc, as if explaining them to a reader or video game
player; you may do this IC or, if nobody minds, suspend play for a moment and do it
OOC.
drag other Main Characters into your quest-related activities/investigations
grandstand about your reasons for being on this quest
talk with somebody about your dreams for the future
talk with somebody about death
get hurt emotionally by somebody somehow involved in the story of this Arc
Quest Card
Lets Doing! (Simplified)
Major Goals

quest when:
youve met, or seen, all the key players

in this Arc.
You can earn this bonus once, for a total of 5

XP.
Quest Flavor
sympathizing with, or assisting, the outcast and the wrong;

proposing new theories about the subject of your investigation or adventure the
Outside, Bluebell Park, the thing under the Titov shrine, or whatever else;
complaining to the other PCs about the progress of your investigations/plans; or
reluctantly allowing yourself to be dragged away from them.
You can combine this with your XP-earning Scenes for the week, but you dont have to. The XP
is in addition to any XP youd get from the normal weekly scenes.
Labyrinth Diving
25 or 35 XP Quest
:3
:5
:2
Youve got a labyrinth to take on.
Oh, sure, this can be metaphorical. You can navigate a maze of social entanglement and
cross purposes or a labyrinthine mystery.
But youre probably actually taking on a literal, actual maze.
The metaphorical aspect is probably just going to come into play with the way that your life
stays maze-like even when youre not physically exploring a convoluted place that even if
youre only actually in a maze for like a few weeks total over the course of a season, it feels like
the labyrinth shadows the entire game.
Quest Card
Labyrinth Diving
Major Goals

quest when:
You find or gain access to a major

inventory, map, survey, or other
exploration of the territory at hand;
Youre recruited or asked for help by
what had previously seemed to be a
rival, enemy, opposing force, or even
oppressor;
You find a hidden creek, flow, or
spring of pure or untainted water.

up to 15 XP.
Quest Flavor
write off some portion of the situation as a loss, and trash/seal it

imprison someone or something
call upon some terrifying or mysterious power connected somehow to the Arc
present yourself to your public in a dramatic pose for admiration; put on airs
declare what must be done
feed a stray cat
Quest Card
Labyrinth Diving (Simplified)
Major Goals

quest when:
You complete a major inventory, map,

survey, or other exploration of the
territory (often dream- or dream-like
territory) at hand;
You make a friend in an unexpected
place.

10 XP.
Quest Flavor
hang out near a fountain or water feature

eat with someone strange in a literal or metaphorical cave
catalogue or explore the territory at hand
are penned in somewhere by rain
bear witness to strange visions
Climbing the Sacred Mountain
25 or 35 XP Quest
:5
:4
:3
You ascend towards some personal victory or enlightenment.
This probably doesnt involve a literal ascent there just arent enough things in Town that
can take an entire quest to climb.
That said, theres often a literal ascent deeply symbolically connected to this quest.
Youll be in its shadow, or climbing it, or thinking about it, quite a lot.
Quest Card
Climbing the Sacred Mountain
Major Goals

quest when:
You release some guilt or burden that

had been weighing you down;
You struggle alone on an arduous and
metaphorically upwards journey;
The wind knocks you from a height;
You are struck by an insight or
revelation that changes everything.
You can earn up to three of these bonuses, for
a total of 15 XP.
Quest Flavor
hunt desperately for solutions

stagger on despite a wasting illness
rise above/conquer some element of your situation
show someone an amazing view or vista
admire a distant bird, ornithopter, or zeppelin
see the sun break through the clouds
learn what it is that must be done
Quest Card
Climbing the Sacred Mountain (Simplified)
Major Goals

quest when:
You release some guilt or burden that

had been weighing you down;
Youve reached a landing (a place to
stop and catch your breath) on an
arduous and metaphorically upwards
journey;
You are struck by an insight or
revelation that changes everything.
total of 10 XP.
Quest Flavor
rise above some element of your situation

stare out at an amazing vista
talk about something bad thats happened to you
talk, while feverish, to a bird, bird-like person, or bird-like entity
struggle with sickness, weakness, rough environmental conditions, and your own
frailty
Down
35 or 45 XP Quest
:4
:5
:1
This quest is your descent into the underworld. This is a scary time in your life, when you have
to face difficult truths and deal with painful things. At the end things can be good, but not
during.
During
. . . they can get very bad.

Quest Card
Down
Major Goals

quest when:
You watch somebody die. It can be an

animal but only if its emotionally
affecting (brutal, or an animal you
cared about);
You get into a fight with someone you
care about;
You break down from grief or shock;
You get really, viscerally sick its
either life-threatening or really gross.
You dont have to nauseate squeamish
players by going into the sickness itself
but you do have to play up the toll it
takes on you.
20 XP.
Quest Flavor
talk with someone about someone or something youve lost
hug a large animal, e.g., a deer
walk with the Headmaster of the Bleak Academy
wander in a daze
you cant eat or drink, or cant keep something down
you fall apart a little, skipping your usual hygiene/self-maintenance tasks
wander a graveyard or at the edge of a cliff
lock yourself in a bathroom
self-harm
Quest Card
Down (Simplified)
Major Goals

quest when:
You visit a throne room and stand

before a seated (e.g.) King or Queen.
Youre sent into an underworld, be it
basement, cave, oubliette, dungeon, or
literal world of the dead;
Youre hung on a hook, crucified, tied
to a wall, suspended by telekinesis,
used as a scarecrow, or otherwise
imprisoned or bound above the
ground. Agony is optional (you could
be in a canvas sack that is hung from a
hook, or stage-show-style crucified);
suspension and imprisonment are not.
15 XP.
Quest Flavor
you have to abandon something precious, leaving it behind

youre lost
youre thirsty
you encounter the dead
you share a meal with someone while sitting on cracked stones
A Heroic Journey
a preamble
These quests form a generic structure to play through as a dreamer, mystic, or hero focused on
their cosmic role, destiny, and power to transcend who and what they seem to be.
Youll play through three to five of these quests, as fits your Emptiness, Mystic, Knight, or
Otherworldly Arc.
Changes
25 or 35 XP Quest
:1
:2
Some big change is coming to you or someone near you. The world, or your body, or your soul,
or that of a friend its shifting into a different state.
Quest Card
Changes
Major Goals

quest when:
you have a traumatic transformation

or dissociation scene in play, where
your reality gets weird because your
true nature is changing or revealing
itself.
you see a confusing vision, nightmare,
or premonition of your or someone
elses death.
you meet and get the chance to help a
mysterious child find their way.
You can earn each bonus once each, up to a

total of 15 XP.
Quest Flavor
wrestling with/expressing nameless feelings of loss that make you act

unnaturally
trying and failing to burn things, to light them on fire
getting confused about who and where you are
listening to stories about things that were lost when Jade Irinka died
talking with somebody about your destiny/nature and what it means
talking with somebody about why theres such a thing as death
dealing with acne, braces, your period, ear infections, or other annoyingly
intrusive elements of physicality.
Quest Card
Changes (Simplified)
Major Goals

quest when:
Theres a scene where people are

disapproving or bland but most
importantly unphased by your
showing up with extra limbs or
unusual physical alterations, e.g., a
disdainful Oh, thats just like you to
have those tentacles or Acne!
Nobody told me we were supposed to
have acne today! (muttered) Showoff.
You meet Death, the Headmaster of

the Bleak Academy, or some other
feared personage, but because youre
delirious or have reason to believe that
its just somebody dressed as them,
you have a pleasant chat instead of
anything else.

10 XP.
Quest Flavor
dreaming of merging with a great and branching tree

uncontrolled shapeshifting, possibly in a dream/imagination spot
being surrounded by dancing shadows the same
noticing some weird mark or change in your body
The Refusal of the Call
20 or 35 XP Quest
:1
:2
:3
You struggle to find a way out of the situation youre in. You look for help. Its not necessarily
that you dont want to move forward
Often thats the problem. But other times its just that you want to have a choice.
You want to move forward along the path youre on, but you dont trust it and you really
want to keep your distance and be able to turn away.
Quest Card
The Refusal of the Call
Major Goals

quest when:
you accept, or at least are clearly

tempted by, someones offer to help
you fight off/resist your destiny.
you stand in the shadow of an enemys
fortress or cathedral.
you give yourself into someone elses
hands, making yourself terrifyingly
vulnerable either physically or
emotionally.

15 XP.
Quest Flavor
talking with someone about the principles that are the most important to you
describing yourself as a helpless pawn of fate
wondering if youre actually good or evil
trying to replace or repair torn clothing on a tight budget
youre overburdened you work too hard, and with too little
you get confused about who and where you are
fretting over whether youre actually on the wrong side
Quest Card
The Refusal of the Call (Simplified)
Major Goals

quest when:
you build or show a strong emotional

bond to an opposite number
someone working at cross purposes to
what you will become.
they offer to help you but you have to
turn them down.

10 XP.
Quest Flavor
pleading with an enemy to understand you

exploring and having fun
a phone rings but isnt answered
someone helps you while youre throwing up (from overwork? Sickness?
Drinking?)
The Belly of the Whale
20+ or 45 XP Quest
:2
:3
Youve been swallowed up by literal or metaphorical chaos. Youre not always in active danger,
but you dont really have a normal state to go back to
Youre out on a limb. Youre like somebody at a convention without money or a room to
stay in, or someone treading water in the middle of the sea. Youre like someone lost in an
amazing mansion or like somebody trapped in a spooky woods. The defining characteristic isnt
how bad things get, though they can get very bad; its that you dont have any compass, any map,
or anywhere reachable and solid to go.
Quest Card
The Belly of the Whale
Major Goals

quest when:
you have a profound spiritual

experience where you seem to blend
into the world around you.
youre trapped.
you defeat an opposite number or
rival, only to have a scarier enemy or
problem arise.
youre rescued by somebody
you rescue somebody else.
You can earn up to four of these bonuses, for

a total of 20 XP.
Quest Flavor
you stand barefoot in a high place, looking down at the world

you get stabbed through the torso, possibly in a dream/imagination spot
your hair grows in real-time, possibly in a dream/imagination spot
you bring light in the darkness
you comfort someone
you sit by the water eating fried fish with one or more friends
birds cluster around you
you manage a contemplative moment between troublesome circumstances
Quest Card
The Belly of the Whale (Simplified)
Bonus XP
This quest takes place in a context where Normal Version:

youre out of your element, where youre
transforming or being transformed into
something else.

minutes) by proposing a theory about what will
happen to you.
Your character must propose the theory Extended Version:

aloud or, at minimum, in their official internal
narration it cant just be you, as the player,
at the table, it has to be IC.
Even More Extended Version:

Quest Card
The Belly of the Whale (Simplified, Variant)
Bonus XP
Youre dissociating from reality. Normal Version:
You are dissolving into these places that

you find yourself in. You are awakening a
strange new self inside. Everything is turning
into teeth and rivers inside you.
Something is being born.

quest at any time (though only once per
Extended Version:
scene/15 minutes) by declaring that you can
feel the touch of the impending miracle upon
you you can phrase it another way; just give
some indication that youre triggering this
quest condition and then free-associating Even More Extended Version:
for a few moments about what your character
is experiencing, feeling, thinking.
Talk about being cold, or warm; talk about

visions; whatever. Flare up the light in you. Cut
your teeth on cold. Have a greenness stuck in
your mouth, somewhere, ugly, stopping up
your tongue as you try to pry it loose. That
kind of hing. That brings you in a bonus XP
for this quest.
The Trials of the Sun
25 or 40 XP Quest
:4
Youre losing sight of yourself. Youre being pushed so hard by internal and external factors that
you cant maintain a solid picture of who you are.
Theres no spare energy for it.
You dont have time for it.
Its all in flux.

Quest Card
The Trials of the Sun
Major Goals

quest when:
You reclaim a lost legacy of a parent

or mentor.
You humble some enemy, bending
them completely to your will.
You unleash, or are taken over by, a
bleak power.

15 XP.
Quest Flavor
your hands/arms sprout bladed vines, possibly in a dream/imagination spot

you merge with/devour someone else, possibly in a dream/imagination spot
you experiment with powers that you shouldnt
you assert your power or your destiny
you talk about your sense that theres a hole in the world
you wander in the dark, remembering some grief or loss
you use an elaborate, magical-looking key
Quest Card
The Trials of the Sun (Simplified)
Major Goals

quest when:
You build a model, duplicate, icon, or

eidolon of yourself.
Someone else tells the story of how
you lost or damaged some potential
you once had.
Someone realizes that they were afraid
of you for all the wrong reasons. (Its
OK for them to wind up more afraid, Special Note!
less afraid, or about the same, as long
If the game and your powers dont
as the reasons change.)
support literal apotheosis/angels, handle
You can earn up to two of these bonuses, for a these things as a spiritual effect
total of 10 XP. intangible and only sort of visible, but
nevertheless real for purposes of the
scene.
Quest Flavor
you transcend or apotheosize in some fashion.

you or your player give a monologue about the nature of your power
you propose an enemys fate
you commune with an angel or the holy part of your nature.
you perform some sacred chore (e.g. feeding a holy fire)
Apotheosis
20 or 40 XP Quest
:5
This is your chance to meet, and become, your new yourself.

Quest Card
Apotheosis
Major Goals

quest when you:
Hold a representation of the sacred

eternal a philosophers stone, an
elixir of immortality, a key to the
world in your hands.
Return to where you started the game
or the Arc, find it ruined or damaged,
and rebuild/repair it.
Meet something that could be
considered the other half of
yourself.
Witness an eclipse.
Swallow a lizard, enemy, or ally spirit
whole.
You can earn up to four of these bonuses,

once each, for a total of 20 XP.
Quest Flavor
cant find water
fix something broken or unwhole
eat hot cross buns or melon pan.
guide someone else through a long journey or struggle
dig up someone frozen and rescue them, possibly in a dream/imagination spot
grow a new mouth or eye, possibly in a dream/imagination spot
merge with a book of some sort, possibly in a dream/imagination spot
pass through the gates of the Bleak Academy
Quest Card
Apotheosis (Simplified)
Major Goals

quest when you:
Wander strange, misty landscapes.

Stare at a living creature frozen in or
behind some sort of crystal.
Release light from or open an eye in
your forehead.
You can earn up to two of these bonuses, once

each, for a total of 10 XP.
Quest Flavor
shatter an enemys weapon barehanded

possess or infiltrate an enemy or place with your spirit/energy
fight imaginary enemies, hallucinatory enemies, spirits, or shadows
talk to people about your dreams for the future
call upon one of your big powers in a dramatic fashion
A Bittersweet Saga
a preamble
Heres another kind of Arc for a character trying to come out of their shell
Someone trying to learn how to engage with the world, or also, anyone trying to help
another character do so.
Youll play through three to five of these quests, as fits your Aspect, Emptiness, Shepherd,
or Storyteller Arc.
Beautiful and Far Away
20 or 35 XP Quest
:1
:2
There is a secret place, somewhere beautiful and far away, thats calling to you.
It is an escape, a desperately needed escape from the world; but like all escapes, it can kill
you if you take it too far. And it is so very easy to take this one too far; and yet, you need it, so
very much.
This is the Arcs Secret Place, and it is located in the Arcs Setting.
Often its a little unreal youll visit it in dreams, or visions, or by traveling through the
Outside.
Quest Card
Beautiful and Far Away
Major Goals

quest when:
Others stumble on your Secret Place.

You establish a reason why you need
the Secret Place why its
sustaining you, why youd be at risk
without it.
You establish a reason why the Secret
Place is hurting you, breaking you,
damaging your ability to live an
ordinary life.

15 XP.
Quest Flavor
guiding someone through the Setting of the Arc

talking with somebody about the Secret Place
talking with somebody about what dreams are, as compared to reality;
talking with somebody about whether the world deserves to exist, whether its
good or bad, or whether that even matters.
get in a row with somebody over/about the Secret Place
refusing to retreat to the Secret Place, even though things are very bad. or
retreating to the Secret Place.
Quest Card
Beautiful and Far Away (Simplified)
Major Goals

quest when:
You demonstrate how you need the

Secret Place how its sustaining
you, why youd be at risk without it.
You demonstrate how the Secret
Place is hurting you, breaking you, how
its damaging your ability to live an
ordinary life.

10 XP.
Quest Flavor
having a troubled dream

talking with/ranting at somebody about the Secret Place
babbling poorly-formed philosophy or metaphysics at somebody
retreating to the Secret Place.
Fascination
20 or 35 XP Quest
:1
:2
:3
Theres someone or something that fascinates you
Both as a person (or entity) and as a power, a force of nature. You want to spend time with
them. You want to know more.
Quest Card
Fascination
Major Goals

quest when you:
Express your fascination with

someone or something dangerous and
irresponsible.
After that first reward, go a long way
out of your way physically in order to
study the operation and mechanisms
of somebody elses powers (e.g., a
field trip to Horizon to watch the
Wish-Granting Engine at work.)
Make yourself terrifyingly vulnerable,
e.g. as an act of social/romantic trust,
an act of folly, or as bait for a trap.
You can earn up to three of these bonuses,

once each, for a total of 15 XP.
Quest Flavor
confess a secret desire

have a troubled dream about glass, magic, and the Outside
investigate the shrine family magic for dealing with troubled dreams
dream about a Main Character or Arc-related NPC
hang out with someone you like while they do their thing
get into goofy trouble for, with, or because of somebody else
talk with someone about the various bad ends people can come to in fairy tales,
stories about wishes, and stories about witches
Quest Card
Fascination (Simplified)
Major Goals

quest when you:
Witness something amazing, even by

your standards.
Get badly hurt when you werent
expecting it.

10 XP.
Quest Flavor
investigate someones powers

argue with someone about the proper use of some power
express your fascination with somebody
explain to someone, or argue with them about, the workings of shrine magic, the
Arcs Setting, or the Outside
This is So Surreal
25 or 35 XP Quest
:2
:3
:4
Someone youre involved with (a friend, SO, ally, minion, or dangerously seductive power) is
using their powers in ways that are just plain goofy. Often this quest is a reaction to wish powers.
Quest Card
This is So Surreal
Major Goals

quest when:
You freak out you have a minor or

major psychological breakdown
because you cant cope with these
wishes;
You give a monologue often
comedically serious IC, though not
necessarily so OOC to explain why
a wish is a bad idea;
You receive some implausible honor
or reward for your conduct in
handling a wish, or as part of the Special Note!
wishs execution itself.
Anything that can go wrong in the same
You can earn each bonus once each, for a total way a classic wish can (including most
of 15 XP. Imperial miracles and some magical spells)
counts as a wish here.
Quest Flavor
youre seduced by the wonder and utility of a wish

marveling at the way a wish changed the world
things get chaotic or absurd because of a wish
you help some important place or person weather the course of a wish.
youre forced to break a personal commitment use a power you hate, break a
promise, or whatever in order to resolve or weather a wish.
Quest Card
This is So Surreal (Simplified)
Major Goals

quest when:
You freak out you have a minor or

major psychological breakdown
because you cant cope with these
wishes;
You give a monologue often
comedically serious IC, though not
necessarily so OOC to explain why
a wish is a bad idea; Special Note!
You receive some implausible honor
Anything that can go wrong in the same
or reward for your conduct in
way a classic wish can (including most
handling a wish, or as part of the
Imperial miracles and some magical spells)
wishs execution itself.
each, for a total of 10 XP.
Quest Flavor
you reject part of a wish that would have been useful

you get lost in the Outside
things get chaotic or absurd because of a wish
you have nightmares full of the symbolism or your personal or Arc-related traumas.
This is Such a Bad Idea
20 or 35 XP Quest
:2
:3
:4
Someone youre involved with (a friend, SO, ally, minion, or dangerously seductive power) has
gone on a bit of a power trip.
Quest Card
This is Such a Bad Idea
Major Goals

quest when:
Someone normally trustworthy or goofy

goes on a power trip and winds up
grinding you under their malevolent
heel; or, more generally, you suffer
unpleasantly from their use of the
power that theyve seized;
Youre put into an awkward,
embarrassing, or at least highly goofy
or counter-type role by a wish,
probably with details suggested by the
HG and other players;
Special Note!
You manage to become a power
behind the throne or otherwise steal Anything that can go wrong in the same
a portion of the power in play over the way a classic wish can (including most
course of a wish. Imperial miracles and some magical spells)
up to 15 XP.
Quest Flavor
ritually drawing on the powers the wish has given you

enjoying the changed world, letting it corrupt you
you overcome some obstacle in the world of the wish
you struggle with the circumstances of the wish
the wish does something really strange to your life
Quest Card
This is Such a Bad Idea (Simplified)
Major Goals

quest when:
Someone normally trustworthy or goofy

goes on a power trip and winds up
grinding you under their malevolent
heel; or, more generally, you suffer
unpleasantly from their use of the
power that theyve seized;
Special Note!
Youre put into an awkward,
embarrassing, or at least highly goofy Anything that can go wrong in the same
or counter-type role by a wish, way a classic wish can (including most
probably with details suggested by the Imperial miracles and some magical spells)
HG and other players. counts as a wish here.

up to 10 XP.
Quest Flavor
things get really weird

you give up and just go with it
theres a big parade or festival
Youve Lost Them
20 or 45 XP Quest
:3
:4
:5
Someone has lost a piece of themselves something important.
It could be a friend. It could be an enemy. Its even vaguely possible that its you that you
are now just a hollow shell or double of the person you used to be.
Youre looking at this from the outside.
You might get it back, but you dont think you can. Certainly you dont know that you can,
and you cant put any faith in it as more than a dream.
And the important thing is
You feel responsible. If its a random person or an enemy you feel responsible because you
had something to do with it, or think you did. If its a friend, you hurt for them and want to help.
If its you, well, youre not that person any more, but you have a kind of duty to carry on as if
you were.
Does that make sense?
They are this Arcs Lost Person.

Quest Card
Youve Lost Them
Major Goals

quest when:
You help to impersonate, construct a

robot double for, or otherwise replace
the Lost Person;
You get in some kind of completely
unnecessary trouble because that
person is incomplete or missing;
You get atypically emotional when it
really sinks in that theyre gone,
damaged, or changed;
Your first full or nearly-full book on
this quest comes to an end.

20 XP.
Quest Flavor
your life is a mess

you struggle to understand the loss
you talk to someone about memories, metaphysics, and the soul
you talk to someone about death
you encounter some shocking consequence of a wish or similar power
you watch somebody self-destructing
you dream of shipwrecks and drowning
you dream of the Lost Persons true self, their real self, somewhere far away
a week passes and nothing has gotten better
Quest Card
Youve Lost Them (Simplified)
Major Goals

quest when:
You help to impersonate, construct a

robot double for, or otherwise replace
the Lost Person;
You get atypically emotional when it
really sinks in that theyre gone,
damaged, or changed.

10 XP.
Quest Flavor
someone soliloquys about the loss

you communicate somehow with the Lost Persons true self, far away
you wander Fortitude with the Lost Person or with or as their stand-in
there are signs that things may be getting better after all
Something Heals
25 or 45 XP Quest
:2
:4
:5
This quest is about an unexpected chance to find closure on something. Maybe its a stroke of
good fortune.
Maybe its the product of hard work.
Maybe its just something that had to happen, given time.

Quest Card
Something Heals
Major Goals

quest when:
Someone comforts you in a time of

need.
You break your rules or patterns in a
big way in order to help or save
somebody else.
Something goes right, because of luck
or fate or divine intervention or
somebody else basically, because of
not-you when everything seemed
lost.
You absorb some power, force, place,
or energy into yourself.
You can earn each bonus once each, up to a

total of 20 XP.
Quest Flavor
have a precious moment with something you thought that youd lost
talk with an old friend about your shared adventures
have an ordinary, happy day at your job or other place of work
sit with someone and eat crackers and soft cheese
Stand in, or lean against, an arch overgrown with ivy
watch a ship sail away across Big Lake
dream of a faraway friend, loved one, or Main Character
bid an emotional farewell you or someone else is moving on
show someone a wonder
Quest Card
Something Heals (Simplified)
Major Goals

quest when:
Someone comforts you in a time of

need.
You break your rules or patterns in a
big way to show someone a kindness
or take them under your wing.
You absorb some power, force, place,
or energy into yourself.

each, for a total of up to 10 XP.
Quest Flavor
talk with someone about the things youve lost
feed leftover meat to a stray dog
have a kind of over-the-top day at your job or place or work
tell someone the stories of your adventures
show someone a secret (often the Arcs Secret Place)
Arcs
When the story starts, you might be pretty ordinary. Just an ordinary kid, maybe with a wish-
granting engine or perfect mastery of all forms of human achievement or whatever, but basically
just an ordinary kid.
Or adult. Playing adults is OK, too, though this game is targeted at playing teens.
Or even a normal kid or adult, like, powers-wise, without anything much more than a couple
of cool abilities to keep you in the game.
When the story starts, you might not be much, is what Im saying, particularly compared to
what someone like you can be.
But thatll change, and the way it changes is through an Arc.
On a Bindings Arc, youll learn to master terrifying powers. On an Aspect Arc, youll train
your mind and body to new heights. An Emptiness or Mystic Arc risks a terrifying corruption; a
Storyteller Arc can stylize you itll make you as a myth!
Heres how this is going to work in play.

The Story of an Arc
a rules concept
In concept and in hindsight, an Advancement Arc is a rigorously ordered chain of 3-5 quests
that leads from one major stage of your characters life to the next. Youll tell the story of how
your character wrestles with the obstacle or, possibly, the wisdom that holds them back from
becoming more than they are
And conquers it.
In practice, because I dont want to chain play to rails, an Advancement Arc as it is pursued is
an XP target (somewhere between 100 and 250 XP, probably) and a conceptual target (reach a
certain level of resolution on this stuff), paired with some recommendations about the kind of
quests you might choose to take along the way. If theres a meaningful amount of story pre-
bundled with an Advancement Arc, as for some of the official Advancement Arcs, then you
might also have a few intermediate conceptual targets e.g., if Im expecting an adversary to
appear in quest 1 and then cause problems in quest 5, it might be important that they actually do
appear even if you skipped quest 1 to start a potato farm instead but even then, Im expecting
you to blaze your own trail when necessary and fill in the gaps with a simplified or
intermissory quest if you manage to blaze past an important trail mark.
In any case, youll start the game with an Advancement Arc pre-chosen. Later on, whenever
you complete a quest that plausibly could be the starting quest for a different Advancement Arc,
youll have the opportunity to abandon the Arc youre on and start on that Arc instead. For
instance, if you start play on a Binding Arc, and at some point you do a quest thats a suitable
first quest for a Knight Arc, you can stop following the Binding Arc and start following the
Knight Arc instead.
Id usually expect you to do this after reaching a good stopping point after those 3-6
quests, or that 100-250 XP target, in short, after youve just hit a milestone and fixed your
progress in the Arc to your character sheet but if you and the HG can come to an agreement
on what happens to the XP youve built up so far, you can do it at any time, and in theory you
could do it with your very first completed quest in the game.
The rewards for the quests in a given Arc come in chains. On a Bindings Arc, for instance,
youll usually start by getting the first Bindings reward, the Bindings 1 reward. Then,
assuming theres been a reasonable amount of play in between, the next quest you complete
earns the second Bindings reward, and so on. Theres three common exceptions:
First, the rewards for 15 XP quests are idiosyncratic: youll either earn a Recharge Token or
activate a project/quest miracle, as discussed on pg. XX. Youll ignore these more or less
completely when following the chain of an Arcs rewards.
Second, if you complete two quests in quick succession, that is, without a reasonable
amount of play in between, then you and the HG should discuss whether you get two similar
rewards or whether you moved forward between the two, and which of the two plausible
followup steps fits the quest you take on after that. For instance, if youve done the first quest of
a Bindings Arc, and then you finish two more in quick succession, was the second one step 3 or
step 2, redux? Is the one after that step 3 or 4? In short a simultaneous completion like that can
hold you back but this isnt meant as a punishment for finishing two quests at once, or a
potential reward, just a reasoned awareness that they seem to have covered the same portion of
your lifes story.
Third, every now and then, youll find yourself doing a side quest something
completely unrelated to the Arc. Youll pick up a Perk that seems appropriate to the quest (one
of the Arcs it fits better) and you wont make any actual progress through the quest chain in the
Arc.
This is all something you can handle ad hoc, though, and your XP is pretty much always
considered to count the worst state you should be able to get into, by deviating from the Arcs
core pattern, is having the HG or group insist that you completed a different Arc than the one
you claim to be on, or asking for you to top the Arc off with a short, thematically appropriate
quest.
In terms of rewards, a 20-25 XP quest is likely to have a relatively minor reward. A 35-60
XP quest is likely to have a major one. This is usually a matter of scope and applicability and not
raw numbers: a lifetime supply of mouthwash is a minor reward, while a lifetime supply of
whatever you might need from a given convenience store is a major one. Most of the Perks and
options that Ill discuss below give you some wiggle room for taking more or less powerful
options depending on the quest that youve done.
Ultimately its up to you to figure out what youve earned, with the HG and the rest of the
group having a minor power of veto if what youre doing breaks their sense of the world or their
sense of the game.
Arc Traits
a rules concept
Each Arc has an associated Arc Trait something like:
Bindings (Wounded Angel) 0

Knight (Idol Singer) 5 or
Aspect (The Ace) 2
That would mean, more or less, youre a pretty cool ace and a top-tier idol singer but youre not
particularly a wounded angel at all!
The first time you dive into a given Arc, youll pick up a rating of 0. Youll only ever have
one level-0 Arc it goes away completely if you abandon that Arc and pick up another one
before the Arc Trait hits 1.
After completing a quest that takes you past your XP goal, youll upgrade the Arc Trait by a
level and receive some permanent upgrades to your power set. At the mundane level, this usually
means that you get a new level 1 Skill and +1 to a Skill or a Bond. At the miraculous level, it
means that youll get the powers appropriate to the Arcs new rating.
For example, once you complete an appropriate quest to start the Arc with, you could find
yourself with a new Trait:
Bindings (Wounded Angel) 0.
That gives you access to its level 0+ abilities (pg. XX):
Dramatic
Devices and
Divine Health
Once you finish the Arc, youll have:
Bindings (Wounded Angel) 1, instead.

At that point, not only do you secure permanent access to the first three powers they wont
go away if you drop this for another Arc but youll also gain access to the level 1+ power,
Blasphemy.
After completing an Arc, youll start on a new quest chain, either for the same Arc or for a
new one.
The basic structure of an Arc is generally the same regardless of the Arc and its rating
If you want to get Knight (Idol Singer) to level 5, youll do five Arcs of 3-6 Knight quests,
and the basic structure will repeat itself each time though with different quests. That said, its
typical for there to be some escalation in the Arcs core thesis
From . . .
An Arc about life experience, to one about your work/actions;

An Arc about your work/actions, to one about your place in society;
An Arc about your place in society, to one about purpose;
An Arc about purpose, to one about meaning;
And after that youll start looking at the experience, work, place, purpose, or meaning for a larger
community or existence itself.
Or not, of course thats a thought, not a law.

Mundane and Miraculous Perks
a rules concept
As mentioned earlier, characters may have up to 8 Perks the medium-term rewards from
individual quests.
Each quest in each Arcs chain offers a set of suggested Perks and other benefits for mortals
and another set that miraculous characters can pick up. The latter is almost invariably better, but a
miraculous character can pick up a mortal Perk should they prefer. In fact, technically, if your
gaming group is OK with it, anyone can pick up anything as a Perk from any quest
These are technically mere suggestions, although Im expecting youll use them directly most
of the time and as inspiration the rest.
Heres the kind of options and suggestions that youll see.
Adjustments
Youll sometimes have the option to rewrite an Affliction, Bond, Perk, or whatever, or move
points between your Skills. This doesnt cost a Perk slot its just something you can do.
Oddly, even though this is a very weak option OOC, it can be one of the most powerful in
the game turning your Affliction I have bad knees into an Affliction I am the supreme
cosmic being is a few seconds work with a number two pencil but can be, IC, a pretty big deal.
Recharge Tokens
A quest may give you some number of Recharge Tokens. (Variable numbers mean that its up to
the HG and the amount of XP you spent on the quest how many you should actually earn.)
This isnt a Perk, and you dont need a Perk slot to get it.
Traits
Most of the mundane Perks will offer you a Trait, e.g.:
Bond perks give you a Bond;

Cool perks give you Cool;
Connection perks give you a Connection Skill;
Magical Skill perks give you a magical Skill;
Shine perks give you Shine;
Skill perks give you a mundane Skill;
Superior Skill perks give you a Superior Skill; and so forth.
You can use these Traits just like the real ones on your permanent character sheet, but they dont
add together if you have Sailing 1 and a Skill Perk Sailing 1, the Perk wont do you any
actual good.67
The exception is Traits that count resources rather than quantify abilities, e.g.
Health perks, which give you a Health Level;

MP perks, which improve your starting MP.
Resources like those add to one another and to your inherent Traits.
Variable Traits
A few Perks offer Traits that vary based on an Issue a Bond Perk, or sometimes an Affliction
or other Trait Perk, that is pegged to the current level of one of your Issues. It rises to 5 when
the Issue does; when you resolve the Issue, the Trait drops to 0.
Later, the rise and fall will repeat.
67
If you think youve found a way it does do you good during play, you probably should ignore it. For instance,
if something magically saps your Sailing Skill, it should get both Skills. The only good it should ever do you is if
you later raise the Perk or lower the Skill.
Improving other Perks
Youll often have the option to improve an existing Trait Perk when you complete a quest. For
instance, particularly at the mundane level, you wont just get, say, a level 5 Cool Perk youll
get a level 1 Cool Perk, then increase it by +1 four times.
Tricks and Magical Techniques
You may simplify the process of stretching your Skills to cover new applications (pg. XX) by
taking an appropriate Perk.
A Trick enhances a mundane or Superior Skill and naturally, if you use that trick often
enough, it eventually becomes a part of your standard arsenal. I figure this is fast enough that
you can expect to keep these Perks for around an Arc, two at the most after that, you dont
need the Perk any longer, because its an established use for your underlying Skill.
The same is true for a Magical Technique, which enhances the options available for a
magical Skill but magic is harder to use and more infrequently used, so Im not expecting you
to permanently establish these techniques. That said, you can! I mean, basically, as soon as
people start forgetting that you have this technique because of a Perk instead of just because its
part of your magic, you can talk to the HG about abandoning the Perk and just making it part of
your Skill.
I just dont think that will happen very fast.
Accessory
You can receive a cool thing as a Perk: a bike, car, television, magic carpet, laser gun, robot
landshark, god in a bottle, really high-quality flute, or whatever. An Accessory Perk like this
counts as a temporary part of your character sheet, so you can take a wound instead of letting it
happen if someone tries to misuse the thing, destroy the thing, or permanently take your cool
thing away.
Miscellaneous Bonuses
A number of Perks offer miscellaneous bonuses, which pretty much do what they say on the tin.
If your Perk gives a +3 Tool bonus to certain actions 1/book, you can get a +3 Tool bonus to
those actions once per book. If your Perk powers up an inherent Skill by +1, then you count
that Skill as one point higher than it actually is!
Miraculous Powers
Most of the miraculous Perks will offer you some sort of power. This is generally something that
youll have to define yourself
Miraculous abilities are idiosyncratic and not limited by reason, so youll have to build them
by emulating one of the examples herein.
Defining Abilities
Powers marked with the Defining Icon give you a limited player control over things outside
your character. Ive only provided them at the mundane level, where they function as a gamble
you offer a hope, theory, or guess as to how something works.
Now, the HG describes and controls the world before you invoke a power like this.
And the HG describes and controls the world after you invoke a power like this.
So its a little difficult to make this a proper gamble. Its awfully easy for this to be rigged
behind the scenes, intentionally or not, to keep the bet from being lost or won before you even
make it by an HG too ready to shoot you down or, conversely, so laid-back that theyre happy to
run with whatever you suggest.
So heres what were going to do.
Were going to say that when you invoke a Defining power, whether or not this is to your
advantage, the HG has to clear their head for a moment and put their preconceptions aside
before they rule.
Adaptable Abilities
Perks marked with the Struggle Icon represent adaptability and willingness to work hard
more than a specific reward thereof. Theyre usually variable Traits that you can change
sometime each book.
Weird Magic
Powers marked with the Lurid Icon let you do weird, magical things with your ordinary
Skills. Like all magic, this is unnatural ordinary people cant learn to do this stuff, even though
youre using an ordinary Skill to do it, and its incompatible with the powers of the Ace.
Insights
Powers marked with the Melodramatic Icon give you access to HG hints on, e.g., NPC
motivations, secrets behind the scenes, and suchlike.
Over the Top Stuff
Even at the mundane level, powers marked with the Passionate Icon are all about goofy,
over-the-top, cinematic abilities. Even though ordinary people shouldnt be able to learn this
stuff, evidently they can, because its not magic.
Youre just that awesome! Or, its martial arts!
Pastoral Abilities
Powers marked with the Pastoral Icon track the subtle but mechanically relevant changes
youve made to the world over the long course of one or more quests.
For instance, if theres a kid who feels safer in your company, you could represent that as a
Pastoral effect. If theres a long stretch where this is mechanically irrelevant youll generally treat
it as a Setting Ability, instead, until it begins mattering again.
Setting Abilities
Powers marked with the Setting Icon represent your IC or OOC investment in a certain
portion of the setting a weight of authority or history that has accrued.
To keep this history and authority from being forgotten, a Perk like this lets you ask the HG
for a micro-update on whats going on there every (Perk-specific) interval of time.
Mystical Abilities
Powers marked with the Symbolic Icon generally produce raw effects things just happen,
disregarding the normal rules for how things play out.
At the mundane level, this makes you better at going with the flow.
BOX Arc-Limited Rewards
Particularly at the mundane level, rewards may require a certain level of your Arc Trait to
achieve. Im expecting this to be your Arc Trait before completing the quest
Since theyre all suggestions, I cant enforce that or anything, and you can go with what feels
right to your group, but on the whole, if you complete your first Arc and youre looking to see
whether you can pick up something thats only available at Arc 1+?
You probably cant, or at least, probably shouldnt.
You were Arc 0 for the duration of the quest, and I dont like the idea that the rewards
available might depend on whether you completed, or just barely fell short of completing, the
Arc. Its actually reasonable for that to matter, in character, but its too fussy, you know?
END BOX
BOX Questions
The suggested Perks are often pretty generic, so Im leaving the answers to a lot of questions in
your hands. For instance, there are some Perks that let you radiate inspiration, purity, or
whatever in an aura but youll notice that the various Aura Perks dont answer questions
like:
do people need to see me to be inspired by me?

how far away can my radiant purity hurt the living dead? and
can I target specific people and leave others unaffected?
Thats going to be up to what the Perk actually is, to how you got it, and to the circumstances of
earning and using it specific to your game.
That said, in cases where the exact definition and function of a Perk is variable, and you pick
something that isnt very useful? You can probably also assume that you can expand on it and
develop it with practice just like you could some sort of Skill.
END BOX
Bindings Arcs
Bindings Arcs focus on sealed, bound powers: you develop a facility with containment and
targeted use of wicked, forbidden, or dangerous things. They look something like this:
Quest 1 establishes you as the kind of person who does this.

Quest 2 lets you help someone or do something important.
Quest 3 lets you enact a big, decisive plan.
Then, if you havent got enough XP to finish out the Arc, or just plain want to do more, you can
go on to do:
Quest 4 where you remake the world into something more like you think it ought to be.
Quest 5 where you explore the effects that that had.
This Arc uses a really loose definition of wicked, forbidden, or dangerous. I mean, were not
just talking about someone who calls up the powers of Hell, here; this is the Arc to use if you
have a pet wolf, command a division of not-100%-clean cops, or act as the government handler
for a reckless kid and their marvelous wish-granting engine
If youre someone whose genre is the person who controls dangerous forces, I mean.
If youre the innocent playing with forces that would kill anyone else; or the pragmatist in
control of a ruthless power; or the selfish jerk riding the tiger; or the person who deals with edge
and liminal forces because theres nobody else who can.
Thats what this Arc is about.

Bindings 1
:1
A Wicked Partner
You have to work with, partner with, or tie your fate to something wrong or in disfavor: a beast;
Bleak power; cruel or disliked person; taboo or ill-favored entity; or maybe a ghost, vampire, or
witch . . .
Reward: youve hammered out a working relationship with them.
Mundane Perks and Other Benefits (Choose 1):
Maybe your relationship to that creature deepens?
Connection. Gain a level 1-2 Connection Perk to a wicked person or beast.

+1 to such a Connection Perk (max 5)
At Arc 2+:
o +1 to a Bond Perk thats somehow related to the creature or the quest, up to the
Arc Traits rating
Maybe youve won some treasure or payment for working with them?
Accessory. An expensive object or well-tuned machine.
Maybe youre becoming a little weird yourself?
Superior Skill. Gain a level 1 Superior Skill Perk representing increasing alienation or
inhumanity of some sort.
Miraculous Perks and Other Benefits (Choose 1):
Maybe you get a powerful spiritual Bond to that creature?
Leashed Fury. Gain a new miraculous power that lets you mentally communicate with,
and command, some beast or wicked person. Its probably 0 MP to talk to them but
theres an MP cost or time delay to command them. There may be a limitation or further
cost when it comes to commanding a person or violating the nature of a beast
whatever it takes to make the players comfortable with things, I think.
Bond. Gain a level 1 Bond Perk connecting you to the creature.
Gain +1 to a Bond Perk related to the creature or the quest.
Maybe youve won some treasure or payment for working with them?
Accessory. A magically perfect possession you can spend miraculous Will when
taking action with this treasure.
Maybe youre becoming weirder, yourself?
Superior Skill. Gain a level 2 Superior Skill Perk representing increasing alienation or
inhumanity of some sort.
An existing Superior Skill Perk (of that sort) rises to level 3.
BOX Alternate Quest: Am I OK?
:1
Youve long since started your work with wicked or disreputable things; you maybe even are one.
Youre not sure how to live with that. Does it make you evil? A bad person? Trouble? Do you
have a place in society?
Youre thinking about stuff like that.
Reward: youve come to terms with things, a little.
END BOX
Bindings 2
:2
Deep Trouble
Theres someone who needs your help, or something you must do, because you work with the
kinds of things you work with.
. . . Unfortunately, you have no idea what youre doing. This is big. This is complicated.
Maybe leap in feet-first and hope to figure it out as you go?
Reward: youre oriented now. You have a plan.
You might earn a new contact or associate:
Bond. Gain a new level 1 Bond Perk . . .

Connection. Or a new level 2 Connection Perk . . .
. . . somehow connecting you to the person you helped, or someone else connected to the quest.
Or, since this Arc assumes that youre working with animals, soldiers, weapons, powers, or magic
that you shouldnt, maybe youve learned to control them better and to make them safer for
others?
Bonus. 1/chapter, this Perk acts as a +1 Tool for (choose one) . . .

o selectively not hurting people when using a particular weapon or technique.
o imprisoning, punishing, or restricting the movements of a dangerous servant,
associate, or ally.
o quickly assembling and deploying a particular group of soldiers, servants, or
animals.
They Know Your Scent. Its not perfect but the powers you wield will tend not to
get out of control and hurt people you care about 1/chapter, when the HG describes
one of the wicked people, alien powers, or animals that you work with going wild and
hurting someone, you can propose that they sense, remember, or share your interest in
that person instead. The HG can accept or reject your idea, but has to clear their head
and take a moment to consider it first.
You might still get a new contact or associate:
Bond. Gain a new level 1-2 Bond Perk . . .

Connection. Or a new level 2-3 Connection Perk . . .
. . . somehow connecting you to the person you helped, or someone else connected to the quest.
Or you might get a new ability
Power. This is
o a power to protect someone from the kind of powers you wield;
o a power to chain something related to the powers you wield;
o a power to punish something related to the powers you wield; or
o a power to summon something related to the powers you wield.
And its
o a Major Miracle that you can use 1/season, or more often with 4 MP or to
resolve an Issue;
o a smaller miraculous power that you can use 1/week, or more often with MP;
o a power you can use every scene, but it has some roleplaying or circumstantial
condition that the HG thinks would be fun.
For instance, if you work with insects, you could have a seasonal power that banishes vermin
from a large area for the season; or a weekly ability to call upon a swarm of bees; or a power to
kill insects whenever you like by pointing in their general direction and snapping your fingers.
Im lowballing the power level in those examples; you can pick powers that are substantially
stronger than that if thats what feels suitable to your game.
BOX Alternate Quest: This is Fixable

:2
Theres someone who needs your help, or something you must do, because you work with the
kinds of things you work with.
. . . Itll be tough, but you know what to do.
Reward: youve tangibly helped them or made tangible progress.
END BOX
Bindings 3
:3
You risk yourself on a complicated and difficult plan. Usually you know what youre doing, and
youre doing it right, but youre doing something so hard and complicated that you might lose
midway through anyway.
Result: you win! . . . unless you already lost. If you already lost, finishing this quest results in
the ongoing catastrophe staggering to its natural halt.
You might change your nature
rewriting one of your Afflictions

changing the details of a Perk
moving 1-2 points between your existing Skills, or to a brand-new mundane Skill
Or you might attune yourself to an element to something like fire, shadows, plants, or one of the
classic Spiritual elements (pg. XX) like the insects and the flowers.
Elemental Attunement. Choose an Element to associate with your Bindings Arc.

1/chapter, you may use this Element as a +1 Tool for any reasonable action using or
involving it.
Or, starting at Arc 1, you might be able to learn a new magical Skill tied to the Arc something
related to your bargains and strange powers.
At Arc 1+:
o Magical Skill. You gain a new level 1 magical Skill as a Perk associated with this
Arc. You may only choose one such Skill for this Arc.
o Bond. You gain a new level 1 Bond Perk conceptually related to one of your
magical Skills or magical Skill perks.
At Arc 2+:
o +1 to this Arcs magical Skill Perk, up to the Arc Traits rating.
Affliction. You pick up a new Affliction with a level tied to this Arc.
tweaking the details of 1-2 of your existing powers, making them a bit more pleasant to
use either IC or OOC but not actually stronger or better.
Or you might power up a bit
Power Up. You can strengthen one of your existing powers or make it easier to use.
You can apply this Perk to one of your inherent powers or layer it on top of another
Perk.
MP. This Perk adds 1 to your starting MP. (You also get an immediate MP.)
Or you might attune yourself to an element to something like fire, shadows, plants, or one of the
classic Spiritual elements (pg. XX) like the insects and the flowers
Power. Choose an Element to associate with this Bindings Arc, if you havent. You gain
a new miraculous ability normally an every-few-hours kind of power, but it depends
on what it does that gives you miraculous control over that Element.
You can pick one of the natural powers of the Spiritual Arc, using it at a level
appropriate for your current Arc Trait, but it wont improve further without replacing
this Perk.
Or gain some other new abilities
Skill. You gain a level 3 mundane Skill.

Magicians Path
o Increase an existing magical Skill Perk to 3, exploring the limits of your magic.
o Gain a level 1 Superior Skill Perk, as that magic changes you.
At Arc 2+:
o Skill: You gain a level 4 mundane Skill.
Bindings 4
:4
Youre making a proactive choice or gamble. Youve decided to fix things, change things, or reveal
the truth of how they already are.
Reward: you made an impact. You changed things. Was it right to do so? Time will tell.
Maybe youve become something awesome? Something that can legitimately define destiny? Just
because youre a mundane character doesnt mean that you cant become an avatar of deity or
the ruler of the realm of nightmares it just means you need to work a lot harder!
Apotheosis. 1/book, you can take on your full glory and power and use this Perk as a
+3 Tool for anything appropriate. You may define this Perk in such a way that almost
anything is appropriate, or hew closer to a specific title or power, as you and reason
prefer.
Arc 2+:
o Power Up. Increase an inherent Skill or Bond thats relevant to this Arc by +1,
up to the Arc Traits rating. (This is always +1, up to the Arc Traits rating
instead of a number if the Skill or Arc rating goes up, or even somehow goes
down, the Power Up changes appropriately.) This can increase Shine, Cool,
magical Skills, Superior Skills, and mundane Skills, but only while you keep this
Perk.
Or maybe youve deepened your mastery of this Arcs magic?
Magical Technique. Gain a new Obstacle 2-3 technique associated with one of your
magical Skills ideally a magical Skill Perk associated with this Arc.
Arc 2+:
o +1 to an existing magical Skill Perk associated with this Arc, up to the Arc Traits
rating.
o +1 to an appropriate existing Bond Perk, up to the Arc Traits rating.
Or maybe youve just gotten cooler?
Arc 1+:
o Cool. You gain a new level 1 Cool Perk.
o +1 to an existing Cool Perk, up to the Arc Traits rating
You could learn a new alternate form or modality you can become the expression of some
great destiny-deciding principle and bring that principle personally to bear:
Power. You have a new ability either an Imperial or Major Miraculous ability that
you may use 1/book for free, or at other times for a cost of 4 MP. This transforms you
into something theologically or metaphorically potent. For example, you become an
avatar of winter who can stalk through the world bringing ice and snow, or an angel who
can show people the flaws in their lives, or a congealing power that can hold the
substrate of things together against a tide of the Outside. Usually this functions as a wish
(a specific but abstract wish, like I wish I were an avatar of winter) or Bleak power, so
you can handle the details differently each time.
Or perhaps you gain an invincible, undying strength.
Health. Gain a new Health Level as a Perk. This is normally a Divine Health Level, but
if you hurried through the quest or dont want more Divine Health Levels, you could get
a Tough or Normal Health Level instead.
Power. Gain a new defensive power, probably roughly comparable to Weathered.
Bond. Gain a new level 4 Bond Perk, something that sustains you.
Affliction. Gain a new Affliction that expresses that inner strength.
Guess Youre Stuck with Me. Gain a new, defined mechanism for coming back
from death or absolute defeat. This operates on the player/game level rather than the
character level so its situationally better than immortality itself.
Or you master some form of magic associated with the Arc:
Power Up. One of your inherent magical Skills improves to level 4-5 while you have this
Perk.
Improve an existing magical Skill Perk to level 4-5.
Bindings 5
:5
The Aftermath
You explore the consequences of a big decision you made for somebody else.
Result: its time to turn your attention to something new.
This could net you a cool companion or minion:
Connection. Gain a level 2 Connection Perk to a new/underused Main Character. This

gains you a sempai-kohai relationship with them and brings them into the game as your
minion/pet/associate/friend rather than an independent actor, although you cant expect
that to stay true to you forever.
Or you could get a stronger version of the level 2 Perks something to control and manage the
powers that you wield:
Bonus. 1/book, this Perk acts as a +3 Tool for (choose one) . . .

o selectively not hurting people when using a particular weapon or technique.
o imprisoning, punishing, or restricting the movements of a dangerous servant,
associate, or ally.
o quickly assembling and deploying a particular group of soldiers, servants, or
animals.
I Have . . . Certain Resources. You have powerful forces under your control. To
make sure that they dont get forgotten or drift off into irrelevance, 1/chapter you can
invoke this Perk and ask the HG to narrate whats going on with them. (This doesnt
have to be more than a sentence or two oh, your soldiers are doing training and
thinking about winter supplies would be enough.)
They Know Your Scent. As seen on pg. XX.
At Arc 1+:
o Bond: you gain a level 1 Bond Perk that helps you control some wicked or taboo
creature, person, or beast.
At Arc 2+:
o +1 to a Bond Perk that helps you control some wicked/taboo creature, person,
or beast, up to the Arc Traits rating.
This could net you a cool companion or minion:
Power. You gain the power to summon, banish, and to a limited extent control a
new/underused Main Character.
Or improve your health and strength:
MP. This Perk adds 2 to your starting MP. (You also get an immediate 2 MP.)
Perk.
Or do you improve your mastery over the powers you wield?
Power. This is an impressive or even terrifying power to

o protect someone from the kind of powers you wield;
o chain something related to the powers you wield;
o punish something related to the powers you wield; or
o summon something related to the powers you wield.
And its
o a Major or Imperial Miracle that you can use 1/week, or more often with MP;
o a meaningful power you can use at any time for an MP;
o a meaningful power you can use 1-2x/scene, or more often with MP.
BOX Alternate Quest: The Axis of the World

:5
You become, or take up your mantle as, part of the axis of the world e.g., the chain that holds
evil at bay, the order that holds the world together, the power that binds all nightmares or
dreams away from reality or makes what is alive to live.
Reward: you fulfill a key cosmos-stabilizing task.
END BOX
Knight Arcs
Knight Arcs let you take on a formal role in society or the cosmos and wield its perquisites
and powers. They look something like:
Quest 1 is about figuring out what you want to be.

Quest 2 is about the vice that gets in your way.
Quest 3 is an experience that shakes up your role.
Then, if you havent got enough XP to finish out the Arc, or just plain want to do more, you can
go on to do:
Quest 4 is about making up for your mistakes.

Quest 5 is about becoming something better than you were.
There are two ways to handle repeating this Arc. The first is just to scale up the ambition. First
you want to be a singer. Then a hit singer. You know?
The other option is to shift the kind of thing you are looking for as you go, e.g.:
I want to be somebody.
OK, Im the lost heir to the throne of the lake elves. I want to be good at that.
OK, Im well-loved royalty, but I want to make the world a better place.
OK, Im doing well, but thisll fall apart without me. I want us all to be better.
OK, Im changing the world, but I want to understand why the world was so messed
up in the first place, and whether changing it has a point!
This probably escalates about that fast in an epic game, but you can feel free to take it a little
slower if youre focused on pastoral stuff.
Knight 1
:1
Youre putting on airs. Youre dreaming big. Bigger than the life you have. Youre aspiring, you
know?
But you dont really know how to get there.
Reward: youve put a name to the thing you want to become, and youve put your feet on a
legitimate path to making that aspiration real.
Sometimes thats enough to shape you to change who you are:
Superior Skill. Gain a level 1 Superior Skill reflecting your new aspiration or role.
Arc 1+:
o Bond. Gain a level 1 Bond Perk tying you to the role.
o +1 to an appropriate Bond Perk, up to the Arc Traits rating.
Sometimes, since you dont know quite what youre looking for, youll wind up picking up some
odd tricks along the way:
Bonus. 1/chapter, this Perk acts as a +1 or +2 Tool for some niche ability not being
lost, holding your breath underwater, juggling, or whatnot.
If you havent changed much, maybe you picked up a mentor or acquaintance or grew closer to
one of your friends?
Connection. Gain a new level 1-2 Connection Perk.

+1 to an existing Connection Perk (max 5)
At the miraculous level, theres a few different ways that this might change you:
Superior Skill. Gain a level 2 Superior Skill reflecting your new aspiration or role.
Affliction. Gain a new Affliction Perk with a level based on this Arc.
Power Up. Increase an inherent Skill or Bond thats relevant to this Arc by +1. (This is a
modifier and not a number if the inherent Skill or Bond goes up, or even down, the
Power Up changes appropriately.) This can increase Bonds, Shine, Cool, magical Skills,
Superior Skills, and mundane Skills, but only while you keep this Perk.
Bond. Gain a level 1 Bond Perk reflecting your new aspiration or role.
+1 to an appropriate Bond Perk
And again, you might pick up an odd trick or two along the way:
Power. Gain a miraculous power covering some niche ability. Youre never lost, you can
breathe underwater, you can juggle perfectly, or whatever. This is normally a free and
even automatic power, but the HG can impose an MP cost if you use it too often or if
youve picked a power a little stronger than they think would fit.
This isnt really any technically different from the last option, but I wanted to highlight it. Its
possible that youll get better at communicating with the people around you:
Power. a 0-MP miraculous power for understanding and communicating with people,
such as Well-Liked in (Region).
BOX Well-Liked in (Region)
Cost:
0 MP invoke 1-2x/scene to become instantly simpatico with a (Region) NPC

1 MP invoke a third or later time per scene
Pick a Region when you receive this power.
People in (Region) know you and you know them.
Invoke Well-Liked while talking to an NPC who lives in (Region) and youll get an instant
two-way surge of empathy and fellow-feeling as well as a summary of what theyve been thinking
about and doing for the past scene or hour of their life.
END BOX
Knight 2
:2
This quest is a story of the thing thats in your way. Think of it as a documentary its not
about how you conquer your problem, its just a tool to help explore what that problem is.
A vice? A weakness? An enemy? Or is it just that youre kind of raw and new?
Outcome: this chapter of your life is over things are about to change. Youve either just
made a big decision, just gotten the first big sign of that change, or youll do so tonight or
tomorrow morning.
Is the thing in your way a vice? Maybe you pick up . . .
Bonus. 1/chapter, this Perk acts as a +2 Tool for (choose one):

o indulging your vice;
o dodging the consequences of your vice.
Magical Technique. Gain a new technique for a magical Skill something that your
vice tempts you to use.
Arc 1+:
o Magical Skill. Gain a level 1 magical Skill directly on point for your vice e.g.,
Drunken Kung Fu or Gamblers Magic. You may have only one such Skill
tied to this Arc.
Or more generally you could pick up:
Bond. Gain a level 1 Bond Perk representing your vice, weakness, or failing.
Arc 2+:
o +1 to a Bond Perk representing your vice, weakness, or failing, up to the Arc
Traits rating.
If none of that fits then you probably cant power up your flaw directly at the mortal level.
Instead, you could try:
Bonus. 1/chapter, this acts as a +1 Tool for doing something that you learned to do
during the course of this quest. What is that?
Connection. Gain a level 1-2 Connection Perk representing your lifestyle in general, or
to someone you interacted with a lot this quest.
+1 to an appropriate existing Connection Perk (max 5).
The simplest outcome for exploring your weakness, frailty, or vice is to express it in a new Bond:
Bond. Gain a level 4 Bond Perk representing your vice, weakness, or frailty.
You could also gain in power a little:
Cool. Gain a new Cool Perk at level 1.

Power Up. Increase either your inherent Cool or an inherent mundane Skill thats
relevant to this Arc by +1. (This is a modifier and not a number if the inherent Skill
goes up, or even down, the Power Up changes appropriately.)
+1 to a Cool Perk
Or maybe the weight of the quest the sense of wrongness, and impending change piles
up into a completely new power:
Power. Gain a miraculous power that lets you destabilize something or break boundaries
an Imperial miracle with problematic connotations or a miracle with a slow but
powerful effect. For instance, you could learn to dissolve part of the world around you
into the Outside or gain a 1/book Imperial miracle that lets you free anyone from
anything that is imprisoning them or holding them back.
Knight 3
:3
The Challenge
Something infects you or tries to change you. Something challenges your conception of yourself.
Result: You err. Or fall from grace. Or are changed. Or possibly you grow.
Perhaps you wound up changed

Arc 2+:
o Variable Bond. Gain a Bond with variable level equal to your Trust. Your
changed self expresses itself more and more as you open yourself to great
powers, the world, and numinous things.
This quest often intensifies the contrast between you and the world around you. So this might
manifest as an aura
Defensive Aura: Pick a more specific special effect. 1/chapter, your presence can shelter
the people around you in some fashion. This is an action that you take that adds +1 to
the Obstacle (max 3) for relevant attacks.
Support Aura: Pick a more specific special effect. 1/chapter, your presence can support
and help the people around you in some fashion. This is an action that you take, that acts
as a +1 Tool for others taking certain actions. In the event that your presence would
already normally be a Tool to those actions, this improves it by a further +1 (max +3).
Offensive Aura: Pick a more specific special effect. 1/chapter, your presence can
trouble those around you. This is an action that you take that adds +1 to the Obstacle
(max 3) for a certain category of actions, such as evil magic, breathing, speaking,
or feeling at ease.
Starting at Arc 1+, you can pick something that this path, your errors, or some symbiotic alien
power is turning you into. Lets call it your Evolution. It might take more than one Superior
Skill to express it (e.g., a wind-spirit might need Superior Celestian and Superior Wind-Spirit),
but youll have only one Evolution per Arc.
You can choose:
Superior Skill. Gain a new level 1 Superior Skill Perk relevant to your Evolution;
+1 to an Arc-related Superior Skill Perk, up to the Arc Traits rating; or
rewrite an existing Superior Skill Perk associated with your Evolution.
Usually this quest has changed you in some way. So you might pick up:
Affliction. Gain a new Affliction Perk.

Variable Bond or Affliction. Gain a Bond or Affliction Perk with variable level equal to
your Trust. Your changed self expresses itself more and more as you open yourself to
great powers, the world, and numinous things; betrayal might temporarily revert you.
Bond. Gain a new level 3 Bond Perk.
Transformation
o Increase an existing Superior Skill Perk to 3, developing your natural abilities.
o Gain a level 1 magical Skill Perk, as you learn to push it past the limits of the
natural.
Or you might grow in strength through your adversities:
Power Up. Increase an inherent mundane or Superior Skill thats relevant to this Arc by
+1. (This is a modifier and not a number if the inherent Skill goes up, or even down,
the Power Up changes appropriately.)
Or, as with the mundane Perks, your time in a high-contrast environment might have taught
something about you to shine through
Power. You can invoke some sort of miraculous aura around yourself, giving a
defensive, offensive, or support effect to appropriate characters in your vicinity.
BOX Alternate Quest: A Fish Out of Water
:3
Youre taken completely outside your normal context. Maybe you try to stick to your role and
vice and aspirations. Maybe you take a break from them. I dont know! Everything is different
for a while.
Reward: This has a two-part reward:
first, you have new inspiration about how to be what you want to be and do what you
want to do.
second, if theres nothing preventing you that is, if theres no pressing story reason
why you have to stay out of your element its time to wrap things up and come back
home or back to normal.
END BOX
Knight 4
:4
Youve fallen short of who you wanted to be. Youve erred, or lost your path. Now you have to
make amends, and grow.
Outcome: Redemption is an ongoing process, but youve made a start. If possible, an NPC
acknowledges that. Either way, the weight of guilt and wrongness on you lightens.
Conceptually, this strengthens you, frees you to move, or opens your mind to new options and
hopes. The world isnt necessarily quite so allegorical at the mundane level sometimes, in the
real world, people will actually let go of guilt or whatever and not fly physically free but even
so, Im going to start with metaphorically resonant ideas.
Strengthening you looks something like:
Health. Youve gained a new Normal Health Level.

Trick. Youve learned a new application for an existing Skill. Sufficient practice will
establish this as something that the Skill actually does, at which point you will no longer
need this Perk.
Magical Technique. Gain a new Obstacle 2-3 technique for one of your magical Skills,
ideally building on and enhancing an existing technique.
Accessory. You gain access to a useful defensive or force-multiplying object.
At Arc 1+:
At Arc 2+:
o +1 to an existing Bond Perk, up to the Arc Traits rating
Freeing you to move looks something like:
Accessory. You gain access to an unusual vehicle.

Ticket. This Perk is a Superior Skill 1 granting you access to a particular road, vehicle,
place, or transportation method. In short, your right to use it is so well-established as to
give you 1 Edge against anybody trying to stop you.
Enhanced insight would look like this:
Bonus. Youve learned a reasoning trick that you can apply as a player e.g., youve
gotten good at flipping problems around, following the money, doing Bayesian analysis,
or whatever. 1/chapter, this technique also acts as a +1 Tool for reaching good results by
doing that thing.
Ill Explain Later. Youve learned specific secret knowledge, domain knowledge,
or a reasoning trick that doesnt translate completely to the player realm either
because its a big pile of disconnected esoteric knowledge or because the reasoning trick
is basically an occult handwave (e.g. numeric calculations, Ars Morana, astrology,
or what feels logical here?) Anyway, this can give you an insight into whats going on;
1/chapter, you can ask the HG what that insight reveals.
Again, your time on this quest may strengthen you
Power Up. Extend the flexibility of a miraculous ability.
Power Up. Make an existing miraculous ability Major.
Power Up. Increase a level 2-4 Skill by +1. This can increase Cool, Shine, magical Skills,
Superior Skills, and mundane Skills, but only while you keep this Perk and have an
underlying level 2+ Skill.
+1 to a level 2-4 Skill Perk, including Cool, Shine, Superior, magical, and mundane Skills.
Or lighten some of the burdens on you in general
Lighter Heart. 1/book, you can invoke this Perk as if it were a Recharge Token. The
HG may require you to do something redemptive before this power becomes available
again (that is, once used, you must wait until a new book and until youve done
something redemptive again before this power is again available for use.)
Or give you a power useful for weathering trouble, seeing past the surfaces of things, or getting
from place to place
Power. Gain a relatively strong defensive, transportation, or insight-related miracle. Talk

to the HG about whats appropriate for the game in terms of power and cost.
Knight 5
:5
You have it in sight now. You know where youre going. This is the quest that takes you that last
step to becoming something better than youve been.
Reward: And now youve become that. If possible, an NPC you care about acknowledges
that. If not, then the universe does one day, its just . . . done.
The simplest way to reward yourself for this quest is to directly change your character:

rewriting one of your Bonds
Bond. Gain a level 1 Bond Perk representing the change in your character.
Arc 2+:
o +1 to a Bond Perk representing that change, up to the Arc Traits rating.
o Variable Bond. Gain a Bond Perk with variable level equal to your Calling
usually an identity, a self, a person that you become more and more as you live
your ordinary life and grow into your duty or calling, but which becomes less
important for a while once that calling is resolved.
Often, though, youve changed in intangible ways possibly too subtle to express even with a
Bond. This might manifest in the game as:
Connection. Youve earned a level 2 Connection Perk to a new/underused Main

Character, who admires you for the change.
I Really Am Different, Arent I.: 1/book, you can invoke this power and ask the
HG to narrate an NPCs thoughts on how your character has changed. You can pick a
specific NPC, but normally you pick something like someone friendly or someone
with surprising insight.
If appropriate you receive this information IC you accidentally read a bit of a
diary, or some weird experiment with telepathy happens, or you pick up the information
in symbolic form while in some weird dream-world or Bluebell Park or the Outside. (If
youre in the Deep Under or on Little Island, it may even be a genuine voiceover.)
At Arc 2+:
o Auctoritas. Choose whether this Arc protects you from the Bleak power of the
Outside or protects some feature of your character from the power of wishes.
You gain a level 1 Auctoritas protecting you, or that feature, against those effects.
o +1 to a previously obtained Auctoritas Perk of that form (max 3)
Sometimes the most important thing about this quest is something youve achieved:
You may have heard of me.: In this or a recently completed quest, youve
changed the world. To make sure that this doesnt get forgotten/drift into irrelevance,
1/book, you can explain to the HG how you think it should play into the course of
events. They dont have to go along with it, but they have to listen; and that chapter or
the next chapter, they have to narrate how the change is playing into the course of
events.
Its a Living. You have an important role in the world. To make sure this doesnt
get forgotten/drift into irrelevance, you can ask the HG 1/chapter to narrate something
to do with the politics of the role or someone being impressed by it. (This doesnt have
to be more than a sentence or two oh, someone comes by to ask for a favor again
or you have to make a new ruling or two on doctrine this week suffices!)
Accessory. Along the way you picked up a really cool treasure something hardly
anybody else in Town possesses.
Youve become a very different person:
Variable Bond or Affliction. Gain a Bond or Affliction Perk with variable level equal to
your Calling. This is that very different person that youve become and will become to
a greater and greater extent as you live your ordinary life and grow into your duty or
calling, but which will lose its grip on you for a while once that Calling Issue is resolved.
Power. Gain a powerful utility power that takes a few minutes work (or 4 MP) to
activate: you can shapechange, or create bridges, or change temperatures, or turn people
into animals or vice versa for a day.
Swap. Ditch a magical or Superior Skill Perk and replace it with a new one, level 4-5.
Swap
o Ditch a level 1-3 magical or Superior Skill;
o Replace it with a new magical or Superior Skill of comparable level; and
o Take a new Power Up Perk that raises that new Skill to level 4-5.
You can also replace a level 4-5 Superior or magical Skill with a new magical or Superior
Skill at the same level without using a Perk at all.
Or maybe whats more important is the things youve done along the way?
Affliction. Gain a powerful new Affliction that changes or expresses a change made in
the world.
Accessory. Gain a potent item of mystical regalia.
Or that youve earned the loyalty of a new/underused Main Character?
Connection. As expressed with a level 2 Connection Perk.

Affliction. Or an Affliction.
Otherworldly Arcs
Otherworldly Arcs take you outside yourself they connect you to worlds of spirit, nature,
life and death, and other aspects of yourself. You dream powerful dreams, communicate with
spirit allies, and become something other than you were.
This almost always echoes the experiences of religious ecstacy of holy trances.
You fly from your body. You become one with storms or forests. You are eaten and torn
apart by spirits, only to come back with medicine.
This isnt because the Arc requires you to be a spiritual person, or to believe in that sort of
thing, or to follow a specific ecstatic tradition: rather, thats just what this kind of Arc is like.
Internet browsing? Magical training? Intensive psychiatric rehab? Learning to control a giant
robot?
This is the way they play out.
Quest 1: dreams and otherworldly experiences connect you to some external power.
Quest 2: the path youre on scares you; burdens you.
Quest 3: something is devouring you; growing inside you; taking you over.
Thats a pretty horrifying place to leave it, but a lot of the time it does plateau there you finish
the Arc, and youve been marked by it, but youre still here. Maybe youll go back for another
round? Maybe youll do something else.
Or maybe you havent gotten enough XP to finish out the Arc yet, or maybe it just cant end
there, you cant make it. You have to go on to do:
Quest 4: youre lost to yourself. Youre not you any longer.

Quest 5: you reconcile with someone or something youve been fighting.
Theres also an alternative ending quest where you merge with some great spiritual force and
become its exemplar, avatar, or kin.
Otherworldly 1
:1
Youre having dreams or otherworldly experiences that connect you to something beyond and
outside yourself.
Afterwards: you know what you have to do about this a path you are called to walk, or
something you must do to keep these experiences under control. It is possible that youve found
2-3 options; if so, it is possible to choose wrongly.
Did you also develop a power related to your dreams?
Superior Skill. Gain Superior Dreamer 1 as a Perk, representing your increased facility
in handling surreal and dream-like environments.
ideally something relating to dreams.
Bonus. You have some sort of power relating to dreams or visions. For instance, you
might be extra-creative in the hour after waking up, or occasionally feel the right
direction to go or thing to bet on, or learn to do very well without sleep. 1/chapter, this
Perk acts as a +1 Tool for doing something like that.
Did you meet and form a connection to some sort of ally spirit?
Bonus. 1/chapter, you can call upon your ally spirit as (choose one):
o a +1 Tool for a narrow set of actions;
o a +1 Tool for any action, but only when your spirit is near;
o a +1 Tool for any action, but with some consequence the spirit affects you.
Superior Skill. Gain a new level 1 Superior Skill derived from harboring that spirit inside
your body, mind, or soul.
Connection. Gain a new level 1-2 Connection Perk connecting you to that ally.
+1 to an existing Connection Perk connecting you to that ally (max 5).
Or did you attune yourself to an element to something like fire, shadows, plants, or one of the
classic Spiritual elements (pg. XX) like the long days of summer?
Superior Skill. Gain a level 1 Superior Affinity to that element.

Connection. Gain a new level 1-2 Connection Perk connecting you to that element.
+1 to an existing Connection Perk connecting you to that element (max 5).
Starting at Arc 1+, you can define a magical Skill for this Arc. You can only have one such Skill
for this Arc.
Are you beginning to learn that magic from your dreams?
At Arc 1+:
o Magical Skill. Gain a new level 1 magical Skill Perk for this Arc.
o Bond. Gain a new level 1 Bond, related in some fashion to one of your magical
Skills or magical Skill Perks.
At Arc 2+:
o +1 to a Bond Perk or magical Skill Perk, up to the Arc Traits rating.
o Variable Bond. Gain a Bond Perk suitable for this magic with variable level
equal to your Trust. Your magic becomes stronger and stronger as you open
yourself to great powers, the world, and numinous things; betrayal and mistrust,
if it resolves the Issue, might strip you temporarily of this power.
Did you gain a power relating to dreams (or possibly just generally altered states?)
Power. You gain a new miraculous or Imperial power relating to this stuff e.g.,
o you can peer into someones dreams while conscious,
o you can send someone a message in dreams,
o you can touch someone to invoke a shared vision,
o you can touch someone to inflict a hallucination,
o you can access miraculous Will while sleepwalking,
o you can access miraculous Will while in Bluebell Park,
o you can do research at a miraculous library in your dreams,
o you can wake up elsewhere in a cold sweat instead of taking a wound, 1/book
o you can protect people around you from spiritual attack while dreaming,
o you can spirit-walk while dreaming, or
o an Affliction that everyone around you falls asleep when your REM sleep starts
Or build a deep connection to some element of the world?
Youll often meet a spirit or ally in your dreams or on an otherworldly journey. It could be a
mentor or helper, but it often is or creates a symbiote that sets up shop inside your body, mind,
or soul.
So the last power option well talk about here is based on that:
Power. You gain a new power based on this ally or spirit: typically something you can
call upon 1/chapter (or more often, if you spend 1-2 MP)
BOX Alternate Quest: The Hole in the World

:1
Theres something wrong with the world. Chaos has slipped into your nice ordered existence, or
maybe somethings always been wrong and youve just now realized that you care.
Afterwards: you know what you have to do. It is possible that youve found 2-3 options
instead of one; if so, it is possible to choose wrongly.
END BOX
Otherworldly 2
:2
Youre on a scary or difficult path. Part of you is resisting clinging to the way things used to
be. Even if youre on this path by choice, its scary, or hard, or against your natural way of
thinking, or costing something you really hate having to give up.
Afterwards: You release some of that. More of you accepts that you cant go back.
Youll often find yourself saddled with an unwanted responsibility or power
Bonus. This is a power that lets you fix heal, repair, or protect something that you
didnt really want to be responsible for. 1/book, this Perk acts as a +3 Tool to doing so.
Bonus. This is a power that lets you get or access somewhere unusual somewhere
you dont or at least didnt actually really want to be able to go. 1/chapter, this power
acts as a +2 Tool for getting there.
Or youll gain a bit more Connection to the ally spirit we mentioned in step 1
+1 to that Connection Perk, if you had one.
Or you can explore the idea that this is a vice, or that a vice is holding you back
Bond. Gain a level 1 Bond Perk representing your vice, weakness, or failing.
Arc 2+:
o +1 to a Bond Perk representing your vice, weakness, or failing, up to the Arc
Traits rating.
At the miraculous level, the unwanted responsibilities and powers youll pick up are a bit more
extreme:
Power. Gain a miraculous or Imperial power that lets you fix something heal, repair,
or protect something you didnt really want to be responsible for fixing.
Power. Gain a miraculous or Imperial power that opens paths to somewhere you didnt
really want to go.
Or you might strengthen your ally spirit:
Power. Gain a power (typically a 1/book Imperial miracle) from an ally or spirit met in
dreams or during an otherworldly experience.
Power Up. +1 to your Connection to your ally spirit, even if that Connection is 0, and
to the extent feasible they become a useful NPC rather than a background character and
powerset.
You might express a vice or acquire a curse:
Bond. Gain a level 4 Bond Perk representing your vice, weakness, frailty, or curse.
Learning or getting a little better at magic is possible, since youre on a difficult path:
Magical Skill. Gain a level 2 magical Skill Perk.

Skill. Gain a level 2-3 mundane Skill Perk for a weird and kind of magical or at least
unusual Skill.
If none of that fits, maybe clinging to your past will improve one of your existing Skills:
Power Up. Increase an inherent mundane or magical Skill by +1, to a maximum of 3.

(This is always +1, to a maximum of 3 and not a specific number if the inherent
Skill goes up, or even down, the Power Up changes appropriately.)
Otherworldly 3
:3
Something is trying to make you into something else.
Theres usually a sense that its trying to take you over, devour you from within, kick you
out of your life, or something.
Or maybe its the other way around: maybe its pulling you.
Result: You find a part of yourself that hasnt changed, or wont.
This quest often changes or marks you
you can rewrite an Affliction or Bond;

you rename and adjust a Skill, or move a point from one inherent Skill to another;
Superior Skill. You gain a new level 1 Superior Skill, reflecting inherent inhumanity.
Arc 2+:
o +1 to an appropriate Bond Perk or Superior Skill Perk, up to the Arc Traits
rating.
Or teaches you something strange
Magical Technique. You express the quests effects on you by gaining a new technique
for an existing magical Skill.
Power Up. One of your mundane or Superior Skills gains a supernatural twist. You can
invoke this power 1-2x/book to treat that Skill as a level 2 Superior Skill for the duration
of a scene (complete with up to 2 Edge and the ability to do borderline-supernatural
things.) In addition to its other effects, spending a Recharge Token automatically
refreshes your available uses of this power.
Or perhaps you become a more dangerous opponent even for miraculous things?
Accessory. You gain a rare weapon.

Arc 1+:
o MP. This Perk adds 1 to your starting MP. (You also get an immediate MP.)
Perhaps the most important thing is that youve found a key part of yourself and who you are:
Power Up. Set an inherent level 1-5 Superior Skill to level 4. (This Perk does not change
with the Skill value, as long as it remains positive.)
More than Human. Gain a level 1 Superior Skill Perk showcasing the inhuman element
of what youve found about yourself, and also gain one of the following (potentially using
a second Perk slot):
o Improve an existing mundane Skill Perk to level 4.
o Power Up. Set an inherent level 1-5 mundane Skill to level 4. (This Perk does
not change with the chosen Skills value, as long as it remains positive.)
Variable Affliction. Gain an Affliction Perk with variable level equal to your Trust. The
more open you are to great powers, numinous things, and the world, the better youre
able to express yourself.
Or perhaps what really matters is how youve changed

Power Adjustment. Change an existing power, making it stronger but also either harder
to control or more rarely available. When you discard this Perk, you can choose whether
to discard the power adjustment or make it permanent.
The experience might have made you a more dangerous opponent:
Accessory or Power. Gain control of a powerful weapon.

Power. Your touch becomes a powerful weapon of some sort.
Superior Skill or Power. Youve learned a powerful destructive or transformative
technique a miraculous power you unleash in short bursts or a level 2-3 Superior Skill
Perk that lets you do something like throwing lightning or playing a style of Chess so
cold that it lowers your opponents body temperature or ices over the room. This is often
based on one of your existing Skills that is, youd get Superior Ice Chess 2-3 on top of
an inherent Skill in Chess, or a lightning-throwing ability on top of and as an extension of
an inherent mundane ability with Martial Arts.
Otherworldly 4
:4
Youve lost a key part of your sense of self.
You look for a way to get that back.
Reward: you discover that it wasnt really gone. If thats observably impossible e.g.,
youre mourning a severed limb you discover either that your terminology was off and what
you were really missing was something else that isnt gone, e.g., the sense of yourself as a whole
person or your ability to play an instrument; or, you find a potential in you to recover it.
When the dust settles you might find yourself with a new power that you hadnt had before:
Superior Skill. Gain a level 1 Superior Skill Perk representing something youve gained
and learned from this process.
need this Perk.
Magical Technique. Gain a new Obstacle 2-3 technique for one of your magical Skills.
Or we could focus specifically on the power to exist, the power to be yourself, that you have
found:
Bonus. 1/book, you can use this power as a +3 Tool for doing something that fits your
core nature and/or competencies basically, you can now be yourself super-hard and to
exceptional effect.
Or on how good that feels:
Gain 2-3 Recharge Tokens.

Finishing this quest may grant you a neat inherent power:
Power. You get a relatively inherent miraculous power e.g., flight, or the ability to
snap your fingers and have a target in sight range get blasted with lightning.68
Or it might increase the potency of one of your existing powers:

Power Up. Make an existing miraculous ability Major.
Power Up. Set an inherent level 1-5 Bond to level 4. (This Perk does not change with
the Bonds value, so long as it remains nonzero.)
Power Up. Increase a level 2-4 Skill by +1. This can increase Cool, Shine, Superior
Skills, and mundane Skills, but only while you keep this Perk and have an underlying level
2+ Skill.
+1 to a level 2-4 Skill or Bond Perk, including Cool, Shine, Superior, and mundane Skills.
(Ive omitted magical Skills intentionally in that last entry magical Skills, after all, are
fundamentally powers alien to you, and this quests reward is finding yourself!)
Or this quest might offer you access to a deep store of inner strength
Lighter Heart. 1/book, you can invoke this power as if it were a Recharge Token. The
HG may require you to do something that reminds you of who you are some
characteristic or affirming activity before this power becomes available again. (That is,
once used, you must wait until a new book and until youve done something identity-
affirming before this power is again available for use.)
Part of losing and then recovering yourself could unlock a new alternate form or modality:
youll be able to handle the details differently each time.
68
You can probably invoke this power at any time for an MP or maybe you get 1-2 free uses per scene, starting
mid-scene, and can use it more often or earlier in the scene than that by spending MP. See the powers of the
Ace or Child of the Ash on pg. XX or XX for a good sense of what a persons inherent abilities might be like.
Otherworldly 5
:5
Live Together, Die Alone
You reconcile with someone or something youve been fighting.
Result: you help them find peace, acceptance, or find their way back from being lost.
This process often strengthens you and makes you hale:

At Arc 1+:
o Cool. Gain a level 1 Cool Perk.
o Shine. Gain a level 1 Shine Perk.
o +1 to an existing Cool or Shine Perk (max 3).
At Arc 3+:
o Health. Youve gained a new Tough Health Level.
You may also physically change, becoming someone completely different not so much from
the quest itself, unless you choose the alternative version, as from the culmination of an entire
Arc:
you can take your inherent Skill points spent on mundane Skills and Superior Skills and
re-divide them between (new or old) mundane Skills, Superior Skills, and Shine.
At the miraculous level, this quest might still strengthen you and make you hale:
Or the cumulative weight of the Arc and its insights might grant you a new power
Power. Gain a flexible miraculous power, typically either a miraculous power you can
use every scene or some sort of 1/chapter or 1/book Imperial miracle Im thinking
something like can see through deception, can find a way, or can bring stories to
life.
Or it might physically reshape you into something extremely powerful:
Affliction. Gain a new Affliction representing your new form (e.g. Affliction: I am the
phoenix.)
New Form
o you can take your inherent Skill points spent on mundane Skills and Superior
Skills and re-divide them between (new or old) mundane Skills, Superior Skills,
and Shine.
o you also receive 1-3 power-up Perks, each adding +1 to one of your new Superior
Skills.
BOX Alternate Quest: Blurring the Boundaries

:5
You merge with some spiritual force. You become its exemplar or its host. You are you and you
are also that.
Result: youve grown into who the new combined-self you will be.
END BOX
Storyteller Arcs
Storyteller Arcs focus on telling stories that come true, or, more generally, on changing the
boundary between ideas and life.
A Storyteller Arc will go something like this:
Quest 1 is told in a mood of interest and excitement.

Quest 2 is more of a mood of determination, stubbornness, or pride.
Quest 3 is more about confusion, puzzlement, and being a little lost.
And maybe you finish that up and youre not lost any more. You pull everything together. You
solve it and you tie it up with a bow.
Or maybe you havent gotten enough XP to finish the Arc yet, or maybe it just cant end
there, you cant make it.
Quest 4 is more about transcendence rising above the world and yourself.
Quest 5 is more about katabasis about a mythical descent into the underworld, place
of death, or the coast. (That is, dealing with grief and become queen of the beach
both work well.) Less metaphorically, you have something really rough to deal with and
you deal with it here.
Im not implying that transcendence is always followed by a fall here its perfectly plausible
for you to do quest 4 and finish the Arc there without needing to go on to do quest 5. What I am
implying is that if you do find your Arc unfinished after reaching that summit, youll probably
have to fall a lot farther than just back down.
Storyteller 1
:1
Youre excited about the future. Youve found or gotten involved in something neat!
Result: Bored now? Or still awesome? Youve gotten used to it either way.
Maybe youve learned to see things in a new way?
Dramatic Vision. 1/chapter, you can invoke a special vision mode69 that lets you see
highlighted dramatic information about things e.g., a readout of a persons stats as
theyd be in a computer RPG or sports almanac; information on peoples blood type,
zodiac animal, and favorite foods; a free labeling of troublemakers vs. sheep; notes on
romantic compatibility; and the like.
This technique is considered to be magic.
Or maybe youve learned to handwave one of lifes little inconveniences?
Dramatic Life. Youre a little stylized. 1/chapter, you can waive a level 1-2 Obstacle
for some particular unrealistic thing you do, e.g.,
o changing clothes in the blink of an eye;
o wandering the sewer without getting dirty;
o people not noticing the giant axe youre always carrying around; or
o using staplers, guns, pez dispensers, etc. without ever refilling them.
Magical Technique. Youve learned a new Obstacle 1-2 technique for one of your
magical Skills that lets you do something cool.70
need this Perk.
69
If sight isnt your primary sense, or you have a good idea as to how it would work, you can have a special
mode for some other sense instead.
70
Putting these two Perks next to one another makes it look like youre meant to use them together, when in
fact its more that you just can use them together you can totally use Dramatic Life for magic, and an
Obstacle 1-2 technique to do something cool is particularly likely to fit well, but Dramatic Life is meant more
for overcoming Obstacles on mundane Skills.
Or, just possibly, you radiate awesome?
At Arc 1+:
o Shine. Gain a new level 1 Shine Perk.
At Arc 2+:
o +1 to a Shine Perk, up to the Arc Traits rating
Maybe you want a stronger version of the Dramatic Vision/Dramatic Life perks, above?
Power. Gain a miraculous version of Dramatic Vision, above a special visual mode
that lets you see highlighted dramatic information about things.
Power. Gain a miraculous power that waves away some circumstantial obstacle, e.g.
allowing instant clothes changes or making sure everyone ignores the giant axe youre
always carrying around.
Maybe youve become a little more stylized?

Variable Affliction. Gain an Affliction Perk with variable level equal to your Mystery.
The less others understand you, the more powerful your ways become.
Magical Skill. Gain a level 2 character-trait or genre-trait magical Skill, e.g.
o can always have flip-charts
o the power of friendship or
o gun magic
Or, just possibly, you radiate awesome?
Shine. Gain a new level 2 Shine Perk.

+1 to an existing Shine Perk.
Storyteller 2
:2
Taking Charge
Youre taking charge of a situation.
Result: an enemy/opponent praises you, threatens you in a vaguely flattering way, or tries
to recruit you.
Did you learn something new or reveal a new aspect of your character?
Magical Technique. Youve learned a new technique for one of your magical Skills.
Trick. Youve learned a new application for an existing Skill probably something you
succeeded or failed at during the course of the quest. Its now one of your normal
applications of the Skill; sufficient practice will establish that to the point that youll no
longer even need this Perk.
+1 to your Connection with a sidekick, friend, ally, rival, opponent, or treasure (max 5).
Have you shown something odd about the way your life works?
Superior Skill. Gain a level 1 Superior Skill. Youre too awesome to be real.
Rewrite one of your Afflictions.
Did you impress others?

Accessory. Get, claim, or receive a new cool item.
At Arc 1+:
o Shine. Gain a new level 1 Shine Perk.
At Arc 2+:
Conceptually, the reward for this quest is a plot hook. Maybe its a cool car or mecha. Maybe its a
destiny. Maybe its just a hairdo.
Whatever it is it operates kind of symbolically
Possibly its magical symbolism, like, your hairdo is Winter, and you can flip your hair to
make it snow; or possibly its more of a metaphor, like, your car is your heart, and so when you
rev up your courage you also rev up its engine to do astonishing things (and when you love
someone, your car will show up when they need it even if you arent there.)
How do you express this power?

Variable Affliction. Gain an Affliction Perk with variable level equal to your Vice
Issue. The more you distance yourself from the ordinary world, the stronger your
plot hook becomes.
Power. Gain an appropriate miraculous ability that you can use on a regular basis
e.g., something that costs 1 MP per use no matter how often you use it, or that you
can use 1-2x/scene for free and more often with MP, or whatever.
Magical Skill. Gain a new level 2-3 Magical Skill Perk.
Superior Skill. Gain a new level 1-2 Superior Skill Perk.
Bond. Gain a new level 2-3 Bond Perk.
Power Up. Increase an inherent level 2-3 mundane Skill to 4.
Accessory. Gain a magical or supertech thing.
Connection. Gain a new level 3-4 Connection Perk linking you to some sidekick or
treasure.
BOX Alternate Quest: Your Way
:2
Youre ignoring the pressures on you and just doing things your own way.
Result: youve attracted dangerous attention and/or trimmed down the problem to an
approachable space. Usually its both, one during the quest and one when it ends.
END BOX
Storyteller 3
:3
Youre in a confusing situation! You must traverse a labyrinth, maze, or noir mystery. Or, if not
literally any of these, thats what it feels like!
Reward. Youve cut through the confusion. Youve found what you needed to know, and
either:
Tied everything up neatly with a bow; or

Youve got your eyes on your prize and you know where to go but youve got a ways to
go before you actually get it.
So if you think back to the labyrinthine mazes of confusion youve had in your life puberty,
high school, your first job you may find that you emerged with something that would have
looked an awful lot to your pre-labyrinth self like a superpower. I dont mean that the whole
experience is good, or anything, just that the reward for getting through it often is!
Im thinking stuff like:
shapeshifting
venom
control over an element (fire, shadows, plants, &c.)
incomparable beauty
incomparable strength
the ability to petrify people with a glance
Now, I want to stick to relatively low-end powers here, so youd probably implement this with
something like:
Bonus. You can invoke your superpower 1/chapter as a +1 Tool. For instance, your
face and body are just malleable enough that it can help you a little with something once
per week, or you can glamour up your beauty or strength for an action now and then, or
use your petrifying glare as a Tool for intimidation or for winning a contest by
slowing an enemy down.
Magical Technique. Gain a superpower as a new technique for one of your magical
Skills.
Superior Skill. Gain a quasi-superpower as a level 1 Superior Skill.
need this Perk.
If you want something stronger, Id suggest:
rewriting an Affliction or Bond

moving 2-3 points from your inherent Skills (of any sort) to a brand-new Superior Skill
Again, Id like to focus on the idea that you pick up a new superpower

Superior Skill. Gain a level 3-4 Superior Skill Perk.
Power. Gain a direct, potent miraculous power which you can use quite often, such as:
o shapeshifting
o venom
o control over an element (fire, shadows, plants, &c.)
o incomparable beauty
o incomparable strength
o the ability to petrify people with a glance
Power. Gain a sleeping power hidden in some body part Im specifically thinking of
tattoos sealing something in your arm or a weird eye behind an eyepatch that you can
activate roughly 1/chapter (or more often with MP spending). Youd choose this instead
of just having a can use all the time power if you wanted:
o something a little too powerful for you to be using all the time at this Arc level;
o an indirect tactical power like a forest of needles hidden in my arm.
If the quest marked or cursed you in addition to giving you a reward, the HG could offer you a
free level 1 Bond or Affliction Perk as well as the benefits above. You dont have to take it! They
dont have to give it! Its just a possible bonus that you could get.
Storyteller 4
:4
The Ascent (1)
Youre ascending. Youre going beyond the world, rising past your limitations, reaching for some
transcendent height.
. . . because youre chasing someone, or you have something you have to obtain.
Reward. You catch them. You obtain it. Youve surpassed the trials of the peak.
Maybe youve just obtained a treasure or technique:
Accessory. This quest has won you a cool object of some sort.
Magical Technique. Gain a new Obstacle 2-3 technique for one of your magical Skills.
Trick. Youve mastered a new application for an existing Skill. Sufficient practice will
need this Perk.
Or maybe youve become more comfortable in whatever environment you were in for a literal
climb, I mean something like mountains or the climbers life, but for a metaphorical climb,
its probably whatever context you spent most of the quest living in:
Connection. Gain a new level 2 Connection Perk to a relevant context.

+1 to a relevant Connection Perk (max 5).
Or maybe youve just picked up that distant and world-conquering air of the kind of people who
climb a spiritual peak:
Superior Skill. Gain Superior Inscrutability 1 as a Perk.

At Arc 1+:
At Arc 3+:
o Auctoritas. Choose whether this Arc protects you from the Bleak power of the
Outside or protects some feature of your character from the power of wishes.
You gain a level 1 Auctoritas protecting you, or that feature, against those effects.
Often, on completing this quest, youll gain a pretty strong defense against people figuring you
out
Power. You have some defensive power e.g., an equivalent to Weathered that you
can invoke, not against physical damage, but against people learning the truth about you
or seeing through your masks; or an inherent low-level Auctoritas+Obstacle pair that
makes that harder; or an ability that automatically stuns/dazes/messes with people who
see the truth about you.
Or youll win some treasure or technique:
Accessory or Power. Gain a magical item or power suited to what you were looking for
in undertaking this quest in the first place.
Or youll gain in health and strength:
Or perhaps, having seen the top of the world, you seem to shine:

+1 to a Shine Perk.
BOX Alternate Quest: The Ascent (2)

:4
Youre ascending. Youre going beyond the world, rising past your limitations, reaching for some
transcendent height.
. . . because thats what you decided to do.
Reward. You reach the top or your target, anyway, or as high as you can go and gain
some level of self-confidence, self-acceptance, or release.
END BOX
Storyteller 5
:5
The Descent
Youre doing rough, terrible work. Youre facing hard truths of death, guilt, embodiment,
meaning, identity, and failure.
Result: you complete the work; you can go on with your life.
Its not the point. Its not why you were doing it. But you may very well have changed the world.
events.
Its a Living. Youve become someone important. To make sure this doesnt get
forgotten/drift into irrelevance, you can ask the HG 1/chapter to narrate something to
do with the politics of the role or someone being impressed by it. (This doesnt have to
be more than a sentence or two oh, someone comes by to ask for a favor again or
you have to make a new ruling or two on doctrine this week suffices!)
Or perhaps youve just changed yourself:
Alternate Identity. You are now living two lives as yourself and as a new/underused
Main Character. At first the changes are small: when youre in your alternate identity, you
move 2-3 points of your inherent Skills to different mundane, Superior, and magical
Skills. (You can change your Cool, but your Shine should stay the same.) In the future,
though, you can choose to apply new Perks and non-Perk quest bonuses like you can
rewrite your Affliction to only a single identity.
Both characters should always have this Perk.
You can take this again for a third, &c. life if you like.
At Arc 1+:
At Arc 3+:
o Auctoritas. Gain a level 1 Auctoritas Perk protecting you from the Bleak power
of the Outside.
Again, you may have changed the world:
Affliction. Gain a powerful new Affliction that changes or expresses a change made in
the world.
Or become a very different person:
Affliction. Gain a new Affliction representing your new self (e.g. Affliction: I am the
god of death.)
New Form
and Shine.
o and also receive 1-3 power-up Perks, each adding +1 to one of your new
Superior Skills.
Or become two different people:
Alternate Form. You gain an alternate identity as a new/underused Main Character.

Think of this as choosing or building a new PC if everyones playing awesome near-
gods, you are now playing two awesome near-gods. If youve all just scraped your way to
the miraculous level, so has your new PC.
Playing two Main Characters works like this:
You can only control one character at any given time. They share a pool of Health
Levels, since those are mostly a player resource, but the wounds themselves affect one or
the other.71
Other resources (Will, MP) vary by character if possible. If this becomes too much
of a headache for you or the HG, youll fall back to a single pool of each. If that becomes
too much of a headache e.g., one of your characters has special rules interacting with
MP use a single pool, except that the backup character always has 2-3 left if they
havent done anything themselves.
Choose which character youll use for advancement. (You can change this choice
between stories.) The HG advances your other character at roughly the same rate. If they
dont have time/interest in doing that, or you really dont like their choices, fall back on
advancing both characters down the same Arc and assigning them the same Perks,
possibly with different details.
That said, please make sure to keep this Perk active on both characters.
You can gain more than two identities, but only if your existing identity is a hit
that is, if other players are independently playing off of it to dramatic or comedic effect
on a reasonably regular basis. If youre the only one getting anything out of this Perk, Id
ask you to not take it again.
Or youve gained a useful and meaningful power:
Power. Gain a powerful utility power that takes a few minutes work (or 4 MP) to
activate: you can shapechange, or create bridges, or change temperatures, or turn people
into animals or vice versa for a day.
Accessory. Gain a potent item of mystical regalia
71
Yes, this is weird.
BOX Alternate Quest: Torn
:5
Youre torn between two loyalties.
Result: you make a choice between them; if youve already done so, you come to an
acceptance of it.
END BOX
Aspect Arcs
Aspect Arcs are the ones where you develop and unleash new powers from your body,
mind, and training.
They play out sort of like this:
Quest 1 is your struggle against whatevers been holding you back.

Quest 2 challenges your way of thinking.
Quest 3 is a bunch of weird social obligations getting in your way.
Sometimes followed by:
Quest 4, an epic struggle against something out of nightmare; and maybe

Quest 5 time spent lost in the dark.
Wondering where on the Arc you get the goofy kung fu training stuff? Where you get thrown
into the deadly pit of Death or Kung Fu, or forced to wrestle alligators until you master
alligator stance, or flung amidst the bladed clockwork ballet training dolls until you learn ballet,
or taught the No-Shadow Step?
The answer is pretty much at any time, but its off the main path of the Arc thats
going to be handled as quest miracles, which well discuss on pg. XX and pg. XX.
Aspect 1
:1
Youre blocked. Frozen. Stuck. Theres something you cant get past.
Reward. You push past it.
Maybe your heart grew a little stronger?
Bond. Gain a level 1 Bond Perk related to the moment that you fixed things.
Arc 1+:
Or you picked up a mentor?
Connection. Gain a level 1-2 Connection Perk to a mentor.

Bonus. Your mentors given you some sort of gnomic advice. 1/book, this Perk counts
as a +3 Tool when its meaning falls into place and you act on it.
Or, maybe, youve learned to do something amazing?
Magical Technique. Youve learned to do something that, to be honest, you shouldnt

actually be able to do. This acts as a level 2-3 Obstacle magical technique for one of your
magical Skills.
need this Perk.
Bonus. Youve pushed past a key block with heart, will, and the power of your Chi.
1/chapter, you may channel Chi into something you have a level 2+ Skill in, spending
1 MP as a +2 Tool.
Learned to do something a little bit ridiculous?
Dramatic Life. Youre a little stylized. 1/chapter, you can waive a level 1-2 Obstacle
for some particular unrealistic thing you do, e.g.,
o changing clothes in the blink of an eye;
o wandering the sewer without getting dirty;
o people not noticing the giant axe youre always carrying around; or
o using staplers, guns, pez dispensers, etc. without ever refilling them.
Or become a little bit more protagonistic and awesome?
Bonus. You can sometimes feel when someone is in trouble and needs you. 1/book, this
acts as a +3 Tool for showing up at the right moment to rescue/help someone, including
being aware that its worth trying to do so and realizing the impending crisis early
enough to be in position to do something about it when it happens.
Arc 1+:
o Bonus. Youve demonstrated an undying will. 1/book, you may escalate your
defense against an environment or category of attacks up to the level of a
miraculous action. This lasts while you sustain the relevant Intention.
Arc 2+:
o Variable Bond. Gain a Bond Perk with a variable level equal to your (being a)
Hero Issue. This represents the daring, forceful, or tricky nature that pushed past
the difficulty you encountered. That expresses itself more and more in you as
your Hero Issue and this Bonds power rises; after the main story of that Issue
ends, though, and the Issue temporarily reverts to level 0, theres a period where
the Bond has no effect.
Again, the simplest way to push past whatever was holding you back is a Bond:
Bond. Gain a level 1 Bond Perk as part of the quests result, or

+1 to an appropriate Bond Perk
Variable Bond. Gain a Bond Perk with a variable level equal to your (being a) Hero
Issue. As above, this represents the daring, forceful, or tricky nature that pushed past the
difficulty you encountered.
Or you could improve in raw Skill or general untouchability:

+1 to a mundane Skill or Cool Perk
Or your efforts as you pushed against your limitations might net you a cool new power:
Power. Gain a miraculous power, typically costing 1 MP to use, that lets you channel
your Chi or heart power to perform some specific miraculous feat.
Power. Gain a defensive power, typically comparable to Weathered.
Power. You automatically sense when someone is in trouble and needs you, if the HG
remembers. This power is a miraculous action and comes with free Strike equal to the
Arc Traits rating.
Or special effect:
Power. Gain a miraculous power that waves away some circumstantial obstacle, e.g.
allowing instant clothes changes or making sure everyone ignores the giant axe youre
always carrying around.
Aspect 2
:2
Youre presented with the option of another way of life or another way of thinking.
Result: you have an insight: you see or hear something that you wouldnt have been able to
before.
This might change your nature

Connect you to somebody
Connection. Gain a new level 1-2 Connection Perk tying you to a romantic interest,
mentor, or rival that youve spent time with during this Arc.
+1 to such a Connection Perk (max 5).
Give you a pretty straightforward power-up
Bonus. Youve practiced a trick for one of your favored Skills. 1/chapter, this Perk acts
as a +1 Tool for a relevant situation and that Skill.
need this Perk.
Offer you an alternate approach to certain problems:
Magic. Youve learned a tricky alternate approach to problems. Gain a magical

technique you can use with an otherwise mundane Skill 1/book.
This isnt even my final form. You can spend an MP to adopt an altered
mode that reverses 1-3 Afflictions, Bonds, or Skills, or that replaces/alters a single
Affliction, Bond, or Skill in a more complicated way. This lasts until you spend another 2
MP or the chapter ends.
Or teach you something strange:
At Arc 1+:
At Arc 2+:
o +1 to this Arcs associated magical Skill Perk, up to the Arc Traits rating.
Affliction. You pick up a new Affliction with a level tied to this Arc.
Open yourself to new worlds or ways of being
Power. You gain some power that functions as an alternate shape or mode.
Power. You gain a power for moving between worlds or ways of being that is:
o easy to use highly applicable and relatively cheap to use at least 1/chapter
o probably kind of inflexible a single trick.
Magicians Path
Or simply become a more dangerous opponent:
Accessory or Power. Gain control of a powerful weapon.

Power. Your touch becomes a powerful weapon of some sort.
Superior Skill or Power. Youve learned a powerful destructive or transformative
technique a miraculous power you unleash in short bursts or a level 2-3 Superior Skill
Perk that lets you do something like throwing lightning or playing a style of Chess so
cold that it lowers your opponents body temperature or ices over the room. This is often
based on one of your existing Skills that is, youd get Superior Ice Chess 2-3 on top of
an inherent Skill in Chess, or a lightning-throwing ability on top of and as an extension of
an inherent mundane ability with Martial Arts.
Aspect 3
:3
Youre dealing with stressful, bizarre, and confusing social situations.72
Result: you finish up your latest obligation, optionally come home and take your literal or
metaphorical shoes off, and learn something shattering.
In general youll wind up with a power that you dont really want
Bonus. 1/chapter, this Perk acts as a +2 Tool for something you didnt really want to be
good at something embarrassing to you or something that tends to get too much
responsibility put on your shoulders.
Superior Skill. Gain a level 1 Superior Skill Perk that you didnt really want similarly.
Foe Yay: Pick an enemy, rival, or antagonist. When they are cooperating with you,
this Perk acts as a +1 Tool. If you ever become friends, colleagues, or teammates, this
Perk reverts to an ordinary Bonus, and you may thereafter only use it 1/chapter.
Accessory. Gain a neat thing that everyone around you is really impressed by that you
didnt want, like a plasma TV when you dont like television or a new car when you cant
drive. Include some reason you cant just give it away or loan it out on a permanent basis,
although letting people use it surreptitiously is probably fine.
Trick. Youve learned a new application for an existing Skill usually, something social
or something party-trick-style weird. Sufficient practice will establish this as something
that the Skill actually does, at which point you will no longer need this Perk.
But you could also get a little better at handling weird situations:
rewrite one of your Skills, Bonds, or Afflictions

Connection. Gain a new level 2-3 Connection Perk for navigating an environment that
doesnt really suit you or dealing with a person you claim not to like. Unlike the stuff
above its probably not actually that bad youre probably more in denial about liking it
or them than you are actually unhappy with your new ability.
72
Your best friend wants you to romantically intercede for them. With the person you love, to boot! Or,
theres factional conflict at your school or temple. Your parents have ridiculous expectations of you. Youre
living at the house of your worst enemies.
. . . stuff like that!
+1 to such a Connection Perk.
Arc 1+:
o +1 to an existing Cool Perk, up to the Arc Traits rating.
Again, youll generally wind up with a power that you dont really want
Bond. Gain a level 4 Bond Perk representing a failure, vice, or trauma.

Bond. Gain a level 2 Bond Perk representing a minor obligation.
Power. Gain a power for seeing into the mind or heart of your natural enemies.
Power. Gain a power that echoes one of your antagonists tricks.
Power. Gain a useful power thats hard to control once unleashed something that
spreads chaos, raises emotional intensity, invokes fire, or summons vicious beasts.
Accessory. Gain an awesome item thats bound to you but doesnt fit you a blood-
thirsty sword for the dainty socialite, magical tiara for the warrior, or soccer cleats for the
hopeless nerd.
Superior Skill or Magical Skill. Gain a level 2-3 Superior or magical Skill Perk based on
your unnatural awesomeness at something kind of embarrassing. Or at something that
people will demand you do more often once they find out youre great at it.
But you may also get a bit more raw power:
Or you might make a truce with an established and not all that terrible enemy:
Foe Yay (Miraculous): this power acts as a level 4 Connection Perk with a former
enemy and as a Power Perk that allows you to unleash some power when you work
together. This also implicitly puts you on a no maiming or killing one another footing,
which should be fairly reliable from both sides, although obviously breaking with that is
possible if circumstances or story so require.
Aspect 4
:4
This is an epic struggle with something terrifying and supernatural.
Result: you win. Sometimes youre left stranded and far from home, sometimes you get a
victory parade; sometimes theres more to do, sometimes its 100% triumph; sometimes the HG
has to delay your victory a few scenes or invoke silly tropes like but that wasnt the real big bad
to stop play from grinding to a halt, and sometimes your victory is pure awesome. But, no matter
what?
You win.
Do you pick up a weird new trick?
Hax. Youve learned some trick that makes you a puzzle to be solved in combat
some trick that makes you unbeatable by mortals unless they work around it first. You
can invoke this power 1-2x/book to impose an Obstacle 4 on any attempt to beat you
without such a workaround. In addition to its other effects, spending a Recharge Token
automatically refreshes your available uses of this power.
Magical Technique. Gain a new Obstacle 2-3 magical technique.
or feeling at ease.
Or do you just get tougher?

Accessory. You gain access to a useful defensive or force-multiplying object.
At Arc 1+:
At Arc 3+:
The most common benefit here is that youll gain a trick a weird technique, the result of
your training, that makes you a puzzle to be solved for anyone whod want to go against you.
Maybe you can ignite yourself with fiery Chi hot enough to melt any weapon that strikes you,
maybe you can control every sword in the room, maybe you can trap people in their minds or
make them feel what you want them to feel, maybe you can switch places automatically with any
of your paper duplicates. This is normally a combat-focused technique, mostly meaning that
you cant relax and enjoy yourself while using it.
Power. You gain such a power as a miraculous ability, usually something you can use
regularly.
Affliction. Or you gain it as an Affliction that is always on or activates automatically in
certain situations.
Or you may just become generally hardier:
Aspect 5
:5
Youre lost in the dark.
Result: you find your way home, maybe even with some treasure, maybe having left
something good behind
But the experience has changed you.
Youve come out of your time in the dark with something neat:
need this Perk.
Or, youve been purified, exalted, made immortal and transcendent:
Superior Skill. Choose between Superior Immortality 1 or Superior Holiness 1.

Arc 1+:
o +1 to a Superior Immortality or Superior Holiness Perk
Arc 2+:
o Power Up. Increase your inherent Cool, Superior Immortality, or Superior
Holiness by +1, up to the Arc Traits rating. (This is always +1, up to the Arc
Traits rating, and not a number if the Skill or Arc rating goes up, or even
down, the Power Up changes appropriately.)
o Auctoritas. You gain a level 1 Auctoritas protecting you from the Bleak power
of the Outside.
Youve become better at something:
Power Up. Increase an inherent Skill or Bond thats relevant to this Arc by +1. (This is a
modifier and not a number if the inherent Skill or Bond goes up, or even down, the
Power Up changes appropriately.) This can increase Bonds, Shine, Cool, magical Skills,
Superior Skills, and mundane Skills, but only while you keep this Perk.
Reached out to an antagonist:
Power. You gain a limited power to call upon the support of your enemies in some
fashion, or, to duplicate one of their common or signature powers.
Or improved your health and strength:
Affliction. Gain a new Affliction Perk with variable level equal to your (being a) Hero
Issue. This represents the quality in you that brought you back from being lost in the
dark. It expresses itself more and more in you as your Hero Issue and this Afflictions
power rises; after the main story of that Issue ends, though, and the Issue temporarily
reverts to level 0, theres a period where the Perk has no effect.
Perk.
Or did it cost you something?
Affliction. Gain a new Affliction Perk with variable level equal to your Sickness. This
represents the damage done to you by your interlude lost in the dark. As your Sickness
rises, the damage expresses itself more fully; when you resolve the Sickness Issue, the
damage recedes for a little while.
BOX Superior Immortality
Im not giving a full description of this Skill its just a Skill that you can use to do the kinds of
things that being immortal would let you do, with Edge in the kind of contests that being
immortal gives you an edge in.
That said, the levels look something like:
Level 1: Youre good at surviving.

Level 2: Youre terrifyingly tough, though ultimately mortal.
Level 3: You have functional immortality, but the cause is some pretty specific magical,
biological, or technological kind of thing: that is, you have a spell, or a weird body
structure, or redundant backups, or something, that makes you immortal immortal
enough to walk around in tanks of hydrochloric acid or ignore/survive explosions,
anyway but its not good enough to make you actually immune to death if someone
finds a way for you to die.
Level 4: You have theological or fated immortality: youre just not supposed to die.
Level 5: You have logical immortality for some reason, killing you would be
nonsensical, or would require/release infinite energy, or would break the rules of physics
as they are known.
Bear in mind that at all levels an Immortality Skill can be beaten by the unmaking power of the
Bleak Academy or the power of the wishing heart to make the impossible possible in short,
even level 5 Immortality actions might not protect you against damage from miracles.
At levels 1-2 you may wish to think of Superior Immortality as Superior Healing or
Superior Never Seems To Die instead of as actual immortality.
END BOX
Shepherd Arcs
Shepherd Arcs teach you to guard things, guide things, and wake powers in things. Theyre
about taking care of others.
Usually that starts like this:
Quest 1: youre living your ordinary life . . .

and then a new responsibility falls on you out of nowhere.
And one can debate whether the real beginning of the Arc is quest 1 or that moment at its very
end when suddenly everything is different.
After that, anyway, theres
Quest 2: you struggle with stuff.

Quest 3: you face, and conquer, some trouble from your past.
Thats the simplest form of the Arc. After that, your life could slip back to its normal course. Or,
of course, you could go a little further:
Quest 4: you travel strange worlds, fight epic battles, and otherwise face big tests.
Quest 5: youre living a totally awesome, over-the-top life.
This is pretty optimistic stuff; theres generally a lot of annoyance and difficulty in the XP actions
for the quests, but on the whole, these are deeply uplifting Arcs where you get the chance to do
what you love and love what you do. Even when you get dragged down, even when you give up
on the stuff you love, these are the Arcs where that doesnt stick
Where you rise up, inevitably, driven by new ideas or good fortune, and get back to doing
what you care about again.
Shepherd 1
:1
This is the story of your ordinary life the everyday work, stresses, and pleasures that form the
fabric of your days.
Result. A responsibility falls on you out of nowhere.

Did you make a new, or deeper, spiritual connection with something?

Connection. Gain a new level 1 Connection Perk.
Superior Skill. Gain a new level 1 Superior Skill Perk a Superior Affinity, e.g.
Superior Affinity to Birds or Superior Affinity to Winter, connecting you to some
element or portion of the world.
gain +1 to an existing Connection Perk (max 5).
At Arc 2+:
Do you get a little stronger?
Accessory. Youve picked up a cool thing or lifestyle improvement.

Skill. Gain a level 1 mundane Skill Perk.
Arc 2+:
o Power Up. Increase an inherent mundane Skill thats relevant to this Arc by +1,
up to the Arc Traits rating. (This is always +1, up to a maximum of the Arc
rating if the Skill or Arc rating goes up, or even down, the Power Up changes
appropriately.)
o +1 to an existing mundane Skill Perk, up to the Arc Traits rating.
Do you build or create something cool?
Accessory. Youve built something cool.

Its coming along. Youve substantively advanced a project too large to finish
with just this quest alone, and will complete it before the end of your current Arc. Much
like with an Accessory Perk, this Perk protects that progress with your health levels
you can take a wound instead of accepting it if something happens to undo the progress
that youve made.
You can replace this Perk with a different one if the storys direction changes so
thoroughly that this Perks promise (that youll complete the project this Arc) is no
longer sound.
Have you made a given place (say, a shrine, park, or home) a little healthier or happier?
Its like a home to me.: This Perk tracks your work on a given project or place.
1-2x/book, you can invoke it to have the HG describe the environment there this
isnt necessarily more than a few sentences; its just something to evoke that it is still
there and your work still stands.
In addition, you can pick one of the benefits below. You can add other benefits to
this Perk, or allow other players to add their own benefits thereto, with further quests
(and without using a new Perk slot):
o It gains +1 Auctoritas against the influence of the Outside (max 3)

o It gains +1 to the Obstacle for using certain types of magic (e.g., discordant,
hostile and unwholesome, or fire) there (max +3, max 5).
o Being there now gives a +1 Tool bonus (max +1) to
feeling happy
feeling at home/making others feel at home
feeling at peace
taking shelter from your past
getting along with others who live there
connecting to the spiritual world
encouraging dignified, traditional behavior
connecting to people
sleeping well
keeping things clean
purifying things
getting organized
getting comfortable
finding what you need
last-minute saves
overcoming attempts at sabotage or
something else (as appropriate)
o You and the HG agree on some small but cool mundane action that may now be
taken using the Connection to this place as the underlying Skill.
If you dispose of this Perk the benefits will fade over time roughly one quests worth
every four books, barring NPC involvement to sustain them, but really, its up to the HG
and their willingness to track stuff. Alternately, another player who has contributed or
plans to contribute in the near future to this Perk can take it over themselves.
Did you make a new spiritual connection with something?

Power Up. Increase an inherent Connection by +2, up to a maximum of 5.
Gain +1 inherent Connection to something.
(or, if youd really rather) gain +1 to an existing Connection Perk.
Or some element of the world?
Or did you, maybe, learn to see things in new ways?
Power. Gain a miraculous version of Dramatic Vision (pg. XX) a special visual
mode that lets you see highlighted dramatic information about things.
Shepherd 2
:2
Youre having a little trouble keeping your life on an even keel.
Result. Youre doing OK, but theres a big challenge coming up.
Has your work changed you? Bound you to something?

Deepened your Connection to something?

at Arc 2+:
Stretched the limits of your existing magic and knowledge?
need this Perk.
ideally building on and enhancing an existing technique.
Sharpened your senses?
Superior Skill. You have a level 1 Superior Skill Perk representing your sharper senses.
Or given you the chance to make life better for someone else?
Its OK, Im here.: This Perk tracks the support and guidance you give to a
particular NPC. That NPC can use your presence as a +1 Tool for (choose one)
o feeling at home
o feeling safe
o being safe
o feeling at peace
o connecting to the spiritual world
o doing things in the traditional, proper way
o connecting to other people
o sleeping well
o keeping things clean
o being organized
o being comfortable
o being good
o finding what they need or
o something else (as appropriate)
If the NPC has access to you, and hasnt had noticeable problems with those things
lately, you may ask the HG 1/chapter to narrate their receiving the benefits of success
that is, a sentence or two showing the NPC feeling at home, feeling safe, being safe,
feeling at peace, etcetera.
This Perk has an additional benefit when used to support children and pets: you may
use your own Health Levels to protect them from damage. This doesnt mean you can
use your physical health to protect them just, if someone randomly shows up and
dumps them into a volcano, you have the right to use a Health Level to say and now
theyre captive of the volcano spirits! or something instead of their just being dead.
This Perk was created for use with children, but as long as you choose appropriate
benefits it should be fine for use with pets, friends, students, romantic interests, and
allies.
Expand an existing Its OK, Im here. Perk by giving the target:

o another thing you act as a Tool for;
o +1 Auctoritas against the influence of the Outside (max 3);
o +1 to the Obstacle for using hostile magic against them (max +3, max 5)
This does not increase the frequency you can invoke the power or allow you to push that
Tool bonus past +1.
Has your work changed you? Bound you to something?
Affliction. Gain a new Affliction.

A Shared Path
o Increase an existing Bond or Connection Perk by 1, deepening your connection
to someone or something.
o Gain a new level 2-3 mundane Skill Perk, representing something you worked on
or learned or studied together.
Have you gained some feature or quality relating to the things and places youve been working
with?
Superior Skill. Gain a new level 2 Superior Skill Perk.

Power Up. Increase an inherent mundane or Superior Skill thats relevant to this Arc by
+1. (This is a modifier and not a number if the inherent Skill goes up, or even down,
Have your senses sharpened?
Power. Gain a modest sensory ability relating to something youve been taking care of
e.g., improved smell if youve been spending a lot of time with a hunting dog, or a
sense for the depth of water if youve been maintaining a pond.
Shepherd 3
:3
Absolution
Theres something haunting you from the past, but youve got the chance to make it right.
Result. Its the most amazing thing. You do.
Have you grown stronger?
Power Up. Increase an inherent Skill or Bond thats relevant to this Arc by +1, up to the
Arc Traits rating. (This is always +1, up to a maximum of the Arc Traits rating, and
not a number if the Skill or Arc rating goes up, or even down, the Power Up changes
appropriately.) This can increase Shine, Cool, magical Skills, Superior Skills, and
mundane Skills, but only while you keep this Perk.
Accessory. Gain something cool that youd been wanting for a while.
Learned a marvelous secret?
Trust Me. You know something of the pattern of fate and the meaning of the
world. This can give you an insight into whats going on; 1/book, you can ask the HG
for a flash of sourceless, oblique insight about the current problem, and youll receive
something like that within a chapter.
Lightened your heart?
Shine. Gain a level 1 Shine Perk.
Gain 2-3 Recharge Tokens
At Arc 2+:
o Gain +1 to an existing Shine Perk (max 5)
Or evolved into something greater than youd been?
You can rewrite one of your Afflictions
You can rewrite one of your Bonds
You can move 1-2 points between your existing Skills, or to a brand-new mundane or
Superior Skill
Have you taken on a new role as one of the forces that keep the world running? Evolved into
something grander than you were?

Power. You gain a relatively strong defensive, transportation, or insight-related miracle.
Talk to the HG about whats appropriate for the game in terms of power and cost.
Power. Gain an Imperial miracle, probably with a problematic element something
that comes with a job to do, a responsibility.
Become generally stronger?
Perk.
Power Up. Increase a level 2-4 Skill by +1. This can increase Cool, Shine, magical Skills,
Superior Skills, and mundane Skills, but only while you keep this Perk and have an
underlying level 2+ Skill.
+1 to a level 2-4 Skill Perk, including Cool, Shine, Superior, magical, and mundane Skills.
Or lightened the burden on your heart?
HG may require you to do something that reminds you of who you are some
characteristic or affirming activity before this power becomes available again. (That is,
once used, you must wait until a new book and until youve done something identity-
affirming before this power is again available for use.)
BOX Alternate Quest: An Extraordinary Life
:3
This is the story of your extraordinary life the larger-than-life magic, battles, and wonder that
form the fabric of your days.
Result. A chance at greater happiness falls on you out of nowhere.
END BOX
Shepherd 4
:4
Youre facing a big challenge or adventure.
Result. It ends, leaving you battle-hardened or refreshed and, either way, ready to face the
trials of your ordinary life.
Did you pick up something completely unexpected on your adventure?
Bonus. Youve got a devastating move you can pull out of your pocket for doing
something you hardly ever do e.g., a kung fu trick or near-perfect pitching skill for a
scholar, or the ability to shift gears and become a politician for a delinquent. You can
invoke this move 1-2x/book as a +2 Tool for the relevant Skill. In addition to its other
effects, spending a Recharge Token automatically refreshes your available uses of this
bonus.
need this Perk.
Defensive Aura. Pick a more specific special effect. 1/chapter, your presence can shelter
Support Aura. Pick a more specific special effect. 1/chapter, your presence can support
and help the people around you in some fashion. This is an action you take that acts as a
+1 Tool for others taking certain actions. In the event that your presence would already
normally be a Tool to those actions, this improves it by a further +1 (max 3).
Or did you just learn the normal kind of stuff?
Power Up. Increase an inherent Skill or Bond thats relevant to this Arc by +1, up to the
Arc Traits rating. (This is always +1, up to a maximum of the Arc Traits rating, and
not a number if the Skill or Arc rating goes up, or even down, the Power Up changes
appropriately.) This can increase Shine, Cool, magical Skills, Superior Skills, and
Skill. Gain a new level 1-2 mundane Skill Perk
Connection. Gain a new level 1 Connection Perk
at Arc 2+:
o +1 to a mundane Skill Perk, up to the Arc Traits rating
At the miraculous level, the ordinary things youd pick up include stuff like:
Skill or Bond. Gain a new level 2-3 Bond, mundane Skill, Cool, or magical Skill Perk.
Perk.
Or you might learn something off-the-wall:
Power. You can invoke some sort of miraculous aura around yourself, giving a defensive
or support effect to appropriate characters in your vicinity. You could also have an
offensive aura, although thats rarer.
Power. Gain a flexible Imperial power that does stuff you werent ever really looking to
be able to do telepathy if youre kind of a physical person, ownership of Excalibur for
an academic, the ability to make half-plant half-robots, whatever.
Power. you gain an astonishingly powerful Imperial power, but its seasonal (or, if
appropriate, 1/book) and doesnt do stuff you ever really wanted to do. You learn how
to flood Fortitude, or bring back dead gods. You can experiment with this power to try
to find uses for it; thatd be a quest.
Shepherd 5
:5
Youve become a new person a stronger, better person. Isnt it awesome?
Result. You create or do something amazing and revolutionary.
Have you created some wonder?
Accessory. You now possess a potent magical wonder.

Connection. Gain a level 2 Connection Perk to a new/underused Main Character and
one of the following relationships:
o you created them.
o you dazzled them with your work.
o you rescued them or found a way to provide for them, and youre now their
keeper and guardian.
They come into the game as your minion/pet/associate/friend/creation, and not as an

independent actor, although they may stretch their wings and become their own person
in good time.
Do you practically glow with awesome now?

At Arc 2+:
Are you dipping your metaphorical toe in the waters of cosmic power and conflict?
Divine Path.
o Increase an existing Bond Perk to level 5.
o Gain a new Superior Skill Perk at level 2, representing some quality you express
on the cosmic stage.
Have you built a deep and true relationship with someone or something?

+1 to an inherent Connection.
Strengthened your natural virtues?
+1 to an inherent Bond.
Become a better mentor and guardian?
Cheer Them On. 1/book, you can invoke this power to give someone else a recharge
(as if theyd just spent a Recharge Token.) The HG may require you to weather a trial of
some sort before this power becomes available again. (That is, once used, you must wait
until a new book and until youve faced some trial yourself before this power is again
available for use.)
Or have you just created something amazing, and thats all?

Emptiness Arcs
Emptiness Arcs draw on the bleak, lifeless power of the far Outside and sometimes on the
more vivid chaos of the near.
Theyre generally character and setting pieces
While stuff does happen in them, and you do change and grow during them, the change is
handled delicately; the focus of the story is a slice of life exploration of the basic status quo. That
means something like:
Quest 1 explores how you live with what you are.

Quest 2 explores your obsession with some person or problem
Quest 3 puts you in an impossible situation and watches as you crack under the strain.
Sometimes youll follow this with:
Quest 4, where you face a brooding presence of the unnatural; and maybe
Quest 5, where you find answers or reach closure on something.
Emptiness Arcs assume that there is something wrong with you or the world around you.
Theres something hollow, alien, broken, or twisted. Youre corrupt, or sick, or you have this
damage or trauma in you that you cant ever completely fix.
It doesnt have to be an objectively bad thing.
It doesnt even have to be a subjectively bad thing it will always be there, for you, with you,
but it doesnt have to haunt you. You can get past it. But its the thing that means that sometimes,
no matter how many years go by, your friends or family or lover or whatever will wake up to find
you sitting on the edge of something, unable to sleep, staring out at the world, because there is
this thing that hurts and you dont know how to completely heal.
This is your Arcs Curse.

Emptiness 1
:1
This quest is about the daily routine of living with the chaotic, evil, alien, or Outside-touched
elements of your life. It may also touch on the lives of others in similar situations. A big focus on
clothing, mealtimes, and having philosophical discussions while sitting on the edge of a cliff is
common.
Result. You make a change in your life.
Maybe your commitment to that forthcoming change is really strong?
Bond. Gain a level 1 Bond Perk reflecting that change in your life.
At Arc 2+:
o Variable Bond. Gain a Bond Perk with variable level equal to your (in) Over
your Head Issue. The more you get out there in the world and do stuff, the more
powerful this Bond becomes; after you finish a big adventure, though, and the
Issue resolves, you might slack a bit on this side of yourself.
Maybe youve broken through into a new way of approaching your life?
need this Perk.
Magical Technique. Youve learned a new way to solve your daily problems. This is a
level 1-2 Obstacle magical technique for one of your magical Skills.
Maybe youve demonstrated that youre pretty cool, but also a little bit detached and alien?
Superior Skill. Gain Superior Inscrutability 1 as a Perk.

Connection. Gain a level 1 Connection Perk to someone youve been talking to about
all this stuff.
At Arc 1+:
o Limitless. Youve demonstrated an undying will. 1/book, you may escalate
your defense against an environment or category of attacks up to the level of a
miraculous action. This lasts while you sustain the relevant Intention.
Maybe youve strengthened or found new uses for your already-extant weirdness?
Bonus. You can draw upon your alien/unusual nature to succeed at ordinary life.
1/chapter, when taking an action you have a level 2+ Skill in, you may spend 1 MP and
use your inherent weirdness as a +2 Tool.
Bonus. Something in you hungers. 1/chapter, this Perk acts as a +1 Tool for sensing
when theres something that can feed or soothe that hunger.
Bonus. Your Curse is a little bit infectious sometimes. 1-2x/book, this Perk acts as a +2
Tool for sharing your melancholy, corruption, flu, or whatever, with someone else. In
addition to its other effects, spending a Recharge Token automatically refreshes your
available uses of this power.
Bonus. Theres a touch of strange fate on you a thing youre meant to do or be.
(Name it.) 1/book, you may invoke this Perk as a +3 Tool for achieving something
important to (or at least related to) that fate.
At Arc 1+:
Did you learn something new?
Magical Skill. Gain a level 2 Magical Skill relevant to your experiences with this Arc.
Power. Gain a subtle power for deceiving others about your intentions e.g.,
something that waives the normal rule that emotes must be honest 1/chapter (and you
dont have to declare when you use it), or a low-level Auctoritas against being seen
through by others, or a power that lets you hide your feelings even from yourself.
Is your new path strengthening you?

+1 to an existing Bond Perk
Do you gain new powers related to your Curse?
Power. Spend an MP to infect something near you with some element of your Curse.
Power. You can sense something that can feed or help you.
Power. Gain a defensive power, comparable to Weathered (pg. XX).
Emptiness 2
:2
Theres something you cant stop thinking about it absorbs your thoughts, it obsesses you, its
sucking you into the abyss of its enigmas, emptiness, and strangeness.
Outcome. Your ordinary life stops feeling safe/normal/OK to you.

Have you learned to crystallize the Curse inside you into a power?
Rewrite one of your Bonds or Afflictions to suit.

Superior Skill. Gain a new level 1 Superior Skill Perk reflecting your unnatural qualities.
Trick. Youve learned a bizarre new application for an existing Skill. Sufficient practice
will establish this as something that the Skill actually does, at which point you will no
longer need this Perk.
Bonus. Your power tempts you to do wicked things. 1/chapter, this Perk acts as a +1
bonus for (choose one):
o . . . manipulating people?
o . . . tempting others into your vice?
o . . . spying on people?
o . . . finding someones weakness?
o . . . taking something from others?
o or something else of that sort?
Bonus. Or is your power simply to destroy? 1-2x/book, this Perk acts as a +2 bonus for
breaking, crushing, smashing, or otherwise ruining physical or emotional targets. In
addition to its other effects, spending a Recharge Token automatically refreshes your
available uses of this power.
This stuff just happens. 1/book, when taking unopposed action, you may invoke
this power as a level 6 Intention. Opposition from a level 2+ Intention73 causes this
power to automatically fail, but also refreshes its use.
Have you learned more about chaos and the Outside than youd really wanted to know?
Connection. You know the ways of the Bleak Academy (or a similarly fearsome enemy
with a connection to your alien nature.) Gain a level 1-2 Connection Perk thereto.
+1 to that Connection (max 5).
73
Level 1- Intentions might not necessarily affect the outside world at all, so Im not letting them disrupt your
groove.
After a wound, or simply becoming brittler, have you constructed better defenses against the
world?
Shelter. Home isnt safe enough; you retreat to somewhere else or somewhere specific
within. This Perk is a Superior Skill 1 that grants you access to the place you consider to
be your shelter, protects you while inside it, and makes it harder for trouble to follow you
home.
Bonus. Youve learned to shrug off the occasional bit of nastiness. 1/chapter, this Perk
acts as a +1 Tool for defending yourself against social or emotional attacks.
At Arc 1+:
o +1 to an existing Cool Perk.
Have you learned some of the secrets of the worlds enemies (or your own?)
Power. Gain a miraculous or Imperial power that in some fashion lets you spy on or tells
you the secrets of the Outside and the Bleak Academy, or some other relevant and
probably malign force.
Gotten stronger and more alien?
An Alien Strength.
o Gain a new level 1-2 Skill or Superior Skill Perk youve changed;
o . . . but that change fits together with the person you already were. Gain +1 to an
existing Skill or Superior Skill Perk.
Have you learned to crystallize the curse inside you into a power?
Affliction. Gain a new, uncomfortable but practical Affliction.

Bond. Gain a level 4 Bond Perk representing your vice, weakness, or frailty.
Power. Gain a miraculous power that, while in itself completely under your control,
tempts you by the very fact that you have it to do wicked things that youd rather not do.
(E.g., mind/emotion control, the ability to inflict bad luck, or anything that makes your
personal issues worse, such as invisibility or telepathy for the kinds of characters whod
abuse them.)
Power. A power to exaggerate or alleviate something like your curse in others.
Emptiness 3
:3
Youre trying to cope with an impossible situation. This quest spends a lot of time on your
emotional state, your memories, and your history as you do.
Result. You remember something important that youd forgotten, and make a decision on
how to deal with it.
This quest often changes or marks you in little ways . . .

you rename and adjust a Skill, or move a point from one inherent Skill to another
Or big ones:
Apotheosis. 1/book, you can draw on the power of the mark or change this quest made
in you as a +3 Tool for anything appropriate. You may define this Perk in such a way
that almost anything is appropriate, or hew closer to a specific title or power, as you and
reason prefer.
Arc 2+:
o +1 to an appropriate Bond Perk or Superior Skill Perk, up to the Arc Traits
rating.
Or gives you a deeper Connection to someone:
Connection. Gain a level 1-2 Connection Perk to someone your memories have been
lingering on.
+1 to such a Connection Perk
Or the quest teaches you something strange:
Starting at Arc 1 this quest might open up a new magical Skill tied to the Arc something tricky
and unnatural drawing on the power of your Curse and the Outside.
At Arc 1+:
At Arc 2+:
Often youll find yourself changed or strengthened:

Power Up. Increase an inherent Skill or Bond thats relevant to this Arc by +1. (To a
maximum of 5.) This can increase Shine, Cool, magical Skills, Superior Skills, and
Magicians Path
+1 to an existing Skill or Bond Perk.
Or youll suddenly see something about someone else that youd never expected:
Power Up. This Perk sets one of your existing Connections (whether Perk or inherent)
to level 4.
Or youll learn a strange new power:
Power. You may transform yourself into something else, gaining access to a small
number of special abilities while in that form.
Power. You gain access to a powerful curse e.g. De Solis Solidera, which is a set of
words I have just now strung together out of nowhere that probably means something
like of the frozen sun or of the suns soldier or the soul is flowing time, made still
that functions as a deus ex machina of a sort. When you first use it, its an Imperial
miracle with a very specific application, but you can spend Recharge Tokens to develop
and broaden its power over time.
If your Arc Curse is a magical curse, the two curses are probably related; if your Arc
Curse is despair or poisoned, they may or may not actually relate.
Superior Skill or Power. Youve learned a peculiar adaptation a way to use a
mundane Skill to command one of the elements of the world. This often manifests as a
level 2-3 Superior Skill Perk that lets you do something like Cooking meals that speed or
slow time as theyre consumed or as a miraculous power to manipulate some element,
based on a power from a miraculous Otherworldly Arc (e.g., something based on Spirit
Boost on pg. XX, with costs based on your current Emptiness Arc level), but adding a
mundane action requirement to its MP cost.
Emptiness 4
:4
You deal directly with something unnatural pacifying it, taming it, or maybe struggling and
losing against it.
Reward. You find the key to the world something mysterious but which seems to
hold the key to making your life, or the things around you, have more value to you.
Again this quest often changes or marks you in little ways.

you rename and adjust a Skill, or move a point from one inherent Skill to another
Finding the key can be internal and psychological, but often its kind of a big (objective) deal:
events.
Support Aura: Because you found the key to the world, your presence can support and
help the people around you in some fashion. (Pick a more specific special effect.)
1/chapter, you can take an action to invoke this Perk and it will act as a +1 Tool for
others doing whatever this aura supports. In the event that your presence would already
normally be a Tool to those actions, this improves it by a further +1 (max +3).
Even if its not a physical thing, or even if you give it up later on, you might seem more glorious
than you were:

At Arc 2+:
o Auctoritas. Gain a level 1 Auctoritas protecting you against the bleak power of
the Outside.
o +1 to an existing Shine Perk, up to the Arc Traits rating.
At Arc 4+:
o Defensive Aura: 1/chapter, you may share your Auctoritas against the bleak
power of the Outside with people and things that are near you.
This may just provide a relatively simple power up:

Perk.
Or it may establish you as something terrifying to reckon with:
Power. You gain a nasty power costing either 2 or 4 MP for a standard use and giving
you a truly absurd effect you can unwind time, bind everyone around you into being
puppets to your will, or something like that. This is generally built as an Imperial Miracle
or as an Affliction that you can turn on and off.
Power. You have access to an aura of unholy glory a Major Miracle that can
intimidate or awe the people around you. Pick an emotion that you can inflict on people.
The aura itself is usually a 1/chapter power, usable more often for 1-2 MP, but if youre
aiming for something particularly flexible (e.g. targeting individuals in crowds or
emotions like I want to please this awesome person with this aura) it may have a
standard use of 1/book instead.
Accessory. You gain access to a place or item of vast power, which you can deplete
seasonally by pulling a vast power out of it. This power is an Imperial miracle you can
invoke 1/book, or at other times for a cost of 4 MP; you may train or shape the
power to a new form, changing what this power actually does, with 3-10 chapters of prep
work and mundane actions.
Emptiness 5
:5
Solutions
You find out what to do, moving forward.
Reward. You gain a sense of completion.
The simplest way to reward yourself for this quest is to directly change your character:

Bond. Gain a level 1 Bond Perk representing your characters new equilibrium.
Arc 2+:
o +1 to a Bond Perk representing that equilibrium, up to the Arc Traits rating.
Often, though, youve changed in intangible ways possibly too subtle to express even with a
Bond. This might manifest in the game as:
Connection. Youve earned a level 2 Connection Perk to a new/underused Main

Character, who admires you for who youve become.
At Arc 2+:
o Ill be OK. This is a level 2 Connection Perk to whatever life youre living.
You can change what kind of lifestyle that refers to 1/book.
o Lighter Heart. 1/book, you can invoke this power as if it were a Recharge
Token. The HG may decide that this power comes from some element of your
everyday life and require you to indulge in that for a while before this power
becomes available again (that is, once used, you must wait until a new book and
until youve spent enough time doing your everyday thing before this power is
once again available for use.)
Or maybe the change in you is pretty darn tangible maybe the closure or answers that youve
found have resulted in your totally becoming a creature of the Outside or the Bleak Academy.
Superior Skill. Choose between Superior Immortality 1 (pg. XX) or Superior Dreamer
1.
Arc 1+:
o +1 to a Superior Immortality or Superior Dreamer Perk
Arc 2+:
o Power Up. Increase your inherent Shine, Superior Immortality, or Superior
Dreamer by +1, up to the Arc Traits rating. (This is always +1, up to a
maximum of the Arc rating if the Skill or Arc rating goes up, or even down,
Is there an ability you no longer need?
Swap
o Ditch a level 1-3 magical or Superior Skill, replace it with a new magical or
Superior Skill of comparable level, and
o Take a new Power Up Perk that raises that Skill to level 4-5.
Skill at the same level without using a Perk.
Have you grown stronger?
Power. You gain a new, flexible Imperial power.

Or gained the power to escape your circumstances?
Affliction. Gain a powerful new Affliction.

Connection. Gain a level 2 Connection Perk to, and the loyalty of, a new/underused
Main Character.
Power. You gain a potent miraculous transportation power, comparable to Appear (pg.
XX)
BOX Alternate Quest: Answers
:5
You tackle a mystery thats been bugging you for a long time something where not knowing has
been driving your character Arc and hurting you. Its often a social or emotional thing, or a
senseless crime, but it could also be a scientific mystery.
Reward. You find the answers that you needed.
END BOX
Mystic Arcs
Mystic Arcs take you outside of yourself; you give yourself into the keeping of, and walk in
the footsteps of, higher powers.
They typically start like this:
Quest 1 is a confused and ominous time its in the shadow of events to come . . .
. . . and then there is a miracle.
I think of that time as like a river seen through glass. Its full of motion and darkness and there is
beauty in it but you cant see where its going until youre there.
Once the miracle strikes, youre bound to some Principle youre giving yourself into the
service of Love, or Justice, or Protection, or whatever. The Arc then continues like so:
Quest 2 showcases a tempter, someone who wants to lure you from the path.
Quest 3 is a rough, scary time of your life. Everything is confusion.
And maybe you need another quest or two to finish things out:
Quest 4 is about you falling off that path, falling into darkness.
Quest 5 is about your creation of a new miracle yourself.
This is a pretty bleak Arc in its quest descriptions but you shouldnt think of it like that. The
thing about all of this is that hope and miracles are a constant, thrumming presence in this Arc.
There are good things all around you in this Arc, waiting for you to accept them, waiting for you
to need them, waiting for you to make them or whatever, I dont know. The point is, this isnt an
Arc about despair.
Its an Arc about how terrifying the world and miracles can be; and thats intended to make
the things that sustain you matter all the more.
I dont know what respite or solace you will get when you are on this path; but if you are on
this path, then it will make you greater by the presence of the things you have faith in and the
powers that you serve, and so that respite and that solace must somehow and eventually be
enough.
Thats all I can give you in game mechanics. That it must eventually, somehow, be enough.
Anything more wouldnt be faith, or hope, or strength; itd only be causality.

Mystic 1
:1
This quest is built of portents. You know something is coming. You can feel that something is
coming.
The person youve been . . . is going to have to die. And something new, be born.
Result. You are confronted by a miracle.
Does the passing touch of the miracle change you?
Rewrite an Affliction or Bond.

need this Perk.
Do you emerge from these struggles with something that can lift you up, transport you, or
shelter you from the storms?
Accessory. You gain access to an unusual vehicle.

Accessory. You gain access to a useful, often lightly magical, tool for self-defense.
Accessory. You gain access to an unusual, but loyal, servant.
Magical Technique. Gain a new Obstacle 1-3 technique associated with one of your
magical Skills something for self-protection, summoning an ally, or traveling about.
The passing touch of a miracle often changes you:

Bond. Gain a level 1 Bond Perk related to the miracle or events.
Gain +1 to such a Bond Perk.
Or leaves you in possession of an ally or item with a useful ability, often related to transporting
or protecting you:
Accessory. Gain such a magical item or ally.

Mystic 2
:2
Youre courted and tempted by your opposite number by someone whos playing in the
same basic cosmology you are, but for the other team.
Someone with a decent pitch, too
If youre fighting for Love, for instance, then you wont get a growly enemy dude who fights
for Hate and sticks to cause Hate is awesome as their argument. Youll get someone awesome
and seductive who happens to stand for Hate; or someone clever enough to make a good play to
get you to hate someone; or, most likely of all, youll face off against Science, Reason, Duty,
Dispassion, or Will and not against Hate at all.
Result. Your life falls apart. Youre betrayed by something you had faith in or youre
abandoned by your own side in some fashion. Your spiritual pleas go unanswered.
Have you built a deeper connection to your enemies?
Foe Yay: Pick an enemy, rival, or antagonist. When they are cooperating with you,
this Perk acts as a +1 Tool. If you ever become friends or colleagues, however grudging,
this Perk reverts to a Bonus, and you may thereafter only use it 1/chapter.
They Know Your Scent. Its not perfect but your opposite number will tend not to
get out of control and hurt people you care about 1/chapter, when the HG describes
your opposite number doing something cruel to someone you care about, you can
propose that they either hesitate out of courtesy or develop a matching interest (a desire
to have your friends, family, etc. as friends, family, &c. of their own), instead. The HG
can accept or reject your idea, but has to take a moment to consider it first.
I Know How They Think. You have a pretty deep insight into how your
opposite number operates. 1/chapter, you can ask the HG for a hint about what your
opposite number is thinking, or, conversely, have an imagination spot where your
adversary gives what their honest advice would be in a situation like this.
Connection. Gain a level 1-2 Connection Perk to your opposite number.
+1 to such a Connection (max 5).
Or become something a little different yourself?
need this Perk.
Superior Skill. Gain a level 1 Superior Skill associated with your faith.
Rewrite an Affliction or Bond.
At Arc 2+:
o +1 to an existing Shine Perk, up to the Arc Traits rating.
Have you built a deeper connection to your enemies?
Connection. Gain a level 3 Connection to your opposite number.

Power. Gain a copy or reversed version of one of the powers that theyve shown
themselves to possess, at an effectiveness appropriate to your current Arc Trait.
+1 to an appropriate Connection Perk.
Given yourself over to the hand of the divine?

Power. You gain access to a powerful technique, alternate form, or living weapon that
functions as a deus ex machina of a sort. When you first use it, its an Imperial miracle with
a very specific application, but you can spend Recharge Tokens to develop and broaden
its power over time.
Or is the glory that accumulates your own?

Mystic 3
:3
Your lifes a mess, and youre not sure what to make of things, but over the course of this quest
you hammer out a plan for moving forward.
For putting together a new life. A new purpose. A new plan.
Result. Your plan falls apart. Things get confused and out-of-control and the whole affair
sort of ends with you feeling carried along by events. You might get to do something awesome,
but it doesnt feel like you had much of a chance to be consciously decisive in how it all played
out.
Youll usually emerge from this quest with a new, holy power basically, something that
sustained you or saved you when you lost control of events. This is often an aura:
Support Aura: Pick a more specific special effect. 1/chapter, your presence can support
and help the people around you in some fashion. This is an action you take that acts as a
+1 Tool for others taking certain actions. In the event that your presence would already
normally be a Tool to those actions, this improves it by a further +1 (max 3).
or feeling at ease.
A mildly supernatural power:
Bonus. 1/chapter, this Perk acts as a +1 Tool that represents (choose one) . . .
o a surge of strength;
o a healing, calming light;
o a will to rebuke or exorcise the wicked;
o a kindness that can help people move past their guilt;
o a power to grant peaceful sleep.
Superior Skill. Or, gain a level 1 Superior Skill Perk for something of that sort.
Luck. 1-2x/book, you can invoke this power for a bit of good luck. It doesnt always
work, but the HG must always take a moment to consider the possibility that good luck
will strike. In addition to its other effects, spending a Recharge Token automatically
Or a more generic holiness:
Superior Skill. Gain a level 1 Superior Holiness Perk.

At Arc 2+:
o +1 to your Superior Holiness, up to a maximum of the Arc Traits rating.
You may also get through things on your own strength:
need this Perk.
At Arc 2+:
o Variable Bond or Skill. Gain a Bond or Skill with variable level equal to your It
Never Stops! Issue. The tougher things get, the stronger you become.
At Arc 3+:
Note that Superior Holiness gets weird at level 4-5; Im giving you the option, but I dont
actually recommend taking it that high.
Did some higher power reach down to save you, blessing you with a new power, in the end?
Power. Gain a power that symbolizes holiness in some fashion

o an aura of fire or glory or light
o access to vast strength
o the power to heal
o the power to rebuke or exorcise the wicked
o a sword that can cut the guilt or sadness from someone without hurting their
flesh
o the ability to shield yourself and someone else
o the ability to grant peaceful sleep
Power Up. One of your existing mundane Skills improves to level 4-5 while you have
this Perk.
Or did you make it on your own?
Power. Gain a power related to luck or survival in some fashion.
Variable Bond or Skill. Gain a Bond, Skill, or Superior Skill with variable level equal to
your It Never Stops! Issue. The tougher things get, the stronger you become.
Mystic 4
:4
Theres a hole in the world. Or at least a hole in the way your life is put together. Its partly
psychological but its symbolized by a very real monster, trap, curse, demon, or miraculous
effect.
Result. You manage to suppress it with the help of your family and friends. Or, if youre
completely cut off from all of those, by the intervention of a higher power or an unexpected
friend.
. . . Its probably not a permanent solution.
Are you clawing your way up towards the realms of great and holy things, even as your life falls
apart at the edges?
Glory. 1-2x/book, you may take on a subtle glory and increase your Shine to 4. This
is an action you must sustain for its effect. This power refreshes automatically when you
spend a Recharge Token.
Apotheosis. 1/book, you can take on your full glory and power and use this Perk as a
+3 Tool for anything appropriate. You may define this Perk in such a way that almost
anything is appropriate, or hew closer to a specific title or power, as you and reason
prefer.
Arc 2+:
o Power Up. Increase an inherent Skill or Bond thats relevant to this Arc by +1,
up to the Arc Traits rating. (This is always +1, up to a maximum of the Arc
Traits rating, and not a number if the Skill or Arc rating goes up, or even
down, the Power Up changes appropriately.) This can increase Shine, Cool,
magical Skills, Superior Skills, and mundane Skills, but only while you keep this
Perk.
Or maybe youve just gotten a little cooler?
Arc 1+:
Youre losing yourself in it sometimes its hard not to drown in it, sometimes but when
you are at your best, perhaps you can act as a conscious medium and expression for some holy
force: enlightened, exalted, as if everything has become easy
you can handle the details differently each time.
HG may require you to spend some time meditating on and practicing holy things (or
whatever fits your Arc) before the power becomes available again (that is, once used, you
must wait until a new book and until youve done something redemptive again before this
power is again available for use.)
Or perhaps you gain an invincible, undying strength?
BOX Alternate Quest: Things are OK
:4
Trouble? Whatever. Awful trouble? Whatever! Youre going to stay happy and optimistic.
Ganbatte!
Outcome. You get a shattering piece of news. Your efforts fall to pieces in your hands.
This probably means that you or somebody you care about is dying.
END BOX
Mystic 5
:5
This is your struggle to live as a better person; to be a blessing unto others, in spite of everything.
To be the light of a miracle.
To make things right.
Result. Unknown. Call it a canon flexpoint if youre ever going to find out that it was all
worth it, or all for nothing, its at the end of this quest. If youre ever going to find out that your
faith has value, or that it was all a lie . . . its at the end of this quest. Therell be some campaigns
where which onell happen is obvious, but others where it might surprise you!
Has your success changed the world forever?
events.
Earned you a boon companion?
Connection. Youve earned the loyalty of a new/underused Main Character, and a level
2 Connection Perk thereto.
Made you a little bit epic?
Dramatic Survival. Gain a single Divine Health Level. Once wounded, this can
never heal until such time as you have access to miraculous Arcs.
Dramatic Travel. Youre a little stylized. 1/chapter, you can waive a level 1-2
Obstacle between you and getting somewhere where something interesting is happening.
Given you a certain je ne sais quoi?

At Arc 1+:
o +1 to an existing Shine Perk
Or just changed you into something else?
You may rewrite one of your Afflictions

You may rewrite one of your Bonds
You can take your inherent Skill points spent on mundane Skills and Superior Skills and
re-divide them between (new or old) mundane Skills, Superior Skills, and Shine.
Have you become something numinous and divine? One of the axes or axioms of the world?
Power. Gain an extremely flexible Imperial power.

New Form
and Shine.
o you also receive 1-3 power-up Perks, each adding +1 to one of your new
Superior Skills.
Affliction. Alternately, transfigure into something new and gain an Affliction to
represent that new form (e.g. Affliction: I have become the Queen of Fire.)
Have you found yourself in control of a precious resource?

Loyalty. Gain the loyalty of a new/underused Main Character, as:
o a new level 2 Connection Perk;
o a new level 2 Bond Perk; or
o +1 to an existing Connection or Bond of that sort.
Or have you transcended a normal feature of the mortal condition?
Power. Gain an extremely useful transportation or defensive power something that

boils down to of course I can show up there/of course that cant hurt me.
Swap
o Ditch a level 1-3 magical or Superior Skill, replace it with a new magical or
Superior Skill of comparable level, and
o Take a new Power Up Perk that raises that Skill to level 4-5.
Skill at the same level without using a Perk.
Chibi-Quests
a rules concept
A handful of quests dont really fit into the Arc structure
Theyre marked with the generic logo
instead of an Arc; theyre always or almost always side quests; as a rule, youll need 15 XP if
you want to finish one, and youll earn a different kind of reward.
Projects
Chibi-quests are the way Chuubos Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine handles stuff that
youre doing for instrumental or temporary effects
Stuff that youre putting energy and time into that wont, on its own, have long-term effect.
For instance, if you pick up a part-time job at a grocery, youll definitely get some Skill in
doing stuff there, and if you were already financially OK, youll pick up some financial leverage
but if you quit, and look at your character sheet and your life, youre not going to see a major
change in circumstances or one of your tiny handful of Skill points invested in being a grocer.
If you clean up and get really organized; if you set up a formal partnership to get a business
off the ground; if you do a ton of studying for an impending test
Whatever.
Thats all good stuff to do, and it all has impact, but if it matters at all a year from now, it
wont be for itself but for what it allowed you to do. A chibi-quest like this is usually an any-time
quest with the same color as your Advancement Arc; it will cost 15 XP; and it will have one of
four possible rewards:
a temporary level 2 Skill.

a temporary +1 Tool bonus on appropriate things.
(if it happens to be better) a temporary, Arc-appropriate Perk. or
youre healing a little faster from an ongoing wound (pg. XX) it drops a level in
severity. A 35-XP chibi-quest can heal the wound outright.
You keep a quest like this active after finishing it, as one of your four possible quests, and you
keep the reward for as long as you do.
Characterization
Characters often have a 15-XP side quest that they stay on for multiple stories or rather, as
soon as they finish it, they start it again.
This is called your characters basic quest.
For instance, one of Towns Main Characters, the Wishing Boy, defaults to having a quest
to just . . . have fun with friends and make precious memories. This hunger is never completely
satisfied it just earns a reward every 15 XP.
A quest like this does a couple of things for you.
First, it gives something to think about when youre not able or willing to actively move
forward on the big plots in your life. If youre someone like the Wishing Boy, for instance, and
you dont know what you should be doing, you can look at that quest and itll tell you: relax, set
the rest aside, and have some fun with your friends.
Another thing a basic quest does for you is give you a little progress meter that runs even
when youre not doing anything important at all. Just playing your character and ignoring the
quest should still get you 1-3 bonus XP for it a session; eventually, your character will grow from
the quest no matter what you do.
If you play a lot of tennis, that could be a basic quest for you. Or if you spend a lot of time
looking after your cats. Rinley Yatskayas basic quest is telling and listening to stories; Miramie
Mesmers basic quest is feeling aggravated and under siege.
For me it seems to be writing fantasy & SF & RPG stuff. I was writing when I was 9. I was
more into bad poetry and bad comics when I was younger than that, but it was still basically the
same. I was writing when I was starving and I was writing when I was successful and I was
writing when I should have been doing other things. Ive made friends by writing and Ive lost
them by writing. I met Excrucians and Powers, I came to Town and hung out with rats and
magic, I saw the sun rise over Grayvale and I ate manna from the tree, and still Im writing!
It hasnt changed.
Its my chibi-quest!
But maybe Im being too kind to myself. Maybe the thing I do is actually freaking out
unnecessarily. Or being overwhelmed by ambient sound. Or making random, goofy connections
between unrelated concepts. Or never quite making it to things going well, but never quite having
them fall apart on me either with any finality. Maybe its even something bitter, like not doing all
the things that Im not doing because I put my energy into writing instead. Or maybe its
something uplifting, like, maybe I actually get to make people feel happy in my company or with
my words often enough that it could count as a thing, as the thing, that I chibi-do.
What is it for you in real life, do you think?
Whats the thing your character does?
The standard reward for a basic quest is a Recharge Token a precious memory or
keepsake that you can call upon exactly once in the middle of a chapter to refresh your Will and
wish power (MP) to full. There are also miscellaneous other things in the game that you might
be able to use a Recharge Token for mostly, and this is kind of me cheating, things Id like to
charge you some XP for but also allow you to do on the fly, like expanding the use of a deus ex
machina power (see pg. XX or pg. XX74).
74
[[ NOTE TO SELF, NOT A REAL FOOTNOTE!!!!!!!! These links go to De Solis Solidera and the quest miracles for
System. ]]
Mortal Arcs
a rules concept
For a mortal PC, level 0 Arcs come with the following benefits:
a level 2 Bond
an Affliction tied to the Arc Traits rating and
a level 0 Arc Trait, which isnt inherently useful but can become so later on.
Each completed Arc gives a mortal character:
+1 to the Arc Trait

+1 Skill Point to an existing Skill, +1 to an existing Bond, or a new level 1 Bond
a new level 1 Skill, and
you can optionally move a point from an existing Skill into the new Skill.
The first Arc usually takes 100 XP to complete; after that, the HG should set the target based on
the advancement rate they or the group as a whole would like.
If you reach Arc level 3, youll also get a new Affliction tied to that Arc.
BOX Character Growth for NPCs
I dont want to give the impression that the PCs are normative.
The rule is that an NPC has whatever abilities the HG thinks that they ought but the
normative expectation is that an ordinary person gains a single Skill or Bond point per Arc, doesnt
get any free Bonds, and has no access at all to Afflictions. Nor do they accumulate the benefits
they do get indefinitely major transition points in their life (such as puberty, graduation, and
meeting the PCs for the first time) effectively start a new campaign for them, refactoring their
character sheet back down towards 8 points of Skills, a possible Bond, and 0-2 Perks.
Even in a mortal game, in short, PCs and the other Main Characters will tend to start
stronger and grow faster than the NPCs around them.
END BOX
BOX Miraculous Rewards for Mundane Quests
Talk to your group and HG about it; if theyre OK with it, you may be able to sacrifice the
Skill/Bond part of a mundane Arcs rewards for a small miraculous ability like Well-Liked (on
pg. XX) or Octopus Singer (pg. XX).
END BOX
Miraculous Arcs
a rules concept
At the miraculous level there is more distinction between the Arcs; each has a power uniquely its
own.
Ill give you one example for each of the eight colors below, plus a few extras
All of them fairly generic, soas to allow you but not to expect you to create your own.
Quest Miracles
a rules concept
Characters with established miraculous Arcs gain access to a new range of possible chibi-quests
and projects. These are the quest miracles: 15-XP or occasionally slightly-more-than-15-XP
side quests with the color and the flavor of their Arcs.
These are slow miracles, miracles of effort, miracles wrought by work, despair, and dreaming
over a good length of time. Not the kind of thing that youd do in miraculous combat, not the
kind of thing you can do just by pointing at the sky, at the sea, at some mountain, and yelling,
Bam!
but the kind of thing that youd use if you wanted to cart a mountain away a pebble at a
time, only, planning to finish it in weeks or months or labor instead of the great slow aeons.
These are the powers youd use to build a bridge to Heaven brick by brick, or summon rain by
consciously gathering up the clouds, or find a path through thought and effort by which to send
a lost spirit to its home.
A great work like this is usually piggybacked on an any-time quest: when youve flipped your
sign, or said your catchphrase, or gone over the top, or whatever, 15 times, the miracle self-
invokes.
Youll pick up your options for quest miracles like this from your Arcs.
Each color of miraculous Arc, at each level, offers a possibility or two for quest miracles,
and youll retain access to the earlier levels quest miracles if youd like. A few miraculous Arcs,
like the Knight Arc Reality Syndrome (pg. XX), have specific additional options of their
own. The options Im going to list here arent actually the end-all and be-all of your options,
either way: you can always negotiate with the HG to do something miraculous that your
character ought to be able to do, or at least attempt, and unless the HG disagrees strongly
about its possibility in the world you can probably get it done with a sufficiently expensive
quest. If youre willing to go all the way to 50-60 XP, you can probably earn both the effect and
an appropriate advancement along the course of your Arc!
You dont have to stay on the Arc to have access to its quest miracles once youve,
e.g., hit Arc Trait 1 on a Storyteller Arc, you can always do the appropriate quests.
Quest Miracles and MP
If youre questing for a miraculous action, it wont generally have an additional MP cost. The
quest itself pays the price, and its invoked automatically at the end of a short-term quest.
Quest Miracles, Conflict, and Strike
Unlike most quests, you dont have to put away the quest card when you complete a quest
miracle although the HG is within their rights to insist on your doing so at the end of an IC
season or an OOC book.
Instead, on completion, the miracle is sustained for as long as you keep it an active quest.
You dont need a separate action to invoke or sustain it and you can add Strike to it later on
if youve encountered unexpected opposition or an Auctoritas.
The Deeds of the Binder
Bindings
Quest miracles for a Bindings Arc are usually Paradigmatic (pg. XX) any-time quests.
Arc 0-1
Quest miracles at this level focus on imbuing some of yourself, or some of some occult power,
into an object, person, or thing. This is typically well-controlled while the quest miracle is
sustained and then fades into the HGs hands thereafter
Not necessarily becoming completely uncontrolled, or even less effective, or anything, just
that it can if the HG wants it to.
Arc 2
Quest miracles at this level focus on summoning out some larger power from one of the things
you have bound often opening a gate or portal or transforming a place in some eldritch way.
If you want to create a new artifact a wonder of magic or science you can generally do
so, from this point forward, with a 45-XP quest. In addition to creating the artifact itself this acts
as a quest miracle to unleash that larger power.
See Glass Magic, on pg. XX, for an example of how this kind of thing might work.
Arc 3
Quest miracles at this level focus on conjuring servants, reshaping regions, and constructing
fortresses; the results are usually chillingly effective while the miracle is sustained (or when you
invoke a follow-up miracle) and quirky/idiosyncratic/mildly rebellious otherwise.
Arc 4
Quest miracles at this level are massive ritual attacks on your enemies youll chain them, bind
them, destroy them, or transform them, although if they have Health Levels or the HG treats
them as having Health Levels then they may negotiate a mitigation of the effects.
Arc 5
Quest miracles at this level tend to focus on reshaping the entire cosmos and setting new
principles for it; this is sadly a slower and more expensive process than the typical quest miracle,
possibly costing 35 or more XP, and to some extent its very open-endedness makes it more
vulnerable to the HGs choices about what to allow, but the end result is still pretty good.
Knight Path Miracles
Knight
A miraculous Knight Arc is typically going to feature:
at least one Truth something definite and certain about you;

a Failing something that is holding you back; and
a Role something that you will aspire to.
Quest miracles are usually Struggles (pg. XX) built around these three ideas.
Arc 0-1
Your quest miracles generally involve trying to be someone better. If you know who you want to
be if youre a candidate for the Horizon Student Council, or the Fortitude Regional Council,
or youre learning to be a veterinarian, or youre planning to be a rock star, or whatever then
you practice or think about your role and try to figure out how to do it right.
If you dont know that yet, you work on trying to be whatever you think you should be
trying to be today honest, cool, diligent, dangerous, whatever!
At the end of the quest, youll get your choice of:
an insight that helps you understand what you need to do (and which is typically a +1
Tool for emulating that role, attaining that virtue, or doing something context-specific
thats relevant to your Arc situation while you sustain the quest); or
a kind of metaphysical/social armor that displays your worth it becomes blatantly

obvious that you are on this path and that your Truth (whatever it is) is true.
If absolutely necessary I guess if youre infiltrating Hell or something? you
could make your Failing obvious instead or as well.
Heres an example: youre lost and adrift in a distant land Shangri-La, Kentucky, or even
Mars! No one is going to care there that youre (e.g.) a candidate for the Fortitude Regional
Council with an exemplary history of honesty. But you could use this miracle to make it obvious
to anyone who even looks at you that youre a civic-minded and honest person. Your virtue
pierces the walls between social worlds.
For Arc 0-1 Struggles I recommend the Fake it Till You Make It signs on pg. XX.
Arc 2
Quest miracles at this level focus on doing things appropriate to your role. If youre training to
be a knight, that could mean pulling swords out of stones and defeating knights in darker armor.
If youre an magical star princess apprentice, instead, it might mean manifesting Town-defending
force fields from the wishful powers of peoples hearts! If youre planning on being a
veterinarian, though, this might be a little unimpressive
I mean, you can probably stop a plague thats running rampant in the canine population or
something, which is awesome, but only if there is such a plague; or invent a new veterinary
technique, maybe, which is also awesome but pretty hard to give actual meaning to in-game.
Still.
The point is, if there is something thats established in play as the kind of thing that
someone in your role does if youre the kind of person that does pull swords out of stones, or
reliably save fantasy kingdoms, or fly across the timewinds in a ship made of fragile dreams, or
negotiate with the Kings and Queens of the birds, basically, if the game has established anything
like that as being true?
This is the level at which you can back that up with a quest miracle.
The Fake it Till You Make It signs on pg. XX are also suited for an Arc 2 Struggle.
Arc 3
Quest miracles at this level draw on some external power. Ideally its something thats already
granting you power a knights patron saint, say, or the magic of your company credit card, or
a symbiote that lives inside you. But you could also use this quest itself as a way of declaring:
I, as someone in this Role, am entitled to invoke and call upon the power of (X)!
. . . where X is something like a patron saint, or alien entity, or secret weapon, or symbiote
inside your chest.
This power usually manifests an amped-up version of one of your existing powers or Perks.
The quest is normally a Struggle. Evoking this power is agonizing, traumatic, or

disorienting, but you keep control, e.g. showing an Agony sign from pg. XX..
Arc 4
Quest miracles at this level tend to make the world around you flourish or otherwise transform it
in accordance to your role.
Its plausible that when you get there this will feel like the kind of thing that works best as a
Pastoral or Exciting quest. (Or it might still be best suited for an agonizing Struggle
quest using the signs on pg. XX.)
Arc 5
Quest miracles at this level focus on empowering or redeeming others you can pull them
from their ordinary or fallen lives and give them a new role in service to your own.
This is usually a bit of a blast from the past, quest-wise these Struggles will usually
use the Fake it Till You Make It signs again.
Fake it Till You Make It
I Know What Im Doing
(You dont know what youre doing.)
Itll be OK
(You dont know what youre doing.)
Calm
!!!!asdfasdfaegoihaergF*CK
Agony
Im Fine
(Please make it stop.)
Given my position
I could hardly do anything Less
(Where am I?)
Calm
I can hear it whispering in my head
Calm icon is a public-domain icon from the

http://tango.freedesktop.org/Tango_Desktop_Project
Otherworldly Miracles
Otherworldly
Otherworldly Arcs generally connect you to and make you an exemplar and servant of some
fundamental force
Your Element or Estate.
For instance, you might develop a deep connection to Fire, Roads, Daydreams, or Sloth.
The quest miracles for an Otherworldly Arc reflect that, using Lurid (pg. XX) any-time
quests wherein your thoughts drift away to the realms of your element or your element shows its
nature in your countenance.
Arc 0-1
Typical quest miracles at this level are divinations you try to use your dreams to find
something out from or about the Element you are connected to.
Arc 2
Typical quest miracles are protective you stabilize situations against the influence of the
Outside, heal spiritual wounds in things, and strengthen somethings spirit. Your Element must
somehow be involved.
These are Major Miracles by default.
Arc 3
Quest miracles at this level expand your control over your Element if such suits your
Element, they allow you to summon up epic, Town-shaking storms; conjure endless summers;
reshape streets and grow buildings whole and entire from the ground.

Arc 4
Quest miracles at this level are epic miracles for driving your Element away or limiting its
presence somewhere you can erase species, turn manifestations of your Element invisible and
intangible, and the like. Such a miracle it might have been that ended the age of progress here in
Town.
Arc 5
Quest miracles at this level allow epic-scale adjustments to the state of things with regards to
the Element youre bound to if it fits your Element, you can afflict a nation with storms or
change what it means to dream.

Weather Mantra
Type: Miraculous Action, Major, Quest Miracle
Cost:
You may conjure up weather effects summon storms, winds, or droughts. You can call up
and befriend a spirit of the weather; they will stay beside you for a week or two before they fade.
In general you may work any number of effects involving creating weather, summoning weather,
or bringing weather patterns to pseudo-life. However, each use of this power requires a 15-XP
quest or more, such as Bring the Storm, below.
This is a miraculous ability appropriate for characters with a suitable Otherworldly Arc
at 3+. By suitable I mean that not every spiritual character connects to the weather if your
otherworldly path connects you to fire, or water, or wishes, or music, or something, then weather
manipulation might not be an appropriate quest miracle for you. Its also possible that youll
have a unique Otherworldly Arc thats particularly inappropriate for this kind of thing, even
though it is about the weather, or a unique Arc of some other sort that this fits.
Quest Card
Bring the Storm
Bonus XP
Youre summoning a storm.
This quest comes with a division of states

theres the you who is grounded in the
world around you, and then theres the you
whose mind can be suddenly snapped away
from the here and now into the chaos of the
coming storm. Your thoughts may suddenly be
snatched from you and blown about as the
clouds that youre dragging closer rip from
their leashes. Youll be vague and unfocused
for a while when that occurs.
Ive made a sign for this a reversible card, which you could in theory have on the table in
front of you in play to show which state youre in. You can earn a bonus XP at any time (though
only once per scene/15 minutes) by flipping the card, showing that youre moving between
states coming down to earth or being ripped out into the storm.
If you cant actually keep the card in front of you, holding up the card with the relevant side
facing people or just saying or emoting something appropriate can earn you the XP instead.
Here and Now Distant Storms
art by Ciaoffen art by Ciaoffen

Legends and Dreams
Storyteller
Quest miracles for a Storyteller Arc are usually Melodramatic (pg. XX) youre always
admiring yourself in mirrors and lakes, seeing omens, reacting strongly to the good or bad
character of others, and the like. Youre disdainfully cynical or in love with the world or
something in it and surrounded by the substance of miracles.
Arc 0
Your life is just a bit too stylized to be real. Youve got access to the power of friendship, or
sparkle-cam, or unlimited ammunition, or convenient clues whatever. Or youre turning into
something mysterious and awesome, and that numinous nature shrouds you.
Quest miracles at this level take the form of genre-appropriate attempts to solve a given
mystery or problem, but they arent necessarily very powerful youre guaranteed to get at least
a hint or a small victory, but not necessarily anything worth the quest.
Arc 1
Youve got some mysterious, magical, and awesome stuff going on with your life. Youve got plot
hooks.
Quest miracles at this level tend to improve you with extra plot hooks: story-specific powers,
bonuses, or upgrades thatll become unreliable when you abandon the quest and go away entirely
at the end of the story.
Arc 2
You can manifest yourself in places where youre not. Rumors spread. Signs of your coming
presence appear. Then there you are, equipped with a temporary level 2 Connection to someone
or something, pre-integrated into the place or persons life. If your target is a person, the miracle
also gives them a temporary level 2 Connection to you.
Optionally, you may then feed off of your target, wounding them with this miracle in some
desired fashion.
Arc 3
You may use quest miracles at this level to transform others lives. You act as a cathartic
influence on their lives, getting them out of their rut, helping the broken take power over
themselves again, shaking the cruel from their foolish ways. This can involve your other powers
or just . . . being yourself.
This tends to work better on random NPCs than Main Characters its not that it cant
work on a Main Character, but if the HG or player wants to let you change a Main Characters
heart, theyll usually either let you do it for free, let you do it with in-game work, or demand a lot
of XP. And if they dont want you to do that, you probably cant! Wanting a short quest to prove
your intentions is pretty rare.
Arc 4
As you ascend into Arc 4 on a Storyteller Arc, you tend to become something of a dilemma a
contradiction. You wind up pulled between two competing forces and the ultimate direction of
your loyalties gets muddy.
You cant resolve this on your own. For that, theres something you need from the people
around you.
At this level youre a catalytic, transformative force that pulls people into your own story;
and usually, that story is in a state of unresolved tension between two opposing poles.
Quest miracles at this level manifest or banish things that fit one of the two stories you
have going on.
Arc 5
Quest miracles at this level break down barriers that stand in the way of your will, shape the
Outside to that will, create powerful servants and artifacts (sometimes even at the Main
Character level), and twist fate. They express the wishing (or bleak) power of the heart that can
make the impossible, possible
The way to get a handle on what they can and cant do is to imagine that theyre a metaphor
on a grand scale for some force you serve. If youre Law, then they can bind vast regions into
order; if youre a representative of Love, you can shatter sea walls and transform animals into
people; if youre a representative of Despair, you can dim or douse all light and bring cities
tumbling down.
Wuxia and Secret Arts
Aspect
Quest miracles for a miraculous Aspect Arc are usually Exciting you can use the generic
Exciting quest on pg. XX.
Arc 0-1
Quest miracles at this level train you temporarily in some sort of special martial arts ability or
secret art typically manifesting as a temporary level 2 Superior Skill. For instance, you learn
the implausible Roleplaying Martial Arts style, which gives you edge in a martial arts duel while
you stay in character, or the No-Shadow Punch to throw your punches a few feet beyond your
fist, or a special Life-Awakening Cooking style that infuses your soup with enough heart power
to wake a wounded hero or old grandmother practically from the dead.
(But not all the way from the dead, and they should rest again when they can, because as a
Superior Skill 2 this has to make some concessions towards realism.)
Arc 2
Quest miracles at this level are still special techniques, but now they can be goofier: you train
in Chi techniques that approximate animalistic or monstrous abilities or do supernatural martial
arts things (as a level 3 Superior Skill) or that change your body in ways appropriate for a
persistent miracle.
This quest is an implicit claim that any human? Are you human? whatever you are, if
their heart is sufficiently heroic, can get to this technique with the appropriate training regimen.
However, you dont have to make this claim with a straight face; you just have to be willing to
make it.
Arc 3
Quest miracles at this level manifest spiritual auras around you that have strong effects. You can
typically direct these effects with your mundane or Aspect-enhanced actions if you surround
yourself in a storm of spirit swords, you can attack people with them using your mundane
actions or your other Aspect powers.
Arc 4-5
Quest miracles at this level teach you invincible (and often, kind of goofy) perfect techniques.
You can take the kind of stuff that your higher-end Aspect powers let you do e.g., the stuff
from Determination and Anime Moment (pg. XX), for an Ace and learn to do it on a
regular basis.
Unfortunately, because these powers are a single miracle, using this power is a little tricky.
You cant turn it on and off because as a quest miracle, its already on; instead, youll have to:
Declare an automatic trigger for its activation, like I flash-step when its helpful in
fighting [[some particular enemy]]; or
Activate/control the power with your mundane actions, meaning that someone could
theoretically outfox even your perfect, invincible action by being smarter than the brain
behind it.
Starting at Arc 5, or at Arc 4 if youre willing to put some extra XP into the quest miracle, you
can take these techniques past the local level powers like Anime Moment might not let you
take action extending beyond your vicinity and the scene, but these quest miracles can.
The Shepherds Way
Shepherd
A Shepherds path generally relates to:
a Craft some work of mortal Skill that you have taken to magical levels.
a collection of things and people you have a spiritual connection to: your Treasures.
a collection of places you have a connection to: also called Treasures, or, Gardens.
Do you guard and watch over animals, buildings, family, or friends? Do you empower your
works of art? Do you have a collection of magical gear from which you evoke potent effects? Do
you fish up magical fish, then feed them to the people you care about? Duel your enemies using
magical kites?
That kind of stuff is the Shepherds path.
Quest miracles for a Shepherd Arc are usually Pastoral you can use the generic Pastoral
quest on pg. XX.
Arc Level 0
Your quest miracles at this level usually focus on training or improving things, making them
unnaturally responsive and alert (for animals) or convenient and functional (for places). This
creates a +1 Tool, which is only really better than a mundane quest miracle in that you can share
the benefits with others.
You can use your Craft in some fashion to teach animals or people borderline supernatural
techniques. For instance, you might put them through bizarre cinematic martial arts training,
magical training, use your Treasures in some weird fashion to improve them, or have many long,
heartfelt conversations about what theyre really capable of until that turns out to include
ventriloquism, charm, traditional Damascene smithcraft, or whatever else youd like. This gives
them the equivalent of a Superior Skill 2, which remains part of them from the time you finish
the quest to the time you set it aside. If you want to teach your dog hang-gliding or a person how
to become unnoticeable using the Shadow Step, this is the appropriate technique.
If you want to do this, and you dont have an appropriate Arc-related Craft, you can
probably get away with it as long as you involve your Craft into things somehow. You can train
them against or with your fish or kites or glasswork or whatever else.
Arc Level 1
Your quest miracles at this level tend to transform your Treasures, physically and spiritually,
unleashing their true form or true power. Or, if the Treasure is already magical, you activate,
revitalize, and control its powers without necessarily initiating a transformation.
If you want to create a new artifact a wonder of magic or science you can generally do
so, from this point forward, with a 45-XP quest. In addition to creating the artifact itself this acts
as a quest miracle to unleash its true power.
See Glass Magic, on pg. XX, for an example of how this might work.
More generally unless your Arc has a weird condition for getting Treasures, a 45-XP quest is
usually enough to both obtain/create and then miraculously activate a new Treasure.
Arc Level 2
Quest miracles at this level focus on quiet moments of beauty theyre about bringing a good
closure to things through . . . basically, being Santa, or a good witch, or the secret angel in the
shadows who makes everything come out OK.
About turning your skills and position and talents to the end of making things end well.
You can think of the result as a miracle that declares that the relevant actions, including the
stuff youve already done towards the quest, will lead to moments of beauty and positive closure.
The standard failure mode, if the opposition is too strong, is for it to produce results that are
only happy endings, moments of beauty, or positive closure in the most bittersweet, vaguest, or
most ironic sense.
Still, if you beat any countermiracles or Auctorita, a happy ending is guaranteed! Theres a
reason Santas never lost his hold on the winter throne.
The quests themselves are normally Pastoral, but in some cases a generic
Paradigmatic or Exciting quest may be more fun.
Arc Level 3
Quest miracles at this level let you find, temporarily have around, and invoke the powers of epic
versions of the kinds of Treasures you already have around. That is, if you normally have a pet
bear that can be pretty awesome, these quest miracles are what youd need to wake up one of the
nearby hills that happens to be a sleeping bear. (Then, later on, after the quest miracle is finished,
the HG can explain away how the hill gets back in place and why nobody much mentions it with
let us never speak of this again.)
If you usually invoke PCs as your Treasures e.g., bringing a special power in them out
then you probably shouldnt go around finding more epic versions of them to use. Instead, these
quests scale up the power you can get from them; if that winds up overlapping with or
duplicating an ability you have through other channels, such as A Fearsome Blessing (pg. XX),
well, you have my regrets.
Arc Level 4-5
Quest miracles at this level are creative you build things that have cosmic meaning and
applicability. Theyre usually concretized Afflictions: while they exist, even once the miracle
subsides, a new law governs the world. Perhaps you wish to give people hope: you erect a stone;
and then for a long time after, a person may come and pray before that quest-made stone to
have the burden of their life lifted from them. Something transformative will then happen; those
who dreamed of the sky too often, for instance, might learn to fly.
Sometimes these quest miracles create local concretized Properties instead: while the
physical structure remains, a Property locally prevails.
Glass Magic
Type: Miraculous Action, Quest Miracle
Cost:
You may bring out the hidden power in a piece of glasswork, making something ranging from a
glass thats just extra-pretty or a little lucky to an artifact opening into a mirror-world or a
window into dreams. Each use of this power to forge a new wonder requires a 45-XP quest such
as The Mirror-House below.
You must also create the actual glass, which makes this quest difficult to complete in less
than a book and often stretches it out to several although a good glass-working Skill and a
willingness to challenge Obstacles might let you finish a small piece in a timeframe measurable in
chapters.
This power is a permanent transformation in the glass but your precise control over it is
limited: youll need to keep the quest active to maintain that control, or recover it later with a
smaller, 15-XP followup quest miracle. Otherwise the results become a little unpredictable or
muted less likely, no matter how clever your plan, to have a major impact on the game or
on others lives. This muting functions as a level 3 Obstacle in the way of getting productive
things done using that artifacts power.
Glass Magic is a miraculous ability suited to characters with an appropriate Shepherd

Arc at 1+.
Simpler Work
If the desired effect is comparatively minor the limits here are the HGs call you dont
need a miraculous Arc; a glass-making Skill will suffice!
An example of such an effect is the Blessing-Piece, below.
BOX Glass Magic and Perks
I want to clarify what youre doing here, because it would be easy to misunderstand. The 30 XP
surcharge isnt for a mechanical advantage, although it may produce one. It isnt to buy you
access to a Perk, although youll have the option to get one.
The bonus for doing the 45-XP version isnt a game mechanic.
Its that youve created a wonder, in glass.
Its likely that youll want to choose a Perk that fits this creation. Thats probably necessary
to make this a Treasure that you can use in the future. And that Perk might help you work
around the level 3 Obstacle or, then again, it might not. If youre late in an Arc and can talk
the HG into a Perk like Accessory. Gain a potent item of mystic regalia, then maybe the glass
has big, always-available miraculous powers, regardless of quests or your other abilities; if youre
at the beginning of an Arc and/or your miraculous Shepherd Arc is low-leveled, maybe all you
get is that it is a Treasure; or maybe youre making the glass as a gift for a friend and never
expected a new Treasure yourself.
None of that is the point.
Thats all a system implementation of the results of the quest, and it matters, but the 30 XP
surcharge isnt for a thing you do in the rules system.
Its for creating something. Its for a great work.
END BOX
Quest Card
The Mirror-House
Bonus XP
Youre building or taking control of a looking-

glass that serves also as a portal an opening
to a reflected copy of the glass-makers shop
where you work. Its a place where you can seal
away glasswork too dangerous to keep in the
physical world and let it temper for a while in
the light of the reflected sun. You might also
use it to keep a secret room that stores rare Imbuing the Glass
treasures in or to duplicate objects (with a left-
right flip) by pulling them through the glass. If you are creating the mirror-house rather
than simply invoking its power, this quest costs
You can earn a bonus XP at any time an additional 30 XP:
(though only once per scene/15 minutes) by
proposing a theory about how you should
construct or revitalize such a glass. This can be
technical or just a vague discussion of the
world, light, glass, the Outside, and reflections.
Quest Card
The Blessing-Piece
Bonus XP
Youre designing, building, or evoking the

power of a piece of glasswork that expresses
your strong feelings for someone your wish
for their safety and prosperity and health, your
blessings upon them.
You can earn a bonus XP at any time

(though only once per scene/15 minutes) by
explaining what youre doing in a scene or Imbuing the Glass
what youve been doing through this lens If you are creating the blessing-piece rather
Im thinking of [names] future. or than simply invoking its power, this quest costs
an additional 30 XP:
I want to make [name] something
special.
The idea is that by saying that, you either

confirm that something is actually about your
good wishes for that person and your work on
this particular piece of glass, or you make
yourself seem a little goofy and perhaps overly
earnest.
Miracles of Emptiness
Emptiness
Quest miracles for an Emptiness Arc are usually Setting you can use the generic Setting
quest on pg. XX.
Arc Level 0-1
Quest miracles at this level tend to create minions shikigami, imps, helpful spirits, floating-
mask spirits, animated objects that are not terribly useful for most things but which accurately
express something in your heart. You can:
Kill them once they fully manifest, purifying your heart;

Use them as a sympathetic link to some part of yourself you wish to magically
strengthen, or to some inner demon you want to face and learn to live with;
Use them as messengers;
Use them to siphon 1-2 MP from a willing or unsuspecting associate who keeps the
shikigami close to their heart or sleeps beside it; later you can wring it out for the MP and
use it again;
Empower them to perform simple chores and functions.
The minion itself usually appears at the beginning of the quest; however, it is not until the quest
miracle completes that it becomes useful or performs its proper magical function.
While you sustain the miracle the minion is effectively a part of your character you have
a say in what happens with it. Afterwards, its still a loyal minion thats linked to you, but
someone could, e.g., subvert it with the appropriate coin.75
75
Watanabe candies?
Arc Level 2
Quest miracles at this level tend to create gates, labyrinths, and pocket worlds they create
twisted spaces where things do not behave properly. There is a tendency for these, too, to express
something in the heart, so that navigating them teaches you something or gives you an insight; if
the actual value is in the navigation, in the insight or the power that you acquire by navigating it,
then the labyrinth or world or gate itself will tend to open at the beginning of the quest, and the
navigation complete for the first time at the end; otherwise, the world or gate typically appears at
the end of the quest.
As with a minion, the twisted spaces are effectively a part of your character while you
sustain the miracle you could even defend them from attack with your own Health Levels, if
you so chose.
Arc Level 3: Quest Miracles
Quest miracles at this level tend to transform you into something that can express your strong
feelings you take on a numinous or monstrous form, warping reality as you go, and pursue
some aim; then, when you fail, or when youve exhausted the cathartic power, you dwindle back
to yourself. Often there is a lingering effect on your mood and spirit. There may even be a small
physical legacy of this technique, a silver armband or single remaining wing or something; this
would increase the cost of the quest to 20 XP for a near-pointless alteration and 45 XP for
something that comes with a useful Perk.
Quest miracles at this level allow you to exalt someone else to open their eyes to a beautiful
or terrible truth, to refine their spirit, to show them something astonishing. You shatter a chain
on them, free them from some delusion, and/or give them an absolute power to pursue their
goals or follow some path. If you tightly constrain what this power does, its an ordinary miracle;
if you describe the powers effects in sufficiently loose terms, so that its fun to imagine a
potential opponent using semantics or symbolism rather than raw power to oppose it, it escalates
to a Major miraculous power.
Heres how it works.
Near or even at the beginning of this quest, you can show the target something amazing but
inexpressible
You can show them that you have something to offer, and begin refining their spirit.
The quest then plays out over a series of conversations, observations, or shared encounters.
When or soon after the quest completes, they finally get it you open their third eye or
whatever or sever their chains.
Quest miracles at this level typically shape a new comparatively-mortal identity for yourself, a
person destined to accomplish something specific before shaking themselves off and returning
to being you.
Normally this miracle takes effect at the end of the quest and you then sustain it over the
course of your mortal experience; however, as with previous Emptiness-based quest miracles, its
possible to enact the effect itself at or near the beginning of the quest and have it be
comparatively troublesome or useless to you a source of play, not power until the moment
that the quest is complete.
Transcendent Experiences
Mystic
Quest miracles for a Mystic Arc are usually Symbolic you can use the generic Symbolic
quest on pg. XX.
Each of these Arcs will usually bind you to some Principle love, or pain, or freedom, or
something else.
Arc 0-1
Quest miracles at this level get you inspiration or small new powers to help you solve a problem
that youre facing. Over the course of the quest, youll develop a unique extension to your
normal thematics and abilities that helps you with the problem.
For instance, lets say youre Principal Entropy (pg. XX) and youre stumped about how to
recreate this really good lemon coffee cake you had once, so you undertake a quest miracle. You
normally bleed mutagenic blood from your hands, and youre normally in the company of evil
creatures, so, those are your normal thematics.
Based on that . . .
Over the course of the quest, you might begin to bleed colors, evil bees, and the like. As the
quest evolves, you and the HG will work on ways to tie the original semi-random effects more
tightly into the quest: the bees will become increasingly adept at cooking, and the blood thing
increasingly relevant, until near the end of the quest your hostel rooms ceiling is covered with a
growing lemon coffee cake hive and your blood, spilled on a recipe book, will naturally pervert it
into an accounting of appropriate cakes.
Arc 2
Quest miracles at this level dissociate you from yourself youre ripped from your life, given a
new form, insights, powers, and location, in some fashion that fits your Principle and the Arc.
Its usually a tradeoff between control and power: if you just let the hand of fate work through
you, then youll do some pretty awesome things, but really, its just the HG doing them. If you
insist on total control over the process, its like, you can maybe hear a few whispered words of
the world talking to itself, walk through a wall or two, or gain a temporary level 1-2 Superior
Skill.
No matter what, youll probably hear a secret and wake up somewhere you werent
expecting to be.
Arc 3
Quest miracles at this level create powerful blessings and invisible/elusive servants mystic
forces go to work on the land, particularly when youre not around to see it, to make things more
like you feel they ought to be. They may also open paths and create dramatic displays by
which I mean, vast Biblical plagues or singing choirs of angels, which are specifically intended to
be awesome rather than produce a specific effect in-game.
Arc 4
Quest miracles at this level are massive ritual effects on your enemies or sometimes on your
domain (on the things you claim the right to govern or protect) youll burn them, purify them,
protect them, or shape them into weapons of war, although if they have Health Levels or the
HG treats them as having Health Levels then they may negotiate a mitigation of the effects.
Arc 5
Quest miracles at this level generally focus on establishing divine law raising a sanctuary and
mini-realm if you dont have a larger one; creating purposive buildings and landscape features
within it; setting forth new Properties and determinations for your sanctuary, realm, or followers;
empowering faithful servants; creating mystical objects embodying part of your power; and so
forth. You can in short do the things suited for a divine entity to do, including bringing out low-
end Mystic powers in others.
Fly Away
Type: Miraculous Action, Quest Miracle
Cost:
You may take on the shape or Properties of a spirit bird for a time
A spirit bird wears the air of Celestia (pg. XX);

A spirit bird soars over the world;
A spirit bird may travel into dreams;
A spirit bird may guide you;
A spirit bird represents freedom, faith, and hope;
A spirit bird may find what youre looking for;
A spirit bird is in service to the sun.
Youll choose how much of a bird you become, and whether you leave your body behind or
transform it. However, each use of this power requires a 15-XP quest or more.
Only one element of this is a miracle, so if you decide to swirl a cloak of feathers around
you and turn into a spirit bird to hunt for something that youve lost, you dont get to
miraculously guide people and awaken hope but while the miracle is sustained the HG may
allow you Superior Qualities rated 1-3 to do appropriate things, including wriggling your way into
someones dreams or guiding someone to a revelation. Just how powerful this is generally
depends on how human you remain if you grow a few white feathers in your hair, then youre
probably stuck with the original miracle and maybe one Superior Quality of 1. If you leave your
body helpless somewhere youll probably be able to waltz in and out of dreams; if you physically
transform, then thatll be possible but harder.
If you want to wear an air of Celestia for more than three days time so that people dont
recognize you as someone acting with conscious agency, tending to dismiss your actions, powers,
and presence as just an ordinary bird thatll have to be the focus of your miracle.
This is a miraculous ability suited to characters with a suitable Mystic Arc at 2+.
Quest Card
Fly Away
Bonus XP
Youre dissociating from reality.
There is something reaching towards you

as if from a vast distance away. There is
something struggling inside you to change its
form.
Like a chick trapped within its shell
You will let the sun and the wind and the Lake and the air and the changes inside you break
you free and give you another form, something that will make answer to your needs.
You can earn a bonus XP towards this quest at any time (though only once per scene/15
minutes) by declaring that you can feel the touch of the impending miracle upon you you can
phrase it another way; just give some indication that youre triggering this quest condition and
then free-associating for a few moments about what your character is experiencing, feeling,
thinking.
Talk about being cold, or warm; talk about visions; whatever. Clenching muscles in your
arms. Foxfire in the sky. Whatever. Random rambles and chill sensations across your back, the
sun full in its glory in your head behind your eyes. That kind of experience, the taste of the wind
in your teeth, and that brings you in a bonus XP for this quest.
A Wish-Changd World
The Rules of a Wish
A daring heart may unlock its hidden treasures.

A wish shapes itself to who you are.
Your enemies are terrifying but not unbeatable.
Changing your nature takes time
It takes time and effort to learn and master the new world.
Emotional resolution mirrors itself in the resolution of the wish.
Many Imperial miracles are strictly strategic. They add Properties to a Region. They affect the
users own Traits. They change the world, and they cannot be opposed in changing the world,
but their power isnt so much cosmic as narrative
They play out like acts of deity, but a deity subtle, nuanced, and restrained.
Chuubos Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine calls an Imperial miracle a wish if that

sense of restraint isnt there. A wish is a potentially limitless game-changer. If you wish for
something impossible like I wish it were twenty years ago; or something world-changing, like
I wish everyone was a rat it happens. It becomes.
The rule here is simple
A wish changes the setting.
Basically, you should pretend that the wish was written into the campaign material all along.
If someone wishes that a pirate ship would sail into port, then thats like the HG suddenly
remembering: and at this point in the campaign, Im supposed to have a pirate ship sail into port. They make
this as cool and dramatic or as boring and plausible as they want.
If someone has a wishing coin, and doesnt realize it, and they wish for everyone to be dead?
Then all the players should figure out who their PC is in a dead Town. Does the Dream-Witch
become a ghost? Is the Principal now a floating skull? The HG can take the lead in figuring this
stuff out but they dont have to.
If Chuubo over in Horizon fires up his Wish-Granting Engine and wishes for something
vague, like, I wish that everything was OK, then the meaning of that wish might not be
obvious at first. Play it out as something weird I wrote: look, Jenna wrote that everythings OK in
Town, so this too must be OK.
This is mostly in the HGs hands at first. The HG is the one who describes the world. So
while players can help the HG figure out what happens, the only part where players really have to
have a say is the part where a wish retroactively changes their PC.
As usual, the HG can assign miracle or mundane action levels to individual effects of the
wish oh, this wave of fire is a level 4 miracle, this bat flies up as a mundane action but
ultimately its just their job to play the new world that the wish has set forth.
However, I want wishes to be plot arcs that everyone can participate in exploring. If a
martial artist accidentally breaches from meditation into the steampunk space inside the wish-
granting engine and wishes for everyone to get super martial-arts and have a battle tournament,
then I dont want the HG to have to make every call on the powers people get and the way the
fights play out. I dont want the players or even the PCs to just feel like passengers.
So here are six rules that are almost always true of the worlds and effects that wishes create.
A Daring Heart . . .
Dangerous experiments and gambles are the best way to find any special powers that you have in
a world shaped by a wish.
Basically, if a wish gives you such a thing, you need to unlock it with the acts of epic fantasy:
Science, Faith, and Sorcery Actions

Decisive Actions and
Wicked Action
or through
Developing or resolving an Issue colored blue.
If these actions are out of genre, but the HG thinks that such a special power should or ought to
exist, then they should be lenient about letting you take them any big gamble, risk, or act of
faith that you engage in should lead to an epic Action or opportunity for a blue Issue.
Conversely, if the HG or the group as a whole decides to handle some element of a wish as an
epic fantasy-styled Action, or by handing out blue Issues, that should be a cue that a special
power might exist.
Not every wish does this, not even then. I mean, just because Shokyou wishes for Leonardo
to shut up doesnt mean de Montreal now gets special miraculous shutting up powers.76 Not
even in an epic fantasy-themed game!
But if there are such powers? Well
Often, before a wish will let you fly, youll have to first climb up to a height, and jump.
76
Though, a girl can dream . . .
A Wish Shapes itself . . .
If it becomes necessary to resist a wish in order to remain yourself, you may take a wound. You
have the right to say:
Yes, this wish says that I shut up. But I wont.
This is usually a Serious or Deadly wound if youre working around part of the wish. If you are
trying to tear free of the wish completely, its one of the most difficult things in the game
Youll take two Deadly Wounds, and no matter what you do to heal them theyll last until
the end of this book and the next. But you can do that, and if you do do that, then youre
immune to the power of that and any substantively similar wishes until those two wounds heal.
Your Enemies . . .
If a wish accidentally leaves Town under the boot of an autocratic despot, or floods it with a
gigantic wave, or a bunch of fiendish ghosts, then those things can be legitimately scary even
for the toughest PCs.
But not unbeatable.
There is always hope for a wishing heart. In sum, theres an implicit promise that you can
find a road to victory, and that if you do, the worst of the losses suffered along the way might
prove illusory or at least recoverable.
Mechanically that means the following:
play generally shifts to the Road of Trials

resolving an orange Issue always buys an opportunity for victory
(in general, resolving any Arc, Issue, or quest can do the same.)
enemy action tends to inflict Sickness and not wounds
bad situations are opportunities for dramatic suffering rather than principally
mechanical fights.
Its worth note that two of the nuances of the Road of Trials the ubiquity of breaks from
reality and the threat of the Illusion Issue give players and the HG more wiggle room for
recovery even when hope is blatantly lost.
Changing your Nature . . .
Changing a persons nature takes time.
A real world-changer of a wish I wish that we were all kids again might have an
instant effects on how everyone looks, sure. That might change instantly, at least to whatever
extent the players are good with.
But actually changing who a person is that happens more slowly. Whether its the
outright corrosive influence of youre now a werewolf or youre now a nice person or the
subtler process of acclimating to a fresh new childhood or a shiny pair of wings, that change is
.. . well . . . a little slow!
That means:
if the wish torments you into changing, it often takes 3+ Adversity Actions.
if the wish corrupts you, it does so slowly, over 3+ Corruption Actions.
if it changes you in a neutral/positive fashion, 3+ Metamorphoses.
most changes worth tracking play out as Sickness and not as wounds.
If these actions are out of genre, but the wish should change who you are, then the HG and the
group should be lenient about allowing them. Conversely, if the HG or the group as a whole
decides to handle some element of a wish as you suffering from Adversity, Corruption, or
Metamorphosis (or, to a lesser extent, if you find yourself fighting it off with Never Say Die!)
you should take that as a sign that the wish is trying to change you.
It Takes Time and Effort . . .
Its pretty common for a wish to offer characters new Skills or new applications for their existing
Skills if you become a farmer, then you should have a farming Skill. If you become a giant
robot or romantic lead, you might even pick up a relevant Superior Skill or Bond!
The best way to figure out the rules for a wish and cultivate powers like this is simple,
honest living. Invest thought, work, diligence, attention, and study in your new life. Talk to your
friends about it. Live in the wish-changd world.
The second-best option is the shortcut:
Desperate, frenzied, and obsessive striving, resulting ultimately in a breakthrough or so

you can hope.
In short, to figure out powers like these, perform Pastoral and/or Gothic acts:
Shared Action
Shared Reactions
Slice of Life and maybe
Obsessive Action
or build up
an Issue colored purple or gold.
If these actions are out of genre, but the HG thinks theyre appropriate, then the HG should be
lenient about letting you take them any sufficiently simple, honest scene should lead to a
Pastoral Action or opportunity for a purple Issue. Any sufficiently obsessive scene should lead to
an opportunity for Gothic Action or an Issue colored gold. Conversely, if the HG or the group
as a whole decides to handle some element of a wish with Pastoral or Gothic-styled Actions, or
by handing out purple or golden Issues, that suggests that wish-based Skills, Skill applications,
Superior Skills, and/or Bonds of some sort can probably be found.
Benefits like these will tend to fade away at the end of the book, and new tricks for your
existing Skills will go back to having Obstacles, even if the wish is a permanent change to Town.
If youre actively working to sustain these abilities, though, and on a quest that will give you
access to these abilities as a reward, the HG is allowed to let them linger while you do.
Emotional Resolution Mirrors Itself . . .
A giant octopus attacks Town! Youve just been turned into a giant robot (by a wish) and sent to
fight that octopus.
Whatever will happen now?
In an Adventure Fantasy, of course, its a fight! Combat actions! Decisive Actions! Science,
Faith, and Sorcery!
Or, if its too scary or too wimpy, Trouble!77
But if youre not playing an Adventure Fantasy, then theres a real chance that the octopus-
robot fight is going to be cinematic but not actually terribly exciting. Random excitement is out
of your genre! Youre going to fight it, sure, because thats what the wish says youll do, but there
isnt a narrative buildup for a big fight, so youll have to either create that build-up during the fight
or ignore it and focus on the personal or social issues that you actually care about:
Youll start seeing things about the fight that matter to you. Things that make it relevant to
your Pastoral, Gothic, Epic, Techno, or whatever life.
Did it just knock over a building that you cared about? Now the fights about anger, or
saving civilians. Did it just remind you of an old friend that you used to do mock-fights with?
You miss them! The way you keep throwing off the tentacles when they wrap around you is
that symbolic of your commitment issues? Is it actually time, maybe, that you settled down? Is
that what the octopus fight is trying to tell you?
Youll see things, in short, that integrate the battle into your life.
Thats what matters
The fight itself can be on autopilot, for all you care, and in fact to some extent it is, because,
after all, there was a wish.
Seeing meaning in the events of a wish like this is usually going to be an act of urban
fantasy78:
Foreshadowing
Sympathetic Action or
Discovery
77
Wait, you might say. Too wimpy? Heres why youd use Trouble if the octopus is too weak: youre a player,
right? And youre steamrolling the octopus? And maybe you dont really want to be, because tension and
Trouble are cool? Then this is a good time to add in some tension, something to leave you overwhelmed and
outmatched, which is something that the Trouble action lets you do. Maybe your engine goes critical?
78
I know, I know, its magic realism or something, but it has the same action set as urban fantasy, anyhow.
Here, theyll overlap. ^_^
And once youve done that, as you do that, youll tie the resolution of the wish increasingly to
the proper resolution of the stuff thats going on in your heart. That could just mean a big
decision, particularly in epic fantasy where the octopus really isnt a match for you anyway; or it
could mean the resolution of an emotional Issue; or it could mean that youll automatically beat
the octopus as soon as you find a way to use the fight to connect to your friends; or even that
youll lose, and youll have to lose, because thats what the octopus in your heart is telling you to
do.
And now Ive made it sound all weird, and sometimes it is, but mostly it isnt.
Mostly its that when you understand whats going on here, you reach a point where youre
like: at last, I can forgive this person or thats why I hate this octopus! Its reminding me of
my father! or Mr. Octopus, youve just put your tentacles on a comic book store, and that is
one step too far.
And then you punch it into space, or, you know, whatever, and it isnt weird at all.
As in the previous cases, if these Actions are out of genre, but the wish seems like it should work
like this, then the HG should be lenient about letting you take them. Conversely, if the HG or
the group as a whole decides to handle some element of a wish with Urban Fantasy-styled
actions, this suggests that the wish as a whole is best handled as a source of meaning rather than
a source of events.
BOX Aside
Please note that Im expecting the typical wish to be on the order of I want this party to go
well, I want to catch the biggest fish ever, I wish I had a beachfront house, I wish
everything would be OK, I wish I had some new DVDs, or whatever.
Its just that giant octopi happen, and sometimes turning everyone into robots or vampires
is the only logical response.
END BOX
BOX Wishes as Quests
Wishes that principally affect the future, and in a vague way, are good material for quests. If
someone wishes to have a pirate adventure, or for another PC to have a pirate adventure, or to get
good grades this year, or to conquer the Earth, or whatever, then playing out how that actually
happens would probably be a quest or even an Arc.
END BOX
BOX Chuubo/Shokyou
One day a perfectly ordinary child, with no particular talent or ability, broke into the empty
house on that childs street, unrolled a sheaf of plans, picked up a hammer and nails, and built a
Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine there.
What does it do? Im glad you asked!
It grants wishes.
One wish every chapter or so, sometime after the chapters start.
As any child would, this child went a little mad with power, wishing for ice cream, a best
friend, and a nice sweet sunny day without even thinking of the terrible consequences that could
befall . . .
But, well.
Perhaps they were not so terrible?
Its at least a few years later, after all, and Towns surviving yet.
This ordinary child is usually the PC-aged Chuubo, the Wishing Boy, but could be
Shokyou, the Wishing Girl, instead. The best friend they wished for is normally a PC-aged boy
named Seizhi Schwan, but could be a girl named Suzy Swan instead. They live over the hills in
Horizon but visit the other Regions now and then.
Chuubo, aka
The Wishing Boy
art by Koi
Seizhi Schwan, aka

The Best Friend
art by Koi
END BOX
Making Answer to the Bleak
The Rules for Fighting the Bleak Academy
A gamble may save you, if luck is kind.

You may cling to that which becomes unmade.
Corruption builds slowly.
A fierce, passionate struggle can hold the Outside at bay.
An honest effort survives.
To see is to engage in a dialogue with the seen.
You may draw the curtain before the stage goes dark.
There is a bleak power of despair that yearns for everythings unmaking. There is something out
there beyond the world, something in the nature of the Outside, that looks upon the world and
finds therein no good.
This is a different problem than a wish. Its not that the power of the Outside, or the Bleak
Academy, or personifications of death, or unweavers, or anti-wolves, or the worst of the Rider
magicians, or whatever
Its not that theyre mechanically unstoppable.
Its just that if you happen to lose, its really bad. If you dont have a defense against a power
that would simply unmake you, or would break you, thats . . .
Really bad.
Sometimes youll have that defense. Sometimes youll have something in you that can with
raw numbers and actions protect you against unmaking.
Other times you must turn to something different with which to make an answer to death,
dissolution, the creeping Not. To fight back you will need to rely on the intrinsic virtue of the
world: that it is real, and beautiful; that life is worth having; that its worth living. You must stand
by your belief that the world has a point, that existence means something, and that it cant and
shouldnt all just drown in the endless sea of the Beyond.
That you have a point, that you mean something, that you shouldnt be lost.
And neither should your friends, or even the littlest and worst of things.
A Gamble May Save You . . .
Faith and trust are always gambles. So are science, love, and sorcery in their own degrees and
ways.
If youre being overwhelmed by a power of the Bleak Academy, you can pivot from death
to a defining moment by spelling out what you believe in. Give a dramatic monologue that says
what youre gambling on in the face of death, what youre putting your faith, love, or trust in
and then take a risk in the name of that belief.
Or as much as a risk as you can, anyway you might not have anything left to lose!
In an epic fantasy, or an adventure fantasy, or any game where the players and the HG find
your monologue cool enough to allow this, you can turn a dramatic monologue like that into:
a Science, Faith, and Sorcery Action

a Decisive Action or
a possible resolution to a blue Issue
. . . and then the HG has to stop and think about what youve done.
They cant just go with their first reaction, whether thats that cant possibly stop this
attack or yay, you win. They have to take a moment to let your monologue sink in to their
consciousness in peace.
Then they decide.
And look. Sometimes theyll decide against you, you know? This wont always save you.
Sometimes itll even doom you. Sometimes itll even take away whatever little other chances you
might have had.
Thats what it means that youre gambling.
Thats what it means that even faith and love and trust, even solid scientific conjecture, and
certainly sorcery are risks.
But it could save you.
And if the HG decides that yeah, this saves you, that overrides all the rest of the rules on
what beats what.
You May Cling . . .
Heres another way to hold off the power of death, unmaking, and the Bleak:
Embrace that which is being destroyed, or that which is doing the destroying. Cling to it.
Try to hold the destruction at bay as you do so.
Host a last desperate struggle to stave destruction off.
In an adventure fantasy, on the road of trials, or any game where the group or the HG lets
you, this turns the threat into:
Trouble
Never Say Die! or
a possible resolution to an orange Issue
The actual destruction is put on hold for the next little bit of play. Instead, the pressure on you
and the problem youre facing gets worse and worse. You can try to do other things while this is
happening, you can try to take advantage of the stay of execution, but trying to win anything
more than the smallest tactical victories as the pressure rises is almost certain to fail. Even if you
dont lose immediately, youre losing;
And it leads to this terrifying moment when it seems like all is lost.
This moment is also an opportunity for a certain kind of miracle.
That is:
The HG, or the player of the PC whose action wields the power of the Bleak, must then stop
and take a moment to consider relenting.
They dont necessarily have any new reason to.
Theres no special emotional power here to make them relent. Just, they have to stop for a
moment, and consider whether they will. And the character in question has something like that
moments pause to consider, IC, too a moment in the spiritual center of them, where they can
make a choice. If there is anything left in them capable of that.
If they dont relent, then, well, this attempt failed. The HG could conceivably give you a
chance at a heroic countermove, or conversely have you fail even harder than you otherwise
wouldve but thats not part of this rule. Thats just a part of HG discretion in the abstract.
BOX Tactical Timing
Incidentally, I dont want to encourage meaningful tactical benefits or drawbacks to rushing or

lingering over conflicts using these rules. So please assume that they can play out as fast as they
should play out to keep this from turning into a cheap victory for either side in the larger tactical
picture.
If you need to slow them down a little more than that to make the story go well, well, the
HG can let the winner whichever, of existence or unmaking, comes out ahead win a little
more effectively to make up for whatever time these rules have cost.
END BOX
Corruption Builds Slowly
Changing a persons nature takes time.
This isnt really a way of fighting the power of unmaking. I just wanted to make it clear that
this is as true for the power of the Bleak Academy as it is for the Wish-Granting Engine.
Changing someone, corrupting them, transforming them it takes time.
Cutting out all of someones good qualities, for instance, to make them a bad person?
Cutting out their memories to make them an innocent, and then filling their head with lies?
It takes time.
On the road of trials, or in a fairy tale setting, that means:
most changes worth tracking play out as Sickness and not as wounds.
if its corrupting you, it does so slowly, over 3+ Corruption Actions.
if it changes you in a neutral/positive fashion, 3+ Metamorphoses.
if its breaking you, it often takes 3+ Trauma Actions.
And that also means:
many such changes get thrown off/rejected after the Sickness Issue hits 4;
players can use the wound rules and can sometimes use the player-defined elements
of a Sickness Issue to mitigate or define what the power of unmaking actually does
to their PC.
In other genres, you may see some of these benefits. You probably will but I cannot say.
A Fierce, Passionate Struggle . . .
Heres another way of fighting the Bleak Academy.
Lets say youre being erased from existence. But you dont want to go.
So you fight. You name and claim all your mistakes: all the things you do wrong, the things
youve screwed up, all your errors and your selfishnesses. Because theyre real. You name and
you remember everyone who loves you, everyone whod miss you, everyone whom youd be torn
away from.
Because thats real too.
You say what you love, what you hope for, what you dream of. You say what youve wanted
your future to be. What matters to you. That stupid little thing you forgot to say to someone you
cared about the other night.
Do it. Tell the world what its costing it, to lose you. Tell the world and the Bleak Academy
what will be gone.
And heck.
You can do this, you can fight like this, even if its just your natural science paper on
sandpipers thats getting blasted out of reality. You can tell that paper what it is. What it really is.
How it came to be created. What it means. You can talk about all the good times you had
together. You can talk about what paper is made out of, or the fact that you dont know but that
it comes from trees or something. You can talk about the hand cramp you had when you were
writing all those words and clauses down.
Further and further. Over the top and then, when a new top shows up over the mists
beyond the peak of that first mountain, you go over that top, too.
In a Gothic story, or on the road of trials, or any game where you can sell the group or HG
on it:
Obsessive Action or Adversity may replace dissolution you tip over the
edge into delirium or obsession instead of losing what you otherwise would.
the resolution to a golden Issue, even though it usually involves bad ideas on your
part, is often antithetical to the Outside.
An Honest Effort Survives
That which is made well survives well. That which is built and maintained through simple,
honest effort and the dedicated heart is strong against the Outside.
This mostly means that things that people take good care of have:
a certain level of Auctoritas which protects them against attacks by the Outside;
a certain level of resilience, as if they had a small number of PC-style Health Levels.
Sometimes it also means that all you need to do to hold the Outside at bay, death at bay, the
Bleak Academy at bay, to fight off nothingness itself
Is something simple and honest. Something that reaffirms the world.
Something orderly. Something patterned. Something true.
Doing this at the last minute isnt anywhere near as effective as taking care of something
over months and years, but maybe if you can tap into a bigger reservoir of effort and heart then
you can still invoke a temporary level 1 Auctoritas or a miraculous partial survival.
Do you want this? Then:
Do your chores. Talk about your feelings. Contextualize the Outside as a sea and sail it.
Contextualize it as a mountain and climb it. Walk your way through a private ritual, like a kata or
cleaning a gun. Brush and floss. Scrub behind your ears. Do your homework. Read Blake or
Rilke to the chaos. Take someones hands and promise youll be together, forever, somehow,
even if youre both utterly unmade.
In short, in a Pastoral or Gothic game, or any game where you can sell the HG or group on
it,
a Shared Action
expressing your love, your friendship, or even some other feeling in a Shared
Reactions Scene, or
resolving a purple Issue
can affirm and protect the reality around you; and if the HG decides that its sufficient,
particularly for Issue resolution, you may be able to stand against the weight of the Outside.
At least, against its weakest, Strike 0 manifestations! (And heck. If youre invoking true love
or true friendship or lifelong practice or something like that, you might even get a temporary
level 2+ Auctoritas or a temporary bump in the level of an existing Auctoritas now and then!)
To See . . .
Here is another sometime answer to the power of the Bleak.
The power of unmaking is typically philosophical or metaphysical. It rests on something like

the world dissolves into formless, tumbling chaos, the world was never there at all, or this
is unworthy of existence.
But to see a thing is to enter into a dialogue with it.
To see a thing that is formless is to see its form. To see the world being destroyed because it
was never there at all is to see a thing which happens; a destruction which cannot justify itself by
its own terms. To witness a judgment is to put pressure upon it: unwitnessed, it may speak of
itself as eternally, cosmically just; before an audience, it must actually validate its own existence.
What I mean here is that emotionally honest and humble observation of whats happening
when a power of unmaking strikes . . . can reverse it, sometimes.
Its hard! Its scary! But if you stand there and say what you see, if you speak the chaos and
the Outside and the unmaking back at itself as it devours you, as it kills you or what you care
about
Then there is a chance at a eucatastrophe. At an anticatastrophe.
Because afterwards, when the metaphorical or literal waters have stilled, the HG must
consider whether your truth has poisoned the lie of the Bleak; whether your compassion has
poisoned its cold malice and uncharity; whether that dialogue with you has spread through death
and unmade it, unwoven it, turned it into something more like strands of death-colored cloth
than death, a show of endings and not an ending at all.
There is a chance that instead of an unmaking whether that means you are gone or it
is gone or something as simple and small and silly as you take a wound
That the metaphorical flood-waters will draw back, and everything will be OK. Sometimes
even better than OK. Sometimes youll even have something more than you started with,
sometimes youll have even won a treasure back from the unreal, from the shattering, from the
unmaking, from the counteracted power of the multicolored void.
In a Pastoral, Gothic, Urban Fantasy, or Techno game, or in one of the others if you can sell
the group or HG on it, you can use
Slice of Life
Discovery
Foreshadowing.
Sympathetic Action or
the resolution to a red or gray Issue
to perform this act of description and reclaim (or possibly reclaim) the world.
You May Draw the Curtain . . .
The last option for dealing with the destructive and dissolutive qualities of the Outside is to go
into a sort of a spiritual fugue. You choose not to see what happens. You choose not to know
what happens. Ideally you invoke this before the HG describes what happens. You experience it
in disjointed, symbolic terms, instead of as cold hard facts, and the metaphorical curtain falls.
Rather than watch as the Headmaster of the Bleak Academy snaps his fingers and your heart
vanishes from your chest, or Fortitude cracks in half and drowns under the tidal wave of the
Outside, or whatever, the game turns away to a bit of poetry. 79 What actually happens is not
shown.
This isnt always possible, and it obviously needs the HG to go along with it
Basically, to play along when you say, Um, can we draw the curtain here instead?
But if it works, play skips the actuality of the scene and moves on to some meanwhile or
later. The game leaves the actual result of things in doubt until the next occasion to have them
formally described.
Further, the HG is encouraged to let that result be at least a little kinder than one would
have expected theretofore. Generally youre not dead, for instance, even if your heart was
destroyed; rather, youre clutching your chest, staggering, and having trouble connecting to who
you are. Generally there are survivors, for instance, even if Fortitude was cracked and flooded;
the highest buildings endure, and there are boats
Or whatever.
And so on.
Formally speaking, this is an attempt to invoke a
Transition
79
This sounds totally stupid when I say it like that but honestly Im pretty sure this is good gaming practice.
Suitable Poetry
Id recommend against long poetry readings here. 1-3 verses should suffice; if that leaves more
of the poem youve chosen, then pick up that poem again from the last line read or the next one
after the next time a Transition like this comes up.
Im making a point of this specifically because one poem I really like for this specific
purpose is the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and let me be frank: youre not going to interrupt
your heart-deletion or even Fortitudes full destruction with a complete recitation of the Rime of
the Ancient Mariner without making every other person at the table a little restless.
I mean, unless your group has a real Coleridge thing.
So anyway, the poems Id recommend for this are:
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, if your group is one in three;

La Belle Dame Sans Merci (particularly IV-XII)
The Tao Te Ching
A Far and a Sunless Land (see pg. XX)
They Look Away (below) or
Some poem the HG has picked to be a campaign theme.
They Look Away
Heres a short piece Ive designed for this specific Transition, although please do not expect me
to be comparable to Coleridge. Because thatd be pretty unfair!
Ive marked some suggested breakpoints with numbers. If youre going to play out
Transitions like this a lot, you can read one section per Transition, and at the next Transition,
move on to the next. If its a one-time thing, just read the first one, or pick whichever section
catches at your eye.
They Look Away,

by Jenna Katerin Moran
(1) There is a city there, full forty miles squared

Dug out with oxen, dragging great jagged rocks;
Risen up from the bones of the Earth
And the back of a cloaked man who is walking towards it
Where Jotun dandelions were
(2) It swallows that man. It crunches him up, the teeth of the city:
Great granite bones
Like a heat shimmer, he moves into it and he is gone,
A paste it swallows down

And overhead high brass reflections
Around the bulging of the sun
(3) There it is said there is no death, and no plants grow from the ground;
(4) Meals are disbursed in dry biscuits from the maws of the granaries
Great night-black insects crawl upon the walls
Disease passes through but then it passes
(5) And they who tire of it they rise up
The devoured of the city, the given up for a second eating, and becoming
The re-devoured of the sun.
There in that land, in that place, there is no death and there is no greenery.
They are beyond sorrow and are beyond repentance.
They are made hard by that land, like stone.
If there are women there I have not seen them.
The children are stretched gaunt.
The men do not look at you. They look away.
A Bit of the Tao te Ching
For the Tao Te Ching reading here, Im fond of j.h. mcdonalds translation for instance, the
first few times it comes up, you might start with:
Tao te Ching 1
(1) The tao that can be described

is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be spoken
is not the eternal Name.
The nameless is the boundary of Heaven and Earth.

The named is the mother of creation.
(2) Freed from desire, you can see the hidden mystery.
By having desire, you can only see what is visibly real.
Yet mystery and reality

emerge from the same source.
(3) This source is called darkness.
Darkness born from darkness.

The beginning of all understanding.
Tricks of Play
The Rules for Conflicts
A player can always act.

A player can interrupt an unacceptable act.
A flurry waives the concept of going first or last.
A stalemate can be broken.
Action happens in the context of the now.
Sometimes things just are.
Sometimes the casual gameplay of taking your actions as you see fit will leave you uncertain how
things should play out.
What happens if somebody takes a unitary action to burn [your PC] alive?
What happens if theres a standoff, where everyone wants to see somebody elses action
before they move?
In this context there are six rules player-level rules, mostly, though they do have some
meaning in the game to help you turn your character concept into actions.
A Player Can Always Act
Somebody does something nasty while youre asleep. Somebody takes the kitten that you want to
pet, boxes it up, and ships it off to Eris in a rocket. Somebody makes an attack too fast to see.
What can you possibly do now?
The rule here is pretty simple
You can do . . . whatever you can do. If you have a power that lets you pet that kitten, even
though theyre on Eris, you can pet that kitten. If you have a power that says you can wake up
quickly when you need to, you can wake up in time to stop that nasty act. If you have a power
that lets you interrupt someone moving too fast to see
Well, you can do that too.

It doesnt matter that theyve already described it taken action, as a PC, or declared the
truth of things, as the HG. It doesnt matter. If necessary, you can always answer that with: Not
so fast!
That doesnt mean you do or must have the power to pet that kitten, wake up from that
sleep, or stop such an attack. It just means that you cant be denied the right to try. The HG in
particular can arbitrarily make all your actions fail, I mean, it can be brutal, but they cant stop you
from taking those actions first in the game.
A Player Can Always Interrupt an Unacceptable Act
One thing that means is that sometimes youll have to interrupt what was going to happen in
order to use your defense. For instance, somebody declares a unitary, atomic miracle:
Your house just blew up.
Youd like to invoke something like Superior Spiritual Energy 4, that is, the power to see
this kind of disaster coming in advance. But theyve already spent, say, 4 MP on blowing up your
house.
Your defense, in this case, interrupts them
The HG unwinds their action to before the MP was spent. They can still take it, as per the
above, but if you have a way to defend yourself (by, say, making your house out of marzipan, if
their explosion miracle is weak against the sugared), then theyll get the chance to re-evaluate
their choice in the light of the new informational state.
You might want to phrase this in play as: I need to interrupt that.
A Flurry Waives the Concept of Going First or Last
If youve noticed that taking turns isnt working that youre involved in a conflict, but the
action that gets taken first at the player level is going to be less effective than the action that
follows it up and so people are progressively moving towards a waiting game
You can call for a flurry of action instead.
In a flurry, you still choose your actions, and the HG still chooses what happens; but theres
an implicit assumption that everyone involved is watching the others and can change their
actions throughout the course of that moment to better fit the actions the others take. In short,
during a flurry, after hearing someone elses action, you can change out the details of your action
without a new expenditure of Will, consumable resources, or MP. You also have the option to
completely discard your action, sacrificing whatever resources you already spent on it, and do
something completely different instead.
For instance, you throw rock; they throw paper; but ah, no, you threw scissors; though they,
apparently, threw rock.
Of course, thats a stalemate, so lets not leave things with the players exhausting themselves
proposing new outcomes and choices until one of them cons their way into victory (Its rabbit
season!)
If the battle doesnt converge towards a stable equilibrium, that qualifies as a Bleak effect
supervening on both sides actions and forcing a stalemate to emerge.
A Stalemate can be Broken
Its hard to do, but you can break any stalemate whether its a stalemate in a flurry, which Ive
just noted as Bleak, or a bigger-picture stalemate in a conflict spanning hours of play.
The first may be broken, of course, with the rules for fighting the Bleak:
Rather than simply conceding that you both threw rock, or that you couldnt manage to pull
off a fair RPS contest, you could give a passionate soliloquy about why you trust in paper, and
then gamble on it. A gamble may save you, if luck is kind.
Or maybe you could attempt to invoke a Transition to draw the games metaphorical
curtain over the final throw of the game.
You may draw the curtain before the stage grows dark.
If youre fighting someone back and forth and, while youre taking sequential actions and
not trying to flurry, its still getting kind of samey and pretty much determined to be a tie? You
can treat that as a wish. You can look for emotional resolution to the stalemate emotional
resolution mirrors itself in the resolution of the stalemate.
Or you could try to develop new powers based on the fact that youre locked in an endless
struggle with somebody:
A daring heart may unlock its hidden treasures.
You can treat the conflict, in short, as somebody wishing: I wish these two would get stuck
in an irresolvable conflict and figure out how you should proceed from there.
These arent rules that youll want to use every time. Sometimes you just need to play out
that RPS game out of character; or accept a tie; or have the PCs get a little bored and break off
their endless fight.
But if it matters?
If you have to have a winner?
The wish- or Bleak-fighting rules will apply.

Action Happens in Context
Someones just used an effect you cant possibly defeat. Theyve set fire to your building, say, and
you dont have anything strong enough to oppose the action or the miracle that they used.
That doesnt preempt your action, though.
You might look at your options and say: But I cant do anything. I dont have the numbers
for it.
But that isnt true. The only thing you cant do is make their action not work. You can still
take any action available to you on the premise that the building is getting set on fire. If you want
to leave the building, say, they dont get to stop you unless burning the building with you in it
was part of the action they took. If you want to fireproof your room quickly using a fireproofing
miracle, they dont get to stop you unless burning everything in the building was a part of the
action they took.
In short, your actions arent taken in the context of their number, with their higher number
necessarily winning; even if their number is higher, so your actions cant defeat it, or miraculous
when youre limited to mundane actions, or whatever, your actions arent taken in the context of
their number but the context of what their action does.
This is why, even though theres nothing I can do to stop the moon from tiding up the
waters all the time, and nothing I can do to stop the great figures of the world from throwing
around level 7+ actions, nothing I can even do to stop some random person from miracling at
me, I can still take actions: because all that said, my life is my life, its just within the context that
those things create.
I dont have to be able to beat the moon unless Im actually trying to stop the tides!
Sometimes Things Just Are
The last rule that Id like you to remember is that not everything is a player action.
If the HG decides that you throw yourself out of the way of a gunshot, that doesnt count as
you taking an action to throw yourself out of the way of a gunshot. You can either accept that
description, or take an action to change it, but the HG cant put their words in your mouth.
If the HG decides that you hear a noise while asleep and it wakes you, again, you dont have
to spend an action to hear that noise. It doesnt count as you spending an action to hear that
noise. Its just the HG describing something that you hear, and then describing something that
happens (your waking up) as a result.
Actions like this things the HG does on your behalf, like you hear something, or does
against your behalf, like you reflexively shudder and draw back are called reflexive actions.
Most of your senses invoke reflexive actions: you might need an action to listen or look, but not to
hear or to see. Afflictions invoke reflexive actions: you might need an action to use a Skill, but
Affliction-based stuff just kind of happens.
These things arent things you do, even if theyre described by the HG as things you do.
Theyre not even things you do if you use some player-level rule to make them happen.
They just . . . are.
Theyre a part of the HGs realization of the world.

Miraculous Arcs
The last thing I want to cover in this book is some of the Miraculous Arcs themselves powers
and paths you can develop in this game.
Theres strictly speaking an unlimited number of these
Im only even like 80% sure that theyll all fit the eight colors I have. So you shouldnt look
at this list as exhaustive. Instead, these are examples and starting points. I do expect that most
PCs will stick to these, or to Arcs written up in later supplements, because thatll save you some
work and means you wont have to run everything past your group but the core thing here is
that these arent the paths but some paths you could walk.
Theyre also examples for miraculous powers in general
Id recommend that when picking up miraculous powers as Perks you look at the kinds of
things other Arcs might give you at your current Arc Trait level and base your new power on
that.
Arc Powers
a rules concept
Certain miraculous Arcs offer particular benefits to characters while, and only while, they are
being pursued.
In particular
certain Arcs are for those who cling to their mortality despite their power; you earn
the MP-regeneration power Frantic (pg. XX) when you follow Arcs like these.
other Arcs are for the slow intrigues of immortals on the miraculous stage; you
become immortal, and earn the power Immortality (pg. XX), when pursuing those
Arcs.
a few Arcs are for those beyond questions of mortality; these offer Sickly (pg. XX)
or maybe (in later books, or for player-created Arcs) something else.
Frantic
a Miraculous Ability
Type: Special
Cost:
Youre never so resilient as when youre terrified.
You may take the (Be in) Trouble Action any time you can meet its condition. Doing so
earns you 1 MP, up to a maximum of your starting MP. Each additional group XP that you earn
from this Action also earns you an additional MP.
Immortality
a Miraculous Ability
Type: Miraculous Action, Major
Cost:
o 0 MP damage or enchantment has only temporary, appropriate effects on you

o 1 MP you totally recover and shrug everything off 1-2 times mid-scene
o 2 MP starting mid-scene, you shrug off attacks and other effects like theyre paper
tigers
o 4 MP youre basically unaffected by the world around you
Youre immune to damage that breaks your paradigm essentially, you can only die or take an
injury when and how it fits your character.
For better or worse, when Immortality applies, any wound you take fits itself to your native
F/X and heals automatically between scenes or mid-scene, if you spend MP. If something
thats too powerful for Immortality to counter wounds you, youll still tend to heal the resulting
Surface Wounds in a scene, Serious Wounds in an hour, and Deadly Wounds in 0-2 chapters.
You can limit your immortality to a conditional version
Either because it makes sense to do so, or because wounds in this system tend to come with
cool powers up until the point where they kill you. In that case its up to you how quickly you
heal the wounds your limited Immortality lets through.
Despite all that talk about things getting past your Immortality, or things your Immortality
lets through, this power makes you ridiculously tough I mean, if . . .
Someone hits you?

You forget to eat for three months?
Youre hit by a nuclear barrage?
People are pouring molten steel over your head?
You can probably just shrug it off!
Maybe you get a bruise. Maybe you look hungry. Maybe you actually take one of those
chapter-length wounds from radiation sickness or whatever and wind up hiccupping miserably
all the time like people who are hit by nuclear barrages will do. Maybe you have steel poured all
over you, and it hardens, and now youre stuck in place; but then you spend MP, or the scene
ends, or whatever, and whatever your F/X are for getting out of steel (e.g., when nobodys
looking, I turn up again, just fine or I reform nearby from vacuum energy) they come into
play.
Bam!
Youre fine.
Youre also immune, as that last case might suggest, to most adverse effects in general
Immortality defends you against attacks, against things that cause harm, and not just against gross
structural damage. However there are four exceptions to this comprehensive protection that I
want to call special attention to:
You can still suffer from the Sickness Issue its just that the individual manifestations
of turning into a werewolf or being turned to the service of evil or whatever are fit to
your Immortalitys special effects.
The state of being confined is only considered wound-like if its boring or keeps you out
of play. Sufficiently interesting captivity just doesnt count.80
Extremely deadly stuff, like nukes, volcanoes, Imperial miracles, and other Major
miracles of similar Arc level can still hurt you. Your wounds will still be much less
severe than a reasonable person would expect, and theyll still heal in two chapters or
less, but if someone uses an orbital mass driver to shove the spear of Longinus through
your guts, you will get a terrible wound.
Occasionally Ill introduce an effect that lets you take some action at the cost of a
terrible wound, or that seals a wound so that no effect can heal it. If youre doing
something like that to yourself, Immortality will not heal such wounds.
80
This rule isnt here to make it easier to capture you, incidentally, although it certainly does that its here
to help explain why you can potentially escape a bodysuit of hardened steel without breaking it but cant then
casually slip it back on.
Conditional Immortality
If youre on an Arc that promises Immortality, you are potentially eternal, invincible, and
immortal.
You could be like the default Wishing Boy (or Girl) nothing really hurts you, although
you may show cosmetic effects like torn clothing, bruises, and mind-control-induced whirly eyes.
Even those wounds tend to heal as soon as nobodys looking.
Or you could be more like Harpy, who is named Disdain; you could kill her if you made
a game of it, a party of it, if you laughed as you killed her, and thats why shes dead now, the rats
they killed her, and no more does she haunt the Stagger of Rooftops down by Lethwillam Sore.
But if they hadnt laughed, then shedve survived.
You could be like the default Principal, who can be torn to shreds but takes no harm
therefrom
Or you could be like the kaiju the fishermen occasionally bring in to Fortitude, who turn
aside most of the harpoons that come for them, who struggle mightily in the nets, who are
arguably Immortal in that theres no specific effort sufficient in itself to kill them, but who
eventually are caught, suffer, and die because it is natural for them to do so creatures whose
Immortality is not so much bounded by conditions as exhaustible, able to be burned out.
Anyway, the point is, being on an Arc like this gives you a rules-set based Immortality. Its
not perfect: even aside from the conditions you choose, its just a powerful miracle, and there are
certain methods e.g., Afflictions, the Auctoritas, and stronger miracles to overcome its
force.
But when youre starting an Arc where youll have it, you should decide how limited it will
be.
Sickly
a miraculous ability
Type: Special
Cost:
You are prone to trials and your life is a sorrowful thing. Once per session you may declare
yourself under attack by corruption or trauma, invoke a suitable
(Suffer) Corruption or
(Suffer) Trauma
XP Action, and automatically pick up a point of Sickness unless your Sickness Issue is either at 5
or has just recently been resolved.
Wounded Angel
Wounded Angel is a miraculous Bindings Arc. Its suited for characters who tried to be
good and perfect and awesome, but didnt make it. Or characters who are currently trying, and
wont.
This Arc offers the following abilities:
Dramatic
Devices
Divine Health
Blasphemy (starting at Arc 1)
Empowered Wounds (starting at Arc 1, improved markedly at Arc 2+)
Recover (starting at Arc 1)
Supreme Invocation (starting at Arc 3)
Salvation (starting at Arc 3)
Union (starting at Arc 3)
In addition, Main Characters receive the power Sickly (pg. XX) while actively pursuing this Arc.
Powers
Dramatic
Cost:
You have a fate a kind of karmic role. You tend to show up in certain kinds of scenes. Its
something like, you tend to show up when people are being wicked; or when theyre expressing a
wish for vengeance; or when they need you; or when theyre at their best; or when theyre at their
worst; or when innocent children are threatened; or when people talk about you; or whatever.
Something like that.
You can choose which kinds of scenes were talking about, and if youre not sure when you
start this Arc, you can let things play out for a bit before deciding while you try to figure out
whats fits.
This isnt really a very useful power this game assumes that in general everyone has the
power to choose what scenes they appear in, barring being explicitly locked out or tied up
elsewhere, and this doesnt come with any inherent ability to circumvent those states. But just
because it doesnt give you any more rights as a player doesnt mean it doesnt make it a little
more functional and cool to appear in those scenes it can shift the footing from wait, youre
here? to of course youd be here.
Devices
Type: Special
Cost:
Youve a collection of pacts, devices, tattoos, infernal creatures, mysterious servants, or

something of that sort. You have, in short, a theme.
Pick one Skill usually a magical Skill; you can change this Skill later on if it doesnt fit.
You get a +1 or +2 Tool for using that Skill when you properly employ your pacts.
Divine Health
Type: Special
Cost:
You receive an additional Divine Health Level, plus one further additional Divine Health Level
for each level you acquire of this Arc.
For instance, at Arc level 3, youd have a total of +4 Divine Health Levels.
This isnt as cool of a gift as it might seem, since youll wind up committing a number of
them to the powers of this Arc later on.
(Cage for a) Blasphemy
Arc 1+
Cost:
There is something particularly nasty bound inside you. Its usually the price for some of your
other powers, and youll pick it up at the end of your first miraculous Bindings Arc, or
somewhere in the early portions of the next.
Its something required in order to advance along the Arc.
If you ever lose your last Divine Health Level, that nastiness will get out. Maybe its a red
world bound inside you and when it rages out everything around you will bleed, suffer, and catch
fire. Or maybe youre more like Nightmares Angel: the sky will fill with stormclouds, the
ground will seep with foul water, and you will begin to vomit out poison, rotten chunks of wood
or flesh, and corrupting spirits from your mouth and your hollow chest. Maybe your inner
blasphemy is unique: if you lose your last Divine Health Level, everyone nearby will lose their
souls, or their heads will explode, or the world will revert to 18th dynasty Egypt all around you,
or candy will start raining from the sky. Evil candy. Candy, that is bad!
This blasphemy functions as a wish, basically.
Its a wish for something terrible and awful to be unleashed.
On the bright side, its a disincentive for anybody to kill you; and if they do hurt you badly
enough some interesting things will happen.
The thundercloud to that silver lining, though: you have this terrible thing inside you.
If you permanently wound your last Divine Health Level using Empowered Wounds,
below, the blasphemy is freed, but if it is then dealt with, you can postpone its return indefinitely
by refusing to recover from your wounds and avoiding anything that would earn you a new
Divine Health Level.
Empowered Wounds
Arc 1+
Cost:
0 MP, 1 Divine Health Level empower one wound per book

4 MP, 1 Divine Health Level empower one wound at any time
You can take a ritual wound to bind something to yourself, turning it into a power source. Im
designing this power in light of the most effective and generic version, which takes any wound or
attack that comes in and declares it a ritual wound, but if youd rather have a less reactive or
violent aesthetic, thats OK too
You could, for instance, cut yourself or open your soul in order to let spirits in, or to
swallow animals whole, or to let in divine inspiration, or something of that sort.
Regardless, the regular or ritual wound removes one Divine Health Level from your
character sheet, binding it inextricably to the wound, but gives you the following abilities:
Arc 1+: A new miraculous ability, usually something you can use weekly or at any time;
Arc 2+:
a new Imperial ability that helps or strengthens you that is, its focus must be on
you, not on attacking or changing someone or something else; and
optionally, a third ability that completes or competes in some fashion against one of
the other two.
You have rough control over the kinds of powers you get, but may have to experiment some to
fully define or discover them. These powers replace the normal benefits of a wound. (pg. XX)
Empowered wounds cannot heal and no one can free you from them save yourself you
must invoke Recover, below, before any healing effect of any sort can lift the burden from your
flesh or soul.
If youre confused about how to handle wounds and removing a health level from your
sheet, proceed as follows:
If the thing youre transforming isnt a wound, take a wound or use it to wound your
highest remaining Health Level anyway.
If you just wounded a Normal or Tough Health level, swap the wound with the wound
in a Divine Health level.
Remove the new wound and the Divine Health level simultaneously from your
character.
Recover
Arc 1+
Type: Special
Cost:
You may stop empowering a wound at any time, allowing you potentially to recover from
conditions acquired in play. The associated powers go away and you gain a new, wounded Divine
Health Level. You do not immediately heal; rather, healing becomes possible.
As a special exception to ordinary procedure, self-healing powers may remain active long
enough to help you recover from the wound that created them. For instance, if someone cuts off
your head, its perfectly legitimate to
take a cool temporary power where your head flies around and a slower weekly
power neck viscera hands that lets you knit your spine back together;
fly your head around for a while enjoying the thrill of decapitation; and then,
when being a head in the game gets boring, disempower the wound, hook your neck
viscera hands in, and start healing.
Suffering is a power source for you: its painful and awful and you do not like it one bit but it is
rarely incapacitating for very long.
Supreme Invocation
Arc 3+
Type: Imperial Miracle, Ritual Power
Cost (Arc 3):

Cost (Arc 4):

Cost (Arc 5):

o 4 MP use this power a second or later time in a matter of minutes
Once per book, you may use an empowered wound as justification for a wish-level effect
wish that something is so, and tie it thematically to the wound, and it becomes so. Normally this
is instant but if the connection to the wound is ephemeral or vague then the process takes some
time. For instance, if a head wound compromises your memory, you might be able to use this
power to erase an incident (for the most part) from the memory of Town. Ultimately, you can
probably do anything at all here: the question is, what do you want to wish for? And how can you tie this
to your core and current wounds?
Salvation
Arc 3+
Type: Special
Cost:
Once per campaign, you may offer salvation to someone when all is lost, using your power of
Binding to connect to them in some way and see them through. This functions as an Imperial
miracle:
I wish there were something I could do to help here, to make even this hopeless situation work out.
Except for the HG, a given player can only invoke this power once per campaign, even if they
later change PCs; after that, if you play a different character who reaches Arc 3+ in a Bindings
Arc, the HG will choose who, when, and if you save; you can prompt them if they dont seem
like theyre getting around to this, and you can veto their choice if it doesnt fit you, but you
cannot invoke this power a second time on your own.
Union
Arc 3+
Cost:
o 0 MP connect to a specific character 1/book

After using Salvation to rescue or connect to somebody, you may invoke this power once per
book while talking to (or, if you cant talk, using the most practical communication method
available with) them.
Your earlier sacrifice will come into play somehow. Your target will gain 1 point of inherent
Connection with you (up to a maximum of 5) and their Connection with you will rise to 5 for the
remainder of the Scene.
Their player has the option to reject these benefits, in which case the power does not
invoke.
Become Somebody
Become Somebody is a miraculous Knight Arc. Its suitable for characters who know what
they want to be but havent gotten there yet, as well as anyone who has gotten somewhere but
has much further to go.
When youre thinking of starting this Arc, or during the first quest that starts you on that
path, you should:
choose a Truth (pg. XX);

think about options for your Failing (pg. XX); and
think about options for your Role (pg. XX).
Its OK to wait on choosing your Failing and Role until inspiration strikes you just wont be
able to use certain powers until you do.
Choosing your Truth
Before you can really become somebody, you need to know a little something about who you
are.
There has to be something about you. Something that isnt exactly like everybody else.
That is this Arcs Truth.
Its probably a good thing. Like, youre . . .
honest?
brave?
true?
quick-thinking?
clever?
well-prepared?
of good heart?
chaste?
loving?
diligent?
strong?
an excellent baker?
extremely kind to children and small animals?
or something else?
But it could be a bad or kind of neutral thing like . . .
youre incredibly lazy

or mean
or, you almost won that big soapbox derby a few years back!
So, whats your Truth?
Starting at Arc 1, you may buy additional Truths by spending one Recharge Token each.
If you think youre both valiant and honest, for instance, this is the way to prove it so.
Choosing your Failing
Youll also want to choose a Failing something in you that makes it hard to live up to who
you want to be.
Is it . . .
something serious, like

o pride
o recklessness
o cruelty
o greed or
o dissipation?
something minor but which needs fixing, like

o poor planning
o poor motivation
o overconfidence
o easily tempted or
o excessive materialism?
something that isnt a real vice, but which you think of as your tragic failing anyway, like
o being too beautiful (legitimately)
o being too beautiful (under the false impression that you are)
o looking too plain
o being a robot
o being an unreal or imaginary creature
o having red hair
o being a vampire or
o being short?
Whats yours?
Choosing your Role
At some point ideally before the end of the first Arc, and certainly before your first use of
powers like Shared Experience youll want to work with the HG to find your Role.
This is basically who and what are you trying to be?
Are you trying to be
a heroic doctor?
a knight?
an idol?
a teacher?
a ninja?
a cop?
Or are you already something lets say, a god or goddess? Royalty? A vampire? and you
just want to learn to do it right?
Or are you aiming for a more specific title?
Do you want to
take over as head of the Student Council at Horizons School?

be the Guardian of Time?
the Prince of Bees?
Magical Star Princess Vega?
Youre not actually limited to real positions here
That is, you can just declare yourself the Guardian of Time and slowly develop suitable
powers
But youll grow in power a lot faster if you dont have to invent your own role. Thats why I
say that you should work with the HG, because its better to be the Custodian of Time thats a
real thing that people in your position can be than to be the Guardian of Time if that isnt.
So anyway . . .
Dont answer until you want to, but . . . whats your role?
Abilities
The Become Somebody Arc offers the following abilities:
The Wages of Sin

Shared Experience
Your Truth (starting at Arc 1)
Adaptable (starting at Arc 1)
Unstoppable (starting at Arc 2)
Commanding Aura (starting at Arc 2)
Reject (starting at Arc 2)
Touchstone (starting at Arc 2)
Power Up! (starting at Arc 3)
In addition, while you are pursuing Become Somebody, you have the special power Frantic
(pg. XX). You can rename this power if you are more stoic than frantic might suggest.
Powers
The Wages of Sin
Cost:
1 MP at Arc 0 see the influence of a Failing

0 MP at Arc 1+
Theres some failing some vice youre trying to overcome, and to some degree have.
Because youre intimately familiar with it, you can see its signs even when theyre not
obvious; invoke the Wages of Sin and you can see the vice and its influence on a situation, as if
it were flowing water, livid fire, or glowing thread.
Shared Experience
Cost:
2 MP at Arc 0 understand the part of a person that shares/resembles your Role

1 MP at Arc 1
0 MP at Arc 2+
Youre not alone.
Knights arent the only ones who fight for the right. Magical star princesses arent the only
ones who believe in the power of wishes. Guardians of Time arent the only people who care
about time not coming unstrung, and there are plenty of honey farmers who dont qualify as a
Prince or Princess of Bees but who care about the health of the bees around them anyway.
Invoke Shared Experience and youre in tune with those people
Or, well, with that part of them, anyway.
This functions as a temporary Affliction with a rating equal to the Arc. What that means is
that the world will sometimes just . . . give . . . you insights into this stuff, into that part of what
makes a person tick. If youre the Prince of Bees, and a honey farmer near you has a passing
thought about using a different floral basis for their honey, youll know its like, youll
recognize that look. If youre Magical Star Princess Vega, and you have to make the call on
whether to trust someone in a crisis, youll be able to see the part of them thats thinking about
how to defend the hopes and wishes of the world against the oppression of the Outside (or, if
you dont see anything like that, youll know it isnt there.)
Plus, it means that if someone wants to hide this stuff from you if a drug-addicted Rider
wants to hide their secret from the Marquis of Addiction or whatever or someone wants to keep
the Prince of Bees from spotting a honey farmer in a crowd? Theyll need to use a miracle with
[Strike your Arc Trait.]
This only works for seeing the part of people thats like your Role so you will have to
choose a Role before it becomes practically useful as a power.
Your Truth
Arc 1+
Type: Auctoritas
Cost:
There are certain things that are simply true about you. They resist the power of miracles, wishes,
and the Outside.
Write down a two-point bullet list, starting with:
I am [your Role, e.g. the Guardian of Time]

I am [your Truth, e.g. honest.]
These are protected by an Auctoritas with rating equal to the Arc Trait. If you buy additional
Truths (as noted on pg. XX, you can spend a Recharge Token to do so), they are added to the
list.
Adaptable
Arc 1+
Type: Special (activates an Affliction when used)
Cost:
o 2 MP at Arc 1 belong somewhere you hadnt

o 1 MP at Arc 2
o 0 MP at Arc 3+
Youre learning to handle yourself in a wide variety of situations whether its wandering the
Far Roofs or traveling back in time, you can spend 0-2 MP and basically make yourself at home.
While you sustain an action, you have an Affliction thats basically:
I belong here.
This has the following effects:
you have at least a +1 Tool bonus to doing whatever you should be doing;
you get your Arc Traits rating ( ) as a free Connection to the environment;
the HG will sometimes throw miraculous coincidences and bursts of inspiration in to
help you out;
youll have a lot of trouble remembering that this isnt always who you are and where you
lived.
Also it takes a pretty powerful miracle (with at least [Strike your Arc Trait]) to forcibly make
you feel out of your element.
Unstoppable
Arc 2
Type: Special (activates an Auctoritas + Obstacle when used; can wound)
Cost:
2 MP at Arc 2 strip the world of its ability to oppose your performance of your Role
1 MP at Arc 3
0 MP at Arc 4+
Invoke Unstoppable while youre acting in the person of your Role and expressing that to
somebody else
You do need someone to express it to, so the only thing you can use this for in the absence
of communication is to facilitate or cause communication
And you become really hard to stop.
Opposition falters in the face of how good you are at being your Role; an Auctoritas equal to
the Arc defends your action and your ability to communicate it, and an Obstacle equal to the Arc
prevents anyone from actively impeding your expression or communication of that Role with
mundane actions.
Commanding Aura
Arc 2
Type: Special
Cost:
While Unstoppable is active, you can infect people with your ideas, values, and purpose. The
exact manifestation depends on your Role
The people around you will reflexively respond to your self-presentation.
Theyll become more like you, or more fit to you, depending on the role. You infect them
with your own call to heroism, or twist them into minions to your deviant science, or sweep
them up as followers in your path. Youll choose how this works when you first use this power,
but you can adjust the details later on.
This is a terrifying power.
I mean, if youre a shining hero or a great leader, then yes, you can use this to make people
better than they are. But even then if you push it too hard you can literally brain-bend people
into being cogs in your machine. If your Role isnt something awesome like that, then its going
to be kind of creepy every time.
Think of the effects of this power as a non-physical wound.
You wound the structure of their identity with your values and ideas. If theyre an NPC
they can give in and go along with it or take the equivalent of what, for a PC, would be a wound.
If theyre a PC, the target almost has to take a wound, because this power is directly targeting the
self-determination that Health Levels and the wound system represent.
You do not have to invoke this feature of Unstoppable. Those targeted by it will know
instantly if you do. After that,
a few seconds of conversation can dazzle someone and give them a Surface Wound;
a few minutes can build that up to a Serious Wound;
a few days with a captive audience can give them a Deadly Wound.
This power is basically a mundane action that has special rules while Unstoppable is in force, so
how much control you have over the process and how readily it applies to whole crowds is up to
your action level and the HG. If youre targeting a PC, their player also has a lot of say about
what exactly the wound that they take does.
Note that this action is protected by the Auctoritas, so even immortal characters will need to
use Strike or mundane actions to resist it.
BOX Charisma, or Mind Control?
Sometimes when Im writing social mechanics Im neutral or equivocating on this point, but this
particular power is totally a psychic attack. Its not quite mind control theres a key part of it
that uses your ordinary communication skills and mundane performance of your role but you
are softening them up first with weaponized enthusiasm.
END BOX
Reject
Arc 2
Type: Special (activates an Auctoritas + Obstacle when used)
Cost:
4 MP at Arc 2 make things less like you, or exile them from the story of your Role
2 MP at Arc 3
1 MP at Arc 4+
If you ever have a reason to, you can also do the opposite of Commanding Aura invoke Reject
and you can force someone to be less like you or make them less fit to support your role. De-
minion people, brain bend them out of being cogs in your machine, force them to cut ties with
you or think for themselves or be your rivals or enemies: whatever not being like the targets for
Commanding Aura would make them be.
While you sustain this power, it basically puts an Obstacle and Auctoritas the Arc Traits
rating in the way of the target being like you, or in the way of their fitting to and supporting your
Role, as appropriate. Further, you can use your mundane actions (as per Commanding Aura) to
push them even further away, towards some opposite point.
Touchstone
Arc 2
Type: Special (activates an Auctoritas + Obstacle when used)
Cost:
4 MP at Arc 2-3 fake a deep connection with someone

2 MP at Arc 4
1 MP at Arc 5
You can bind yourself to something (or someone). You can fit yourself to it, making it a
touchstone to reality for you, a place where for however short a time you genuinely belong.
While you sustain this action you have an effective level 4 Connection to that thing, and any
miracle that would break this effect or disrupt your use of that Connection needs at least [Strike
Arc rating] to succeed. Mundane actions to drive a wedge between you and the target would
face a minimum Obstacle of that level.
You can invoke Touchstone and your first mundane action with the new Connection
simultaneously.
Power Up!
Arc 3+
Type: Special
Cost:
4 MP at Arc 3-4 take Commanding Aura to a new, terrifying level

2 MP at Arc 5
Spend a total of 4 MP on your Unstoppable ability81 and you can force a break from reality
The world goes weird. Reality distorts.
Your Commanding Aura becomes a monstrous, overwhelming force. Before your targets
can attempt to resist before options like physically run away, close down physical channels
of communication, or even give in are available they have to play through a terrifying or
goofy chase, haunting, or impact sequence first.
That is, a break from reality.
Youre like some creature from horror or of religion: you batter their senses and their mind.
Now, the downside of this is that you cant actually apply the effect of Commanding Aura to
them until the sequence ends.
The upside is that this actually happens. Its dream-sequence-like, but its actually real. Or at
least, its a break in the nature of the real. If you glow with divine glory and angels sing your
praises, you actually glow with divine glory and angels sing your praises. If you have to chase
somebody, you can warp your physical body, crawl through televisions and appear around
corners, and have your words thunder through hallways and impinge directly on peoples minds.
Basically, you can use all kinds of horrible special effects as long as they have the effect of
underlining your Role and making it easier to communicate with your target. Use the mundane
action system if you want to achieve any other benefit from this e.g., scaring someone besides
your target, fixing a broken television, using the singing angels as a signal or message, or winding
up closer to where you wanted to be.
81
Or 2 MP, at Arc 5.
Power Up!
Arc 4+
Type: Special
Cost:
4 MP at Arc 4-5 power up Reject

4 MP at Arc 5 power up Touchstone
At Arc 4, you may power up Reject in the same fashion as Commanding Aura above.
At Arc 5, you can power up Touchstone it becomes something that gives you,
essentially, an on-demand soulmate or true companion relationship. This comes complete with
the dramatic freedom to appear in any scene theyre in and vice versa; to take wounds for them
and vice versa; and, as the most powerful effect available in this Arc, to talk the HG into letting
you do other things expressing your connection to that target. You may use the same sort of
dramatic special effects, and the same system for accomplishing unrelated things with them, as
for earlier Power Up! techniques.
Reality Syndrome
Reality Syndrome is a miraculous Knight Arc. Its suitable for kids and adults whose
peculiar beliefs in their own special powers not only get the better of them but of everybody else.
Basically, if youre on this path, youre hax.
You cheat at the world. More than magical Skills do. More than practically anybody. You
have something that means that your wildest flights of imagination just might represent the truth.
When youre thinking of starting this Arc, or during the first quest that starts you on that path,
you should:
choose some kind of Experience youll learn to share with those around you (pg. XX);
choose the nature of your impending reality-breaking Hack.
This Arc will grant you the following abilities related to your Experience:
Shared Experience
Dreams Made Flesh
And characterize your Reality-Breaking Ability as:
Childish Dreams (at Arc 1, and sometimes after)

A Little Push (at Arc 2, and sometimes after); or a
System (starting at Arc 3)
Augmented later on with:
Someone Elses Rules (starting at Arc 4); and

Purpose (at Arc 5).
Finally, Main Characters receive the special power Sickly (pg. XX) while they are actively
pursuing this Arc.
Choose your Experience
Each Reality Syndrome Arc features a normally private Experience that you may share with
others. It could be
something elaborate and narrative, like:

o my memories
o my dayreams
o my delusory life
o my plans or
o the legends about me.
something thats kind of external, like:

o this flavor that I am tasting
o my criminal record
o my social status or
o my shadow.
something that youre doing, like:

o who I am pointing at
o what I am paying attention to.
Its not the most important thing about you, but its a starting point. Whats yours?
Choose your Hack
Each Reality Syndrome Arc also comes with a reality-breaking power. Something egregious,
ridiculous, and unlimited. One trick thats just plain qualitatively off the charts, something that
justifies entire strategies just to deal with it, and even then, your enemies and rivals can never be
entirely certain that they have.
Something like the Wishing Boys Wish-Granting Engine.
Like the Ideologues ability to borrow the powers and Traits of others.
Something impossible, ridiculous, unbounded, deep.
Whats yours?
Can you make your wishes come true?
. . . actually, let me stop there for a moment. Thats the campaign theme. Thats probably the one
that you should be on this path for. Walking this path should normally give you your own version
of the Wishing power.
Can you make your wishes come true?
. . . or do you have something else?
Can you control causality?

Can you skip around freely through time?
Can you copy others powers?
Can you change the rules of local reality?
Can you move at near-light-speed without boredom or exhaustion?
Can you foresee the outcomes of every move everyone around you makes?
Can you take a normal power so far past the limits of reason that even something
normal like really good baker or telekinesis becomes a reality-breaking threat?
Or something I didnt think of at all?
Whatever it is, it means that in alternate worlds where your particular groups game is the subject
of a massive Internet fandom, there are people right now shutting down whole whod win fights
by claiming that of course it has to be you, because how could anyone or anything beat that?
Quest Miracles (Addendum)
Arc 0-2
At this level you may wish to pursue the typical quest miracles for a miraculous Knight Arc.
Arc 3-5
Generally at this point you have a fully-functional reality-breaking Hack going on, so you wont
need quest miracles to do even the most absurd stuff any longer; and if the point of the quest
miracle is to work around the genre conventions and the limitations of your Hack
Well, thats going to be kind of counter to the point.
So instead, at this level, youll usually use quest miracles or Recharge Tokens to shift
and change the limits of what you can do with your Hack to expand what youre allowed
to do. For instance, if youre Chuubo or Shokyou, quests are what you need to expand the
wishing map (pg. XX) that defines the safest elements of your power.
Im not going to forbid you to use the standard Knightly quest miracles here;
I just dont think that theyll be best.

Abilities
Shared Experience
Cost (Arc 0-1):
o 0 MP 1/book, you can share your experience with others.

o 4 MP you can invoke this power at another time
Cost (Arc 2):
o 0 MP 1/chapter, you can share your experience with others

o 1 MP use this power a second or later time per chapter
o 4 MP invoke this power instantly.
Cost (Arc 3+):
o 0 MP after a few minutes, you can share your experience with others
o 4 MP you can invoke this power instantly.
You can share your private Experience of something with others. Your daydreams; your
philosophy; your physical sensations; the things you taste. Memories. Control over your left
arm.82 Guilt and blame.
Whatever!
This takes a few minutes work; you have to sharpen and focus on your own experience of
that thing. Then a Region Property manifests in your immediate vicinity either:
You can Perceive and Adjust (your name)s Experience of (experience type) or
You Share (your name)s Experience of (experience type)
You can only use one of these, but you can experiment with both of them when you first get this
power to see which fits you best.
82
Idle hands are everybodys plaything! Lets all do our best!
For example, if youve chosen to let other people perceive and adjust your daydreams, then
they can physically move elements of your thought balloons around and converse to characters
youre daydreaming about even if you have headphones in and cant hear their words yourself. If
youve chosen to share control over your left arm, then everyone in the victinity can take
mundane and miraculous actions using your left arm.
You can use this power offensively, but because its a Region Property, doing so is at the
mercy of the targets players interpretation of what you do. That is, if you blind someone with
your daydreams or burden them with your guilt, they treat that as an effective level 2 Bond; if
they dont want to play along, they dont have to do something to resist you they just have to
explain the matter away OOC.
Dreams Made Flesh
Arc 1+
Cost (Arc 1-2):
o 0 MP 1/book, you can manifest your experience physically.

o 4 MP use this power a second or later time per book
Cost (Arc 3):
o 0 MP 1/chapter, you can manifest your experience physically

o 2 MP use this power a second or later time in a handful of hours
o 4 MP invoke this power instantly.
Cost (Arc 4+):
o 0 MP every few hours, you can manifest your experience physically

o 4 MP invoke this power instantly
After invoking Shared Experience, you may invoke Dreams Made Flesh to manifest that
experience physically. This has the following effects:
Descriptive Experiences. For an experience thats mostly descriptive, like daydreams or

memories, you can pull something from that description and use it in a comparatively peaceful
interaction with the world. You can, for instance, climb a fictional ladder or ride a fictional cloud
chariot. However, you shouldnt try to inflict serious wounds on people even a direct attack
with a rocket launcher pulled from dreams shouldnt do much more than cosmetic damage or a
Surface Wound at the worst. Maybe it fires a dud; maybe it stuns the target, surrounds them in a
cloud of smoke, but they should be basically fine.
Possessive Experiences. For an experience thats more of a . . . fact of your existence, like
things I am tasting, my criminal record, or my phobia of snakes . . . you can share it with
everyone around you directly.
They experience or possess it as sharply as you!
Active Experiences. For an experience thats more active, like pointing at someone or
paying attention to someone, you effectively take that mundane action on behalf of everyone
in your vicinity. They can overcome this with their own Intention if they dont want to do it, or
shelter behind Obstacles that would mute their Intention but not your own, but otherwise, well,
they do it even as do you.
Childish Dreams
Arc 1
Cost:
Youve learned to capture and express childish desires
I want that!
through the medium of your reality-breaking power. The standard rules83 are these:
this power enhances a mundane Intention to fetch something, create something, or

otherwise fulfill an immediate and visceral desire;
that specific enhancement is it is feasible for you to use your Hack to do this.
you can use this power more or less at will.
The effects of this power last only as long as you can sustain interest (an Intention or, if
appropriate, some other sort of action), after which they fade away, you discard them, or reality
reverts. In some cases other characters may augment their own Intentions with this, essentially
managing you and your power.
For instance, at this level, time travelers and speedsters can pop over and grab almost
anything that catches their attention, generally without even seeming to move at all. Pure wishful
hearts pop tools and treasures out of nowhere. People who can copy the powers of others tend
to show off for a few minutes by doing something like what theyre watching someone else do,
then lose interest.
This power normally evolves into A Little Push when you reach Arc 2 if necessary, you
can keep Childish Dreams, but normally it will go away or become cosmetic at that time.
83
Its possible these wont work for your particular idiom for some reason
A Little Push
Arc 2
Cost:
Youve learned to support fairly simple activities and obligations chores, school projects, and
social interactions with your reality-breaking power. Basically, when youre doing something
fairly local and simply defined and it just isnt working out like you want
When youre not getting the level 2-5 Intention result that you want, either because of
conflict or an Obstacle or because you just dont have the Skill and Will you need and the best
you can do is try your best and hope for HG leniency that didnt come
You can declare that such is the situation, figure out how your power could support it, and
use your Hack for that. This is usually something you can do once per chapter, although it
recharges when Will does (e.g. from a Recharge Token.)
Individual uses of this power tend to carry you to a climactic and victorious moment in a
very narrow task and tend to fade or fall apart soon after or when pushed outside those
boundaries; a term often bandied about is Cinderella Syndrome, where your magic does great
work getting you to the ball (as it were) but starts to fall apart once the official night of the ball
has ended and the morning of the ball begun.
Some classic examples of this power include:
using your reality-bending magic to mop the floor, potentially getting into trouble
but only after its already clean;
using your Hack to dry clothing for a big date in a hurry, and then
o nothing particularly bad happens?
o it takes a little damage that you only notice on the way home?
o it suddenly reverts to being wet and soapy after a kiss?
using your control over causality to win a Chess game
borrowing another persons powers and Skills to participate in a School play, only to
have them desert you after a climactic scene or become unreliable when you start
playing around with them for other things.
Your free-form Intention support powers evolve into a more tactical System as you reach Arc 3,
and your access to A Little Push tends to go away, become cosmetic, or become just another
part of your System power at that time.
System
Arc 3
Cost:
Youve systematized your reality-breaking power youve learned, created, or internalized a set
of rules and limitations that let you use it on a tactical, thoughtful level.
This typically works like so:
you have a limited palette of safe uses

you can buy others with quests
youre reliant on a set of props phrases, techniques, places, tools, and the like
incorrect use is dangerous its usually possible, and potentially useful or necessary,
but its intrinsically likely to create problems for you.
there may be associated drawbacks or curses
Basically, your power is contextualized by a set of rules it lives in its own little semantic milieu
and you can expect both that the HG and other players will exploit this for comedy, drama, and
interest and that your enemies will use the rules of that milieu to restrict you.
At this level the power is typically for bringing a scenario to life: a what-if of some sort.
Whether or not that fits your specific power, though, theres definitely an instrinsic structure: a
System comes with codified ways of invoking your power, things that you can but shouldnt do
with it, risks, prices, and miscellaneous rules.
A time-based limitation like this power can be used once per chapter is almost universal
You use the power, and then you face the consequences for up to a chapter; use the power,
and face the consequences for up to a chapter; and so forth.
The two standard examples of Systems are:
Chuubos Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine, which grants one wish a chapter,

and comes bundled with a map of reasonable applications. You can expand that
map with quests or wish for things that are off the map, but the further off the map
you go the more risk there is of things going terribly wrong;
the Second Skins power, which you can use once per chapter to copy another
persons powers, Skills, and Perks and add them to your own (as the eponymous
Second Skin). You generally need to study that person with a quest before you can
borrow their powers usually, 15 XP can add a random NPC to your list of skins,
a Perk costing 20+ XP can add a non-miraculous Main Character to your list, and a
Perk costing 35+ XP can give you access to the powers of a peer. You can keep the
new powers indefinitely, or at least until the chapters end84, but if someone
commands you to do something for them in the name of the Skin youre wearing
you have no choice save to obey or lose the powers themselves.
84
But only one skin at a time! Or two, counting your own.
Someone Elses Rules
Arc 4
Cost:
0 MP 1/book, define how someone else may help you work around your System.
4 MP do so at another time
You may work with others to bypass elements of your System. Im categorizing this as
something that uses wishing rules, even though technically its a little weird for Imperial miracles
to change how other Imperial miracles work
But basically, it boils down to:
I wish that working with this person would help me do something cool. Or
I wish that there was a person whom I could work with to get around this
particular limitation, and that Id have some way of finding out who they are.
The former version is usually a little weaker than a 15-XP quest to expand your limitations, but
thats really up to your group; the latter can be arbitrarily useful, but the more power you want,
the more awkward the working relationship is likely to be.
Shared Experience (Powered Up)
Arc 4
Type: Special
Cost:
0 MP you may invoke Shared Experience on someone elses experience 1/chapter

4 MP do so instantly.
After a few minutes contemplating somebodys elses experiences, you may invoke this alternate
version of Shared Experience to share their experience.
You may have
the power to share what you think is their experience (possibly augmented by
divination or mundane/Connection actions) or
a power to share their actual experience
You only have one of these, but you can experiment with both options when you first get this
power to see which fits your character best.
You may and probably should use this in combination with Dreams Made Flesh.
Purpose
Arc 5
Type: Special
Cost:
0 MP bypass the limitations of your System 1/book

You have seen beyond some of the limitations of your System; once per book you can waive
one limitation on your reality-breaking power:
Invoking it without the normal props, tools, or invocations;

Ignoring the normal time limits on its use; or
Waiving the general restrictions on incorrect use, replacing them with this: that the
power is cosmically inclined to go wrong to the extent, and only to the extent, that it tries
to force what ought not be forced.
In general you can only waive one limitation at a time, although the HG can bend that at their
option.
Example System: the Wishing Map
Figure 1- Starting Wishing Map

(Youll use this to make wishes that come true!)s
If youre playing Chuubo or Shokyou, your power of wishes will be based on the Wishing
Map, which is in turn built on your relationship to the other PCs. You start, as shown above,
with the raw power of being a peaceful kid who enjoys life and is a little lonely sometimes.
For anything more, youd talk to each of the other players either before or after the first
couple of sessions. Get a single phrase from each of them to summarize what they think of your
PC or what their relationship with them might be.
This is the basis for your Wishing Map!
Every wish you make flows from something on this Map. For instance, theres enjoys life
written up there near the top. A nice, sunny day would help you do that, so you could go up to
the Wish-Granting Engine and wish for a nice, sunny day. Becoming the Mayor of Town, or
bringing Picasso back from the grave that would be harder for you, because by the time
youve come up with a justification like Im a little lonely, so I wish Picasso back from the
grave youre on very thin ice with the wishing power of the heart that allows the Engine to
work at all.
That said, if nobody but undead Picasso will do, you do have two things in your favor:
an extremely tenuous wish will probably still work its just that its more likely to go
horribly wrong instead of just entertainingly wrong.
you have the power to add phrases to the Wishing Map in play.
Figure 2- Example Wishing Map

(Youll use this to make wishes that come true!)s
Once youve gotten one phrase from each PC, you can spend Recharge Tokens for additional
phrases or, if this Main Character is an NPC, the HG can just add a phrase or two in every
now and then.
Suggested Phrases
Here are some possible descriptions of Chuubo, taken from Fortitude: the Glass-Makers
Dragon. Note that these are just my guesses! The other PCs, and even the NPCs, could have
very different ideas about who Chuubo is and what he is about.
The Best Friend thinks Chuubo . . .

o is Seizhis best friend
o needs someone to watch over him
o is kind of goofy
o is fun to talk to
Nightmares Angel thinks Chuubo . . .

o is frustratingly simple-minded
o does not grasp the seriousness of the situation
o is secretly everything Leonardo wishes he could be
The Troublemaker thinks Chuubo . . .

o has a grand destiny
o has a good smile
o is fun to play tricks on
The Prodigy thinks Chuubo . . .

o is a pretty ordinary kid
o is a good guide to Town
o is deeply suspicious
The Child of the Sun thinks Chuubo . . .

o is very down-to-earth
o needs help
o reminds her of herself
The Angel of Fortitude thinks Chuubo . . .

o should be planted and turned into a tree of worlds one day. Yes. That.
o is making pretty improbable claims with this whole Wish-Granting Engine
thing
o is an admirable child
The Dream-Witch thinks Chuubo . . .

o holds the key to her lost memories
o is honest, good, and kind
Child of the Ash
Child of the Ash is a miraculous Otherworldly Arc. Its suitable for characters who are
exceptionally real characters so thoroughly themselves, so indomitably real, that if they lost
themselves in the depths of the Outside new worlds would congeal around them.
When youre thinking of starting this Arc, or during the first quest that starts you on that
path, you should:
think about the conditions for your Immortality (pg. XX);

choose a favored Element (or, more conventionally, environment) (pg. XX);
choose an appropriate Mood (pg. XX); and
choose your future Kaiju Form (pg. XX).
Choosing your Element
Like most Otherworldly Arcs, a Child of the Ash Arc connects you to an Element or Estate
typically, and specifically, you become a creature of:
the woods primval dense, tangled forest and its life

the concrete jungle brownstones, cracked sidewalks, dandelions, and wire fences;
children walking to school under a beating sun
the labyrinth of steam tangled pipes, valves, and steampunk machinery
the first city ziggurats, mud-bricks, and flickering high-hatted ghosts; or
the hammering of the storm a raging storm pounding on the doors and windows to
get in.
You dont have to choose one of those exactly, and in fact I havent really given you more than
impressionist details to choose one of them with, but its something like that. You become a
creature of a possible world. You become the creature of a notional endless or at least egocentric
reality: a reality that can think of itself as the sum total of things and stand as an island in the
chaos.
An arrogant little world, and one that can manifest itself, in bits and pieces at least, in Town.
Choosing your Mood
This path comes with an associated mood an emotion you can evoke in the area around you.
Do you . . .
create a sense of peace and calm?

shroud things in darkness, shadow, and despair?
order, regiment, and light the world?
fill things with a sense of confusion, incomprehensibility, and wonder?
Choosing your Kaiju Form
Finally, this Arc comes bundled with a kaiju form youll have the power to turn into some
sort of giant monster, robot, beast, or numinous being.
This isnt a good idea.
Seriously! I dont recommend it! Particularly not a giant snake. Turning into a giant snake
doesnt help! But I dont recommend going kaiju for anybody, snake or not, not until like Arc 2
at the earliest.
. . . But you can.
Pick your form.
Are you . . .
a really long snake?

A firebird?
a congeries of unholy energies?
a thing of wings and hands and faces opening and closing are they all?
a standard mecha?
a giant crocodile?
maybe an octopus, in a hat?
If you wind up really unhappy with this you can usually change it with a quest particularly the
kind of quest that would let you rewrite an Affliction or other character Trait.
By default your kaiju form uses the same basic character sheet. If you want to differentiate
your kaiju form from your normal form in a way more profound than the powers of this Arc
allow, you can talk to the HG about how to get a Perk that functions like the Alternate
Identity Perk on pg. XX, or, all else failing, use that Perk.
Abilities
The Child of the Ash Arc offers the following abilities:
Set the Mood

[Mood]-Splosion
Wicked Mode
Kaiju Form
Mortal Form
Shed Scales (at Arc 1+)
Defensive Shield (at Arc 2+)
Natural Weaponry (at Arc 3+)
Elemental Connection (at Arc 3+)
Non-Euclidian (at Arc 4+)
Attention Control (at Arc 4+)
Bramble (at Arc 5)
In addition, Main Characters receive the power Immortality (pg. XX) while actively pursuing
this Arc.
Abilities
Set the Mood
Cost:
0 MP given time, you can evoke a certain mood.

4 MP you can invoke this power with a word.
Invoke Set the Mood and the Arcs Mood will spread. For instance, if your Mood is peaceful,
things become progressively nicer and quieter around you.
After a few minutes, this qualifies for a Region Property in the setting for this scene e.g.,
Things Become More and More Peaceful.
You can also invoke this power in a targeted fashion to affect a specific target. This isnt an
absolute effect, but after a few minutes, the target has a moment of being . . . as much of that
mood as is possible under the circumstances. This is pretty much whatever the targets player or
the HG thinks is the closest feasible result
For instance, if your mood is darkness and despair, then you wont be able to apply it to a
sunbeam. Sunbeams dont do darkness and youd need a more absolute power to get them to do
despair. If you were targeting a motorcycle, though, you might be able to put it into shadow and
make its running engine sound kind of tired and dismayed. If you were targeting a person already
inclined to despair, they could easily wind up sitting in a shadowed corner crying into their
hands, but if theyre a cheerful person on a good day you might not be able to do much more
than give them a moment of doubt.
[Mood]-Splosion
Cost:
o 0 MP 1/book, invoke a [mood]-splosion

Once per book, you may evoke the Arcs Mood on a grand scale. This functions as a wish,
though a fairly specific one e.g., for an Orderly Mood, it works something like:
I wish this [[ situation/place/thing ]] would be clean, organized, and well-lit!
Or, for a Peaceful Mood,
I wish this [[ situation/place/thing ]] would just calm down!
Like a wish, it gives the HG and the group as a whole a lot of leeway in deciding what that
means. For instance, if you wished an atmosphere of peace and calm onto a war zone, the HG
and the group would have broad discretion as to whether its soldiers, e.g.,
o stop fighting
o to admire the sunset
o to have a party
o to have peace talks
o because the entire battlefield freezes over in ice
o because the wind scatters them to the four corners of Town
o or keep going, but start using really quiet weapons and whispered battle cries
The time it takes to invoke this effect is variable but cosmetic it never takes too long to
invoke, so its just a matter of whether it makes more sense for you to stand there making
soothing gestures for a few minutes (or whatever) or not. If youre spending 4 MP, you can set
this time frame yourself, including instant.
Wicked Mode
Cost:
You have a defined if fairly prosaic means of monstering out e.g., taking off your tie and
tying it around your head to show that youre ready to rock; fishing brass knuckles out of your
purse; gelling your hair into spikes; drawing lines on your face with mud; donning an orange robe
that you keep with you in your backpack; or slipping red contacts onto your eyes. You do
something that shakes up who you are and totally reverses your Mood.
Instead of being peaceful and laid-back, youre now ready to rock.
Instead of being orderly and refined, youre now chaos incarnate.
Instead of being a creature of the incomprehensible, you are now an avatar of revelation.
As described, this mode is a function of your mortal form, but by overcoming a suitable
Obstacle, you can invoke Wicked Mode even when transformed into something else.
BOX Wicked Mode (Powered Up)
Cost:
At Arc 4, there is no longer an Obstacle to using Wicked Mode while transformed: you can
freely adopt the spirit of gelling your hair into spikes even if you dont have gel, hands, or hair.
END BOX
Kaiju Form
Cost (Arc 0-2):
0 MP become a kaiju over the course of several minutes

4 MP become a kaiju instantly
Cost (Arc 3):

Cost (Arc 4):

Cost (Arc 5):
0 MP become a kaiju.
You have the power to take on an alternate form a large, powerful alternate form. You can
become a gigantic monster, beast, or being.
The change takes a few minutes.
Once completed, its permanent you need a different power, Mortal Form, to revert.
Early Days. This power starts out kind of goofy and unhelpful. You dont turn into a cool giant
monster or whatever. You can pick up some pretty good reach growing to a couple of stories
in height or length up to a hundred and some yards and you might wind up with wings or
something, so all thats cool. In general this power can change whats feasible for you in the same
way that a level 1-3 Superior Skill might . . . but it doesnt actually give you that Skill and theres
generally a level 1-2 Obstacle to doing complex things with your new limbs or abilities.
This is probably worst for those like the Wishing Boy whose natural alternate form is a
giant snake its practically a cosmic law that turning into a giant snake never helps anything
but even if you turn into a giant jewel-headed octopus or whatever youre likely to wind up
knotting your tentacles if you try to get clever.
Theres a reason that giant jewel-headed octopuses dont run the world!85
Later On. After sufficient practice, or automatically when you reach Arc 2, you start to be the
cool kind of kaiju. You no longer have the Obstacle to using your alternate form properly and you
can even weasel around world-rules like turning into a giant snake never helps and School
campus regulations like turning into a giant octopus merits only the darkest of detentions!
(My recommended excuses include:
its not turning into a snake thats helping! Its my wishing, snakeful heart! or
bah, its more like I stop turning into a human!
But what really matters isnt the specific excuses so much as the fact that around now the HG
should start being inclined to actually buy them.)
85
Several, actually
Mortal Form
Cost (Arc 0-1):
0 MP 1/book, between two chapters, revert to your non-kaiju form

1 MP switch back a second or later time per book
2 MP switch back mid-chapter (over the course of a few minutes)
4 MP assume your non-kaiju form instantly
Cost (Arc 2):
0 MP revert to your non-kaiju form between chapters

1 MP switch back mid-chapter (over the course of a few hours, unobserved)
2 MP switch back mid-chapter (over the course of a few minutes)
Cost (Arc 3-4):
0 MP revert to your non-kaiju form over the course of several hours, unobserved
1 MP switch back over the course of a few minutes
Cost (Arc 5):
0 MP revert to your non-kaiju form over the course of several minutes

Turning back into whatever you were before thats a little harder. You need to get away from
Main Characters at the end of a chapter, go somewhere unobserved, and work at it for what can
take you days. In fact, for a while, its so difficult that it may well be worth having someone talk
you back to normal as the resolution of an Issue instead of paying the normal cost.
Turning back, like turning into a kaiju in the first place, is permanent; you dont have to
sustain an action.
Shed Scales
Arc 1+
Cost:
0 MP starting mid-scene, adjust your kaiju forms scale 1-2x/scene

1 MP starting mid-scene, adjust your kaiju forms scale an additional time
2 MP starting mid-scene, adjust your kaiju forms scale as often as necessary this scene
4 MP adjust your kaiju forms scale as often as youd like this scene.
Your kaiju form has become indifferent to scale. Are you three stories tall? Skyscraper tall? Or
just barely small enough to fit into someones house?
. . . maybe a little of both?
You can invoke Shed Scales to ignore a size-related Obstacle86 up to the Arc Traits rating
while taking a mundane action. This automatically re-scales you to somewhere between insect-
and Regional scale where taking the relevant action with the relevant level of success is feasible,
and you stay that size until you leave kaiju form or use this power again.
Starting around Arc 4, youll occasionally find that insect- to Regional-scale isnt really
sufficient for what you want to do youre trying to grab the moon from the sky or swim in
someones bloodstream, say, and youre in a relatively real environment where a Region- or
insect-sized person cant do that kind of thing.
In such a case youll want to use the power-up, below.
Note that youre allowed to use this power even if theres an [Obstacle > the Arc rating],
but it wont negate or even reduce the Obstacle so you might have a hard time.
Some characters with this power stop having a fixed size at all
Let the HG know if youre OK with them fudging your size now and then, and when that
might tend to happen.
86
Including square-cube-law-related Obstacles and most strength, weight, and flexibility-related Obstacles, but
only if the HG can figure out a size that makes the action feasible.
Shed Scales (Powered Up)
Arc 4+
Cost:
0 MP 1/book, scuttle the limitations on your kaiju forms size.

4 MP use this power a second or later time per book.
Starting at Arc 4, you may invoke Shed Scales to reach truly ridiculous sizes not as a matter
of practice, but now and again.
This power functions as a wish:
I wish I could get [[ big/small ]] enough to take [[ intended action. ]]
Ive phrased it as a wish to make it a little more flexible in terms of how long this effect lasts,
how you achieve it, whether youll get stuck at the new size, and so forth. Normally, youll grow
or shrink to an excessive extent naturally, and then have to undergo some extremely laborious
process to return to normal, but its really up to events.
Defensive Shield
Arc 2+
Cost:
2 MP when your kaiju form is wounded mid-battle, establish a defensive element
When your kaiju form takes a wound in a battle situation, you can waive the normal rules for the
advantage that you get and instead construct a defensive feature something evocative of
technology, magic, or your Element.
Youre sheathed in living shadow; or, you raise a local force shield; or, cyclones or orbiting
drones defend you from that attack. Essentially, instead of the wound, you twist the attack into a
point-defense wish:
I wish Id had something effective to deal with that threat.
Youre the authority on your own thematics but, as always with the wish, the exact manifestation
is in the HGs hands.
This power lasts until the end of the scene, or until the wound heals if it heals during the
scene; after that, the shield fades to the potency of an ordinary wound.
Defensive Shield (Powered Up)
Arc 5
Type: Special
Cost:
At Arc 5, when you invoke a defensive shield, you may restate the wish as:
I wish I had something that could deal with all the threats currently coming at me.
Further, you can usually expect that combat with your kaiju form will operate at a time scale such
that this is useful. I mean, its up to your group and the HG! But you can expect it.
Natural Weaponry
Arc 3+
Cost:
2 MP starting mid-scene, make a miraculous attack in your kaiju form

1 MP at Arc 4
0 MP at Arc 5
4 MP make an immediate miraculous attack in your kaiju form.
In your kaiju form you can now make physical attacks essentially anywhere within reach that you
can focus your attention. If you dont have a proper ranged attack by nature, figure out
something appropriate to the aesthetic of your Element and form.
This power is meant to be a basic sort of weapon you stab, or pummel, or spit acid, or, at
most, set people on fire with a look. The scary part of this power is just that its brutally fast and
effective. If your weapon starts getting flexible (e.g., if you can choose between stabbing people
or gluing them in place, or if your range of poisons includes lethal, painful, and medicinal, or if
you can turn people into animals with your eyes) the HG may ask you to dedicate your next
appropriate Perk slot to the idea.
You can automatically use (the normal version of) Shed Scales with this attack with an
effective Intention level of 6. This does not require a separate action or MP. At Arc 4+, you may
automatically use Non-Euclidian as well, and at the same level.
Elemental Connection
Arc 3+
Cost:
o 0 MP connect to your Element 1/book

You may invoke this power once per book to open a cosmos-spanning Connection to some
instance of your element.
You may gain an point of inherent Connection to some creature or place belonging to
your Element, or give that creature or place a point of inherent Connection to you;
Your mutual Connection rises to 5 for the remainder of the scene;
You may communicate with the target normally, using emotes, but at this level of
Connection that should be as good as speech for the remainder of the scene.
This power has inherent Strike equal to your Arc rating.

Non-Euclidian
Arc 4+
Cost:
0 MP starting mid-scene, adjust your kaiju forms structure 1-2x/scene

1 MP starting mid-scene, adjust your kaiju forms structure an additional time
2 MP starting mid-scene, adjust your kaiju forms structure as often as necessary this
scene
4 MP adjust your kaiju forms structure as often as youd like this scene.
Your kaiju form has become indifferent to geometry, at least to the extent that youre willing to
let it be. Just how do those wings made of wings work? How can you possibly chase someone
down your own throat? What does it mean that youve fallen asleep and turned into a mountain
range?
Your normal mode has one of these two options
Symbolic Option: You can blend ambiguously into appropriate environments for
your Element it becomes weirdly hard to draw the line between you and the
mountain range, forest, or apartment complex youve merged with;
Lurid Option: You can go fully Escheresque and non-Euclidian, including getting
into fistfights with humans and zeppelins at the same time or opening portals in
your own stomach to crawl through.
Your wicked mode has the other option instead.
In both cases, this essentially waives the normal Obstacles youd face for doing that kind of
thing. Instead,
Symbolic Option: the longer you stay blended in somewhere, the harder it is for
people to spot or target you but the harder it is for you to become fully alert or
active again in a hurry.
Lurid Option: each use of this power establishes something about your current
location and structure, and acting on that information is Obstacle 0; other
interactions between you and the world have Obstacle 1-3 for others and for you
based on how complicated and abstract your position has lately gotten. (Basically, if
you chase someone down your own throat, you can definitely fight them there
without Obstacles, but if you want to bite someone on the outside, even you are now
at Obstacle 2-3 because wtf?)
Attention Control
Arc 4+
Cost:
0 MP over the course of a few minutes, construct something that can make a mental
or social attack for you
4 MP do so instantly
In your kaiju form, you can invoke this power to develop grow, really a natural weapon
that can make a mental or social attack. This is specifically what youd use to make a tool for
fascinating prey, pacifying them, and/or drawing them in or making psychological attacks that
spread your Mood.
Bramble
Arc 5
Cost:
0 MP 1/book, or when wounded, fill the area around you with an ongoing effect
4 MP do so a second or later time per book, without taking a wound
Once per book, or as a defensive shield-like alternative to taking a wound, you can fill
the area around you with a hostile environmental effect. In practice, this plays out as a wish:
I wish this territory around me were dangerous for roughly [[ this reason. ]]
Spiritual
Spiritual is a miraculous Otherworldly Arc. Its suitable for characters who feel a deep
connection to some element of the world
It makes you an exemplar and servant of some fundamental force:
Your Element or Estate.
For instance, it might connect you to
the long days of summer

the harvest season
the wild hills
the limestone cliffs
the beaches and the stones
the will of fire
the happiness of celebrations
the peacefulness of the heart
the insects and the flowers
the birds in the skies
the roofs and their rat-roads
the moonlight (and starlight)
the rain and the thunder
the drying of laundry
the frost and the dew
the bounty of the lake
the bounty of the land
the winds of the high places
winter
spring
the hearth and home
Or to something stranger, such as
the health of the trees

the health of the teeth
packages and the post
the roads and the paths
the snails of the beach
the caves and the tunnels
the stirring of the soup
bicycles and carts
canning and preserves
the auroras and the rainbows
rumors and reports
the maintenance of the account books
the cakes and the pancakes
money and trading
recycling and garbage collection
the bends of the river
steam and electricity
the constellations
the sakura blossoms
To connect you to your chosen Element, this Arc offers the following abilities:
Elemental Warning
Illusions
Spirit-Sense (starting at Arc 1)
Spirit-Speaker (starting at Arc 1)
Spirit Boost (starting at Arc 1)
Divine Mantle (starting at Arc 1)
Spirit-Shaper (starting at Arc 2)
Summons (starting at Arc 2)
Chastise (starting at Arc 3)
Secret Wisdom (starting at Arc 3)
Destiny-Shaper (starting at Arc 3)
In addition, while you are pursuing the Spiritual Arc, you have the special power Frantic (pg.
XX) You can rename this power if you are more stoic than frantic might suggest.
Abilities
Elemental Warning
Type: Miraculous Action [ with free Strike = Arc level ]
Cost: 0 MP
Youll know when something globally bad is happening to your Element.
For instance, if you become spiritually connected to garbage collection and recycling,
youll know if something is about to happen to strike at the very foundations of recycling
whether its an increased efficiency to urban and suburban life that renders recycling redundant
or a nanovirus that corrodes recycling plants throughout the world.
Or, if you wind up connecting to the birds in the skies, youll know if something is going
to happen to all of those.
Theyll cry out to you. Youll hear them wailingly birding or recycling in your dreams.
Technically you should get this warning whenever something threatens the whole element,
everywhere at once; but thats not fun, so lets do this another way. Youll get the warning
whenever the HG remembers to give it, even if its just a local issue!
Illusions
Cost (Arc 0)
1 MP use this power (every few hours)

2 MP use this power a second or later time in a handful of hours
Cost (Arc 1+)
0 MP use this power (every few hours)

You can invoke a . . . sense of your element being present, or absent, or doing something.
This is not a very strong power: all it does is create is an impression, a feeling. If someone
stops and looks carefully, theyll be able to see right through the visuals. If they stop and listen
carefully, theyll realize they were probably mistaken about the sounds. In short, if people ignore
the feeling that your element is now present, or absent, or acting in the way you command, then
this power has no or minimal effect.
Conversely, though, even if someone consciously tries to ignore you and this power
completely, there will always be a dream-like sense of your element obeying your commands.
For instance, if youre connected to the Long Days of Summer, you can make a room
seem warmer or time seem to pass more slowly. You can encourage someone whos prepping
drinks in another room to pick summer drinks like iced tea.
Spirit-Sense
Arc 1+
Cost (Arc 1)
1 MP learn things about your element
Cost (Arc 2+)
0 MP learn things about your element
Starting at Arc 1, you can become extra-knowledgeable about your element just by looking,
you can get a sense of the most detailed and obscure arcana about how your element works.
Even if something is tangential to your element, you can use this power as an extremely effective
diagnostic tool.
For instance, if your element is the Health of the Trees, you just have to look at a tree
with thise power active to know how old it is, its disease history, and its expected lifespan; if
youre interested in its height and climbability instead, this power is probably worth a +1 or +2
Tool.
You can sustain this power once invoked if you want to wander a forest gathering
information on many different trees, for instance, you can do that with one mundane action for
the wandering part and one miraculous action to invoke this power and keep it on.
Spirit-Speaker
Arc 1+
Type: Special
Cost:
While you have Spirit-Sense active, you can speak directly to your element. To a limited extent,
itll be willing to do favors for you generally the kinds of things you could explain away as
coincidence or imagination if you didnt know that powers like this existed. For instance, you
could ask one of the Long Days of Summer to last long enough for you to finish your walk, or
ask some Bicycle or Cart to slew out of control.
To make sense of this power youll have to be in an animistic mindset
If stuff like the Long Days of Summer did have the power to act, and were in fact taking
actions on a regular basis, what kinds of things would they be able to do? It seems to me, in that
mindset, like they can be hotter or gentler, experientially longer or shorter, more or less insecty or
flowery, but that they definitely cant change how long they last by the clock by more than the
error margin (probably . . . half an hour?) on my vague awareness of when a given summers day
should end.
Spirit Boost
Arc 1+
Cost (Arc 1)
2 MP boost your element 1/week

4 MP use this power at any other time
Cost (Arc 2)

2 MP use this power a second or later time this week
Cost (Arc 3)

1 MP use this power a second or later time this week
Cost (Arc 4+)
0 MP boost your element, every few hours

You can invoke this power to miraculously strengthen your element. The effects are limited to
the neighborhood scale, more or less, and should have some level of dream-logic to them if
youre strengthening the Will of Fire to melt through a steel wall, it should take a few minutes; if
youre extending one of the Long Days of Summer, you should have trouble holding it for
more than a couple of days, and the next few days will tend to blur by in a rush. That said
You can be pretty awesome.

Divine Mantle
Arc 1+
Type: Miraculous Action [Special]
Cost: 1+ MP
Spend up to the Arcs rating in MP and invoke Divine Mantle to give all your miracles, for the
rest of the scene, miraculous Edge equal to the MP spent. (This caps at a total of 3.)
Miraculous Edge works just like Strike, but it doesnt add to Strike (you get whichever is best)
and it doesnt break Auctorita.
When you invoke the Divine Mantle you are wreathed in an aura of your element
Youre obviously wielding spiritual power over it.
This aura is a subjective/experiential radiance, like the Illusions power gives, and not a
matter of visible light or tangible effect.
Spirit-Shaper
Arc 2+
Cost (Arc 2)
2 MP invoke or control your element (individual/house scale)
Cost (Arc 3)
1 MP invoke or control your element (individual/house scale)

2 MP invoke or control your element (neighborhood scale)
Cost (Arc 4+)
1 MP invoke or control your element (individual/house or neighborhood scale)
Invoke Spirit-Shaper to command the movements of your element or pull some of your
element from your dreams/imagination/spirit into the world around. As with Spirit Boost, you
can be pretty awesome just keep to relatively local stuff and make a few nods to realism here
and there.
For instance, if your element is the Limestone Cliffs, you could probably dream a wall into
being covered by limestone in seconds or dredge a house a few yards into the air on a new-
sprung limestone cliff. Once you get to Spiritual 3, you can probably bump a whole city block
or all the houses on one side of a long straight street up ten or twenty yards on a newborn cliff.
Summons
Arc 2+
Cost (Arc 2)
2 MP summon a small instance of your element from afar

4 MP invoke this power a second or later time within a handful of hours
Cost (Arc 3)
1 MP summon a small instance of your element from afar

Cost (Arc 4+)
1 MP summon an instance of your element from afar.

Invoke Summons and you can call something of your element to you. With the appropriate
Element, you could
divert a small rivulet from the Twisting River

summon a statue
call a specific piece of mail to you
invoke a named spirit, or
pull a known and named chunk of limestone from the limestone cliffs north of Fortitude
to you from anywhere in the same Region.
Arc 4+. Starting at Arc 4, you can invoke this power to summon large or unusually powerful
instances of your element.
Chastise
Arc 3+
Type: Miraculous Action, Bleak
Cost (Arc 3)
2 MP dissolve some of your element

Cost (Arc 4+)
1 MP dissolve some of your element
Invoke Chastise and some portion of your element just . . . goes away. By default it melts over
the course of a few minutes but thats just a genre thing if youre in a hurry, you can just snap
your fingers and its gone.
Secret Wisdom
Arc 3+
Cost (Arc 3)
2 MP know a little more than you should

Cost (Arc 4)

Cost (Arc 5)

Your tie to your element gives you a secret wisdom.
Invoke Secret Wisdom to know a little more about anything thats come up in play. If the
HG doesnt want to share, you can generally come up with new information yourself!
As a special rule, if the HG isnt sure youre right whether they want to give you tentative
information or are skeptical of your proposed new bit of data you get the MP back.
Destiny-Shaper
Arc 3+
Cost (Arc 3)
4 MP move your Element around inconspicuously, or shape its destiny
Cost (Arc 4)

4 MP invoke this power a second or later time per book
Cost (Arc 5)

4 MP invoke this power a second or later time per chapter
You can change the destiny or context of your Element in a given Region.
The destiny thing is a lot like a wish you declare that something is going to happen to
some part of your element, like, on this particular Long Day [sic] of Summer, Im going to
be King of the Waves, thats basically a wish.
Only, because its not, because its a miracle, there are the following differences:
resisting is easier,
outright ignoring the effect inflicts just a single Deadly Wound instead of two,
the effects are awesome but comparatively understated,
the power of the effect is that of a Major Miracle while sustained, and
once you stop sustaining the miracle, the power level normally87 fades to that of a series
of mundane coincidences and Obstacles.
When I say that you can change the context of your element, Im talking about stuff like this:
87
Once you stop sustaining the miracle, its in the HGs hands, and they can technically do whatever they want
with it, including ignoring it immediately or scaling it up all the way to wish level but normally, it gets pretty
weak.
If you want to say that thereve always been a couple of the Long Days of Summer in
the middle of Fortitudes winter to keep the earth from getting too cold, bam, youve got it,
done.
Youve changed the context of those particular days.
Or if you want to point at a given instance of Bicycles and Carts and say, That ones
mine and make it true
This is the effect that you need.
The nice thing about this power is that its extremely subtle. You wont get the old owner of
the bicycle complaining to you at most, theyll wonder why they bought you a bicycle and
failed to give it to you until right then. You wont get people surprised by those mid-winter long
days of summer; theyre right there on the calendar of Fortitude, after all.
Again, if someone fights this power, it works a lot like a wish, except for the differences
noted above.
Creature of the Light
Creature of the Light is a miraculous Storyteller Arc. Its for characters infected by a shard
of something supernal something higher and holier than the mortal world.
It offers the following abilities:
Tireless
Well-Lit
The Auctoritas Magister (at Arc 1+)
Appear (at Arc 1+)
Transfix (at Arc 1+)
Obsession (at Arc 2+)
Open the Vault (at Arc 2+)
Fade (at Arc 3+)
Transition (at Arc 3+)
Ritual (at Arc 4+)
Inspire (at Arc 5)
this Arc.
Powers
Tireless
Cost: 0 MP
You are not human. You are made of sterner stuff.
Arc 0. Theres something you do compulsively, obsessively, something thats potentially

useful but not usually directly on point to the affairs of play. Running all night, counting things
and doing paperwork, making traps, climbing things. You have access to miraculous Will when
you give in to this obsession and perform this activity without really thinking about it.
Arc 1. You have conditional access to miraculous Will in a broader range of circumstances,
e.g., as long as theres an audience or when wrestling with literal or metaphorical chaos.
Arc 2. You have access to miraculous Will.

Well-Lit
Cost:
0 MP obtain the best reasonable lighting

2 MP at Arc 0 declare lighting out of nowhere.
1 MP at Arc 1
0 MP at Arc 2
You are a creature of the Light and have the right to invoke Well-Lit and demand dramatic
lighting from the world.
The normal effect is that youre simply in the best possible spot to be well-lit youre
supernaturally perfect at being in an ideal being-spotlit location, whether thats standing in a
beam of moonlight, making your way to the center of a stage, having starlight sparkle all around
you, or having a giant beast with lamp-eyes look suddenly your way. If youre trying to do this
naturally, then its possible that the best reasonable lighting isnt all that great.88
However, if you like, you can outright declare that theres:
a ray of sunlight to strike you full-on, even at night;

a stage light out of nowhere;
a nimbus of mundane or arcane light around you;
a blinding glare behind you.
And thats an Imperial miracle.
Why does this happen? Its usually up to the HG. The two most common explanations are
break from reality or shocking coincidence although, like most powers requiring
unexpected work from the HG, the HG has the right to handwave this or make you figure out
the explanation yourself.
88
In keeping with this, as part of maintaining the illusion that this is natural, this version of the power counts
as a level 4 miracle and not an Imperial miracle if youre just in the best possible spot, someone with access
to miracles could conceivably stop you from being well-lit.
The Auctoritas Magister
Arc 1+
Cost:
0 MP starting mid-scene, swathe 1-2 actions in the Auctoritas Magister

1 MP starting mid-scene, swathe an extra action in the Auctoritas Magister
2 MP starting mid-scene, swathe yourself + your actions in the Auctoritas Magister
4 MP swathe yourself + your actions in the Auctoritas Magister
Starting mid-scene, you may invoke the Auctoritas Magister to protect your mundane actions
from the influence of miracles and the Outside. This power shelters them behind an Auctoritas
equal to the Arc Traits rating e.g., Auctoritas 2 when you reach level 2 in Magister of the
Light.
To a limited extent this protects your person if your action is defensive, or if something
would hurt or transform you in such a way as to impede your action. If youve spent 2+ MP,
then your body and mind are directly protected.
The Auctoritas Magister allows you to take actions so ominous and inexorable that they give
even miraculous entities trouble.
END BOX
Appear
Arc 1+
Cost:
0 MP 1/chapter, appear to someone you have a Connection to

1 MP use this power a second or later time per chapter
4 MP appear in seconds instead of minutes, or even less than that if dramatically
required
You may transport yourself to anyone you have a Connection to, materializing over the course
of a few minutes from whatever is most evocative of or likely to have been mistaken as yourself.
If theres nothing at all appropriate you can manifest with the building sense and omens of your
presence, instead.
You depart in the same fashion at the end of the scene, fading back into something that is
revealed to not have actually been you at all.
Transfix
Arc 1+
Cost:
0 MP 1/book, transfix those around you with your mundane actions

4 MP do so a second or later time per book
Invoke Transfix to add a glamour to a slow and careful mundane action something without
sudden movements and you can transfix those who are observing you, making it effectively
impossible for them to pay attention to anything else.
Obsession
Arc 2+
Cost:
0 MP 1/chapter, invoke Obsession

1 MP invoke a second or later time per chapter
2 MP invoke a second or later time in a matter of hours
Invoke Obsession as you act and your actions may obsess, entrance, or otherwise provide a
profound emotional effect on a selection of desired witnesses. It etches its way into their mind.
This is functionally a miraculous attack.
If this defeats them you may sketch out the details of the effect; otherwise, its up to the
target to decide how they process the impact.
You may invoke Obsession and Transfix simultaneously, paying the higher relevant cost.
Open the Vault
Arc 2+
Cost:
0 MP 1/chapter, invoke Open the Vault

2 MP invoke a second or later time in a matter of hours
When interacting with someone, invoke Open the Vault and name an emotion/experience and
your actions dredge up a flashback from your target
A specific experience, or a mlange of experiences, best fit to evoking the desired mood.
Your targets player normally emotes the experience, although they can abbreviate it
(potentially as far down as stuff) if they cant think of anything interesting. Your target can
take an IC action to keep these feelings from becoming obvious in-character, or, if appropriate,
use an ongoing Intention to do so; this, however, faces an Obstacle equal to your Arc Trait.
Starting at Arc 4 you can do this to an entire crowd.

Appear [Powered Up]
Arc 3+
Cost:
0 MP 1/book, specify the circumstances around your appearance

4 MP invoke this power a second or later time per chapter
Starting at Arc 3, you may specify thematic circumstances for your appearance
I appear as you are falling into despair.

You realize you have wandered into my killing ground.
Pick the basic circumstances when you reach Arc 3, although you can adjust the details or talk to
the HG about changing them completely at a later time.
This power functions as a wish that arranges those circumstances and then, as soon as they
arrive, manifests you with Appear.
Fade
Arc 3+
Cost:
0 MP 1/book, fade away into the Outside

1 MP use this power a second or later time per book
Over the course of a few seconds (or less, if dramatically necessary), you may slip away to the
closest portion of the near Outside, leaving behind only something that others had mistakenly
believed was you, as if youd arrived by Appear
Even if you hadnt.
In many places89 theres a level 2+ Auctoritas between you and the near Outside, and youll
have to invoke a Bond or spend extra MP on Strike in order to escape. If youre actually in the
near Outside already, then this power functions as a neighborhood/vicinity-range teleport.
89
anywhere that isnt regularly touched or troubled by the Outside, that is, such as Horizon, Arcadia, Old
Molder, western Fortitude, Little Island, and . . . I dont know whether Bluebell Park counts!
Transition
Arc 3+
Type: Miraculous Action, Major; Unreal
Cost (Arc 3-4):
0 MP 1/book, non-interactively change the world according to your will

4 MP invoke this power at another time
Cost (Arc 5):
0 MP 1/chapter, non-interactively change the world according to your will

2 MP invoke this power at another time
Construct a desire an Intention and invoke Transition, and that desire plays out upon the
world around you. For instance,
The world fades away. Youre in an endless, perfect garden. Im there. Youre
there. Everythings at peace.
I reach down. I pull a flower from the pool. I hold it in my hands. I look up.
You can tell me, I say. Its safe.
And its safe. Its been a hundred thousand years since theres been any need
for you to keep any secrets from me.
And oh, you want to speak!
[[ pause ]]
. . . A while later, the moment ends.
This is a solipsistic and non-interactive power; you can declare actions and feelings onto other
people, but you cant change what you do next based on their response. In short, except to the
extent that people may use counteracting effects or take wounds to prevent portions or the
whole of it from happening, things simply happen as you originally willed.
(Dont change what you do based on what happens is generally on the honor system in a
tabletop game, since youre generally invoking the power live in play. In fact, you can even
massage that rule for dramas sake or by taking a wound yourself. The point is just that even
interactive things like interrogation and chess are pre-scripted IC, so you cant play them out
dynamically.)
This power ends with an equally forced scene break that is, afterwards, unless people are
taking actions to avoid it, time jumps forward by a variable amount as the world around you tries
to contextualize the actions that you took.
BOX Unreal
An Unreal power is a power that youre not supposed to be able to explain. It replicates the
feverish unreality of rituals, transitions, corruption, and the Outside and blurs the line between
experience, description, and action.
Most of the time if a power leaves the world in an inconsistent state, youre supposed to
figure out what that means.
Not so here.
Instead, if events involving such a power are sufficiently bizarre, the world may write them
off as a break from reality, and restore broken topology, sense, and causal chains therefrom.
For instance, if you twist a room around so that its inside itself, the Outsides fine with that;
around the time that you start wondering what that looks like from the other side of the wall,
though, Fortitude will be writing the whole thing off as a dream sequence and Horizon will be
postulating some sort of writhing, reshaping box suspended on a needle in the middle of some
gloomy square.
END BOX
Ritual
Arc 4+
Type: Miraculous Action, Major; Ritual Power; Unreal
Cost:
0 MP 1/book, interactively change the world according to your will.

Starting at Arc 4, you may interrogate the world in a different fashion
You may produce hallucinatory experiences, travel to far places, and explore the characters
and intentions of others in a space of altered reality that you and the HG construct together as a
ritual.
Specifically, each book you can propose a new, general special effect and concept for:
Delving into a targets psyche;

Afflicting people with evocative (pleasant or unpleasant) experiences;
Interacting with someone otherwise inaccessible (dead, fictional, or whatnot); or
Traveling to certain places.
and invoke it as a ritual as soon as you and the HG have worked out how that ritual might
function. Once defined, this works like any other Ritual (pg. XX), save that you can always and
only invoke the ritual by also invoking this power.
As with Transition, this power ends with an equally forced scene break that is,
afterwards, unless people are taking actions to avoid it, time jumps forward by a variable amount
as the world around you tries to contextualize the actions that you took.
Inspire
Arc 5
Cost:
0 MP 1/book, invoke Inspire

2 MP invoke a second or later time per book
Invoke Inspire and you may give others hope and purpose your actions may awaken
something good and lost in them.
If all this would take is a choice on their part
If the only thing that stands between them and a brighter, happier life is that nobodys used
this power on them yet, or their conscious choice to resist it
Then this functions as a straightforward miraculous attack. Do that!
If theres something wrong enough with them or their life that that would be a false and
unpalatable hope, then this functions as an Imperial miracle instead. This power always means
something. If you cant inspire them by zapping them with your metaphorical inspiration stick, you
instead create a wish effect: a wish that this miracle should be a presence in their life, and that it
would offer them something or drag them into something that does have meaning, does give them
hope, does offer them something better than they had.
Creature of Fable
Creature of Fable is a miraculous Storyteller Arc. Its for characters whose identity has been
compromised by a story characters who are becoming creatures of fiction as much as the real.
It offers the following abilities:
Between the Boundaries

Iconic
Cut the Soul (at Arc 1+)
Superior Hunter (at Arc 1+)
Resemble (at Arc 2+)
Declare (at Arc 2+)
Blind (at Arc 3+)
Summons (at Arc 3+)
Revelation (at Arc 4+)
Peace (at Arc 5)
In addition, Main Characters receive the power Frantic (pg. XX) while actively pursuing this
Arc.
Powers
Between the Boundaries
Type: Affliction, based on your Something to Deal With Issue
Cost:
if youre an NPC, then this is based instead on

someone elses Mystery / Illusion
You are a creature of stories, infected by a wild strand of the unreal, and sometimes your
methods for doing things are a little unbelievable.
These are things that shape the backdrop of the story.
They take place between its pages.
I mean that in two senses. First, youre not going to use this power during play its a
power youll use between scenes and in flashbacks. Second, they set the stage, rather than put
things in motion: notionally, you dont use this power to launch attacks or build weapons. Im
not going to say that you cant, because theres not a bright line between setting the stage and
starting things in motion. Im just going to say that thats not what its for.
Its for stuff like:
getting from place to place;

coming up with a bit of cash or something valuable to sell;
cleaning or clearing something;
fixing a particular kind of thing
o repairing clothes and things made of fabric;
o repairing broken-down machines;
o rewiring or repurposing machines
constructing a particular kind of thing
o setting traps;
o constructing towers;
o redecorating/redesigning a small building;
o gardening;
o setting up a campsite or
reading up on something
Pick one or two of these things that youre good at to start with when you pick this power up.
However, you can treat this as an application of your Storytelling Skill or some other, similar Skill
basically, it applies your ability to tell the story of how it happened. Accordingly, you can
stretch the limits of this power by practicing with that Skill or acquiring the Perk Trick.
In terms of how it works, this power is premised on your Something to Deal With.
The more you spend time in peaceful and quiet places, doing laid-back and bittersweet
scenes? The more likely you are to casually mention something outrageous that youve recently
done.
Any time you have 1+ points in the Something to Deal With Issue, the following rules
apply:
You can invoke your unusual methodology between scenes or in a flashback to handle
whatever it is you want to do either automatically as a miracle or with player and HG
collaboration as a Ritual. It takes an Auctoritas of some sort or an opposing miracle with
[Strike your Something to Deal With] to prevent your work from completing.
As a Ritual, it goes something like this: regular play stops for a bit while you summarize
or narrate the details of what you do/did to complete this task. Other players can
participate by either:
o throwing in descriptions of things going on around you as you do this;
o throwing in descriptions or suggestions of things you might do as part of this;
o giving emotional reactions to the story; or
o contradicting your claims with a proposal of their own explaining aloud why
some part of your description cant possibly have happened or revealing the
magicians trick of how you actually achieved some effect.
Of these things, only contradictions slow you down at all. You can usually hand-wave a
contradiction away by providing an explanation of how you overcame that obstacle or
why their declared trick couldnt possibly be what really happened, but if a Main
Character uses a miracle with [Strike your Something to Deal With] to cast your story
into doubt, or if they point out that your story is going to bump into an Auctoritas of
some sort and you cant explain your way around it, that stops you just as completely as
their using a miracle against the action itself.
If you get into trouble because of something introduced with the use of this power, the
HG may award you with some number of MP or Will up to and including your
Something to Deal With rating.
If an NPC has this power, and the HG doesnt want to track Issues for NPCs (which is the
normal case,) then this triggers off of someone elses Issue instead basically, the Mystery /
Illusion Issue of the character whose story theyre most important in, or, if thats not obvious,
then that of whomever theyve been interacting with the most.
Iconic
Type: Imperial Miracle or Miraculous Action, Major
Cost:
0 MP maintain an iconic appearance, to the extent reasonable.

1 MP invoke a major miracle to revert your appearance instantaneously.
You have a particular appearance. A particular style. Youre so messy its impossible to make you
look neat, so practically perfect that tar slicks right off of you. It doesnt matter how many hours
people spend dolling you up, or, conversely, how long you must trudge through the bog
Whether its fashionable, dorky, scruffy, pure, or cool, one shake of your hair and one
pat-down of your clothes and bam! Youre back to yourself.
This power has two models for operation.
The free version is limited by reason. Its an Imperial miracle, and it lets you resume your
normal standard of appearance to the extent reasonable, and via a visible progression that could be
stalled or held back by others if they fight. If your hairs been shorn by a marauding shorn-beast,
it might not pop back to its full length instantly; instead, you hold out your hand, someone tosses
you a wig, and you put it on, just in time for the wind to blow on a hat. If youve been forced
into an elaborate get-up for a marriage ceremony, it might unravel slowly enough for panicking
servants and relatives to keep on top of things until the moment before the pledge.
If thats unsatisfying, the second version lets you spend an MP to invoke a major miracle
that simply instantaneously rewrites you as looking the way you ought to look.
If you ever wish to change your iconic appearance you may do so by spending a Recharge
Token; when the book ends, or the next book if you barely had any time to evaluate it, youll
decide whether to keep the new version of yourself or go back to the old.
Superior Hunter
Arc 1+
Type: Superior Skill
Cost:
If you have a spare Perk slot for it, you receive a free level 1 Superior Hunter Perk. This is a
Superior Skill Perk useful in hunting, tracking, riding, and archery.
Arc 2+. If you have a Superior Hunter Perk, it automatically powers up to your Arcs Trait
level.
Cut the Soul
Arc 1+
Type: Miraculous Action, Major; Bleak
Cost (Arc 1):
o 1 MP 1/book, cut away someone elses power

o 2 MP invoke a second or later time per book
o 4 MP invoke a second or later time per chapter
Cost (Arc 2-3):
o 1 MP 1/chapter, cut away someone elses power

o 2 MP invoke a second or later time per chapter
o 4 MP invoke a second or later time per scene
Cost (Arc 4+):
o 1 MP 1-2x/scene, starting mid-scene, cut away someone elses power

o 2 MP invoke a third or later time in a scene
o 4 MP invoke at the beginning of a scene
You have a way to twist or break the powers of others. You can stop or mess with someone elses
miracles, magic, or supernatural-themed Superior Skills.
Invoke Cut the Soul when somebody uses a power in a way you dont like and it:
defeats any lower-level miraculous action

defeats some comparable miraculous actions
defeats most supernatural mundane actions
weakens most Imperial actions; and
strips that power from their character sheet for as long as you sustain this action.
If you prefer to weaken or twist their power instead, you may be able to do so. Talk it over with
your group!
Resemble
Arc 2+
Cost:
0 MP resume an impersonation used earlier in this chapter

1 MP impersonate somebody
4 MP impersonate somebody based on minimal evidence
Invoke Resemble and you may infallibly take on and parrot the mannerisms, style, and voice of
someone else youve interacted with this story. To whatever extent you have access to disguise or
shapeshifting, you may borrow their appearance as well.
If you wish to borrow the mannerisms, style, and voice of someone you havent interacted
with, but have some evidence on e.g., someones father or mother, after interacting with them
you may do so at a higher cost.
Declare
Arc 2+
Cost (Arc 2-3):
0 MP 1/book, invoke Declare

4 MP invoke a second or later time per scene
Cost (Arc 4):
0 MP 1/chapter, invoke Declare

2 MP invoke a second or later time per scene
Cost (Arc 5):
0 MP 1/chapter, invoke Declare

Invoke Declare and you may force an emotional truth on one or more of those who can hear
you youve just lost the most important thing in your life, you fear me, or you think you
might be in love.
Its effectively an emote taken on their behalf, and it will linger with them, sticking with
them, while you sustain the action and a little after.
Summons
Arc 3+
Cost:
0 MP 1/book, summon someone to you

You may send out a spiritual call to someone, drawing them towards you. This functions roughly
as a wish:
I wish they would come and find me here
although it tends more towards the low-impact sort of wish that adds progressive Obstacles to
moving away from you and progressive Tool bonuses towards finding a path to you rather than
teleporting them or having long-haired glue-tongued cloud-riding demons sweep by, lick them
up, and carry them to you while cackling vigorously.
You may name a desired time frame; otherwise, the assumption is that they must arrive
within a day and a night and are likely to arrive within hours. They will often see you in the
distance or hear you calling intermittently throughout the course of this powers work.
Starting at Arc 4, you may use this to wake or call back the dead.
Blind
Arc 3+
Cost:
2 MP blind someone to something.
This is an aggressive miraculous attack; you may invoke Blind and strip your target, potentially
permanently, of their ability to see, recognize, or understand something in particular.
Revelation
Arc 4+
Type: Miraculous Action, Major, Unreal
Cost:
0 MP 1/book, reveal an awful truth

Invoke Revelation to change the nature of a scene
You declare retroactively that some aspect of the situation has been hidden all this time,
allegedly by some power like Blind, and dramatically reveal the truth. For instance, someone
stabs you? No, that wasnt you. That was their friend.
You were over there!
Make an argument, tell a story to the world, about how this happened what really went
on. This is technically a lie and an illusion, and so you can pretty much declare anything you like
here; the only cost is that if your revelation is too outr, too far off of the plausible, or too
complicated, or your story isnt good enough, then as an Unreal power it will fade away soon
thereafter.
You may optionally use this power to declare the entire scene unreal; it fades away as a
dream or vision none of this is happening and all those present will wake up elsewhere with a
gasp.
Even then you must tell a story
Where were they? When did the break from reality begin?
If your story is less tenable than the truth, then it will fade slowly; by the time the individuals
involved next go back to sleep, perhaps, they will find themselves back where they were when
you confronted them, and it will be revealed only that you were not there, having slipped off into
the near Outside.
Peace
Arc 5
Type: Miraculous Action, Major or Imperial Miracle
Cost:
0 MP 1/book, invoke Peace

Invoke Peace and you may grant it may bring rest, solace, and respite to something troubled;
may allow someone to live with something that is otherwise tearing them apart.
If you believe that they are only resisting by choice
That there is only guilt and stubbornness that stands between them and acceptance
Then this is a straightforward miraculous attack. Rest. Be at ease. Let it go.
But if you believe that they are right to be troubled; that there is something unjust in their
circumstances, or that they are being hounded, driven, damaged by others, that letting it go
would be bad then this is an Imperial miracle instead. Something that grants them respite;
something that expresses the wish:
I wish things could be easier for you. or
I wish that you could find peace.

The Ace
The Ace is a miraculous Aspect Arc. Its for people who are basically awesome people
who have a supernatural or mythical quality of being better at what humans (or whatever they are)
do.
If this were the only miraculous Arc out there, the Ace would be the one who always wins.
You wouldnt be able to tell anything else about them!
Just, theyd be the one that seemed pretty normal, but for some reason (flawlessness, timing,
luck, or just plain grit) theyd keep winning. Maybe now and again theyd recognize a non-
dramatic crisis as hopeless from the beginning, or theyd get backstabbed by someone they care
about or by a third act twist, but mostly theyd just win.
Usually theyd even get to win with their own kind of fight. If they were the perfect fighter,
then all the stories of their life would, ultimately, end with them punching somebody in the face
or winning a martial arts duel. If they were the perfect rap battler, stories would always end with
their victory in a rap battle. A cook could always win someones heart, or the judges, with
cooking; a singer, with singing!
Or whatever.
In the real world, the world where there are plenty of other miraculous paths, being the Ace
isnt as much of a game changer a high-level Ace is still probably the best at winning, but not at
reshaping the world. When it comes to hanging out in pastoral environments and talking about
geeky stuff, the Ace may even be at an actual disadvantage!
The Ace Arc offers the abilities:
Tireless
Cool Bonus (at Arc 1+)
The Ace (at Arc 1+)
Push Yourself (at Arc 1+)
Legendary Master (at Arc 2+)
Anime Moment (at Arc 3+)
In addition, while you are pursuing the Arc The Ace, you have the special power Frantic (pg.
XX). You can rename this power if you are more stoic than the term frantic might suggest.
Powers
Tireless
Cost: 0 MP
Your extraordinary but mundane competence gives you a limited access to miraculous Will (pg.
XX) a pool of 3 Will that refreshes every time you perform an in-genre XP Action or share a
scene with somebody who does. You can spend this bonus Will to enhance ordinary and
Superior Skills but cant use it to enhance magical Skills. Specifically . . .
Arc 0. You can use this extra Will for maintenance-type chores basically, for your daily
routine and self-care. You dont have to use it, but if you want to, you can stay organized, on top
of homework, and looking good even in an emergency.
Arc 1. You can use this extra Will for other mundane actions with ordinary and Superior
Skills as long as you act out being really tired and pushing yourself too hard.
Arc 2. You can use this extra Will freely with any ordinary or Superior Skill.
Cool Bonus
Arc 1+
Type: Special
Cost:
If you have a spare Perk slot for it, you receive a free level 1 Cool Perk.
Arc 2+. If you have a Cool Perk, it automatically powers up to your Arcs Trait level.
The Ace
Arc 1+
Cost:
0 MP starting mid-scene, take 1-2 enhanced actions

1 MP see Push Yourself, below.
2 MP starting mid-scene, all actions are enhanced
4 MP enhance arbitrarily many actions for a scene.
Starting mid-scene, you may invoke the Ace to enhance the occasional mundane action with a
+1 Tool bonus. As with Tireless this only improves actions taken with an ordinary or Superior
Skill.
You probably think of this IC as determination or the fruits of long practice, but from a
game standpoint this is wish power the power of your heart molds you into someone more
like the person you want to be.
You can invoke The Ace and the mundane Intention it supports as a single action. Once
you reach Arc 3, the mundane Intention isnt necessary any longer, although youre still limited
to the things that are mundanely feasible for you and you can still use a mundane action if
desired (if, e.g., you happen to have it running already and just want to pump it up a bit, or
something.)
Arc 2. At Arc 2 the bonus from the Ace becomes a +2 Tool.
Arc 3. At Arc 3 the bonus is no longer a Tool. Instead, an enhanced action is notionally
perfect you can invoke The Ace to
perfectly execute any act of mundane skill, e.g. fishing, typesetting, running, fire-eating,
accounting, dancing, or planning an invasion. This includes being effective, productive,
and really impressive with that action if you want it to be;
automatically beat anybodys mundane action with your own; and/or
execute an action with perfect timing and grace.
Arc 4. At Arc 4+ you may augment this with:
the strength of a bear and/or

the mental speed and precision of a computer.
This always at least doubles your mundane strength and precision, so if you were already a bear
with a cybernetic brain90 youll still be a little more effective than you were.
90
dont judge me
Push Yourself
Arc 1+
Cost:
o 1 MP starting mid-scene, push yourself beyond the normal limits of The Ace
o 4 MP do so at the beginning of the scene.
Starting mid-scene, you can Push Yourself to take an action beyond the normal limits of the
Ace basically, you take an immediate enhanced action as if your Arc Trait were one point
higher.
Legendary Master
Arc 2+
Cost:
o 2 MP starting mid-scene, take perfect control over your body

o 4 MP do this at any time
Starting mid-scene, you can invoke Legendary Master to perfectly control and exert full
strength through any and every part of your body including, e.g., your hair. This also includes
a light foot technique you can move as if your body were much lighter or heavier and make
extremely long, precise jumps.
You may choose to combine this with a specific action, which then also receives the benefits
of Push[ing] Yourself, or just flood your body with this power in general.91
91
You might think that the second option is always better, or, if you misunderstand what its doing, you might
think that its always worse. Its neither! Keeping Legendary Master going is a sustained action. Basically, in
Chuubos Marvelous Wish-Granting Engines action model you can be doing around two things at any given
time. If youre sustaining an action, thats one of them it uses half of your attention! So if you just kind of
power up into a Legendary Master, and then get into a fight, youre powering-up and fighting and thats your
two actions right there if someone asks a question, you dont have the spare attention to talk. In fact, you
might not even really have the spare attention to notice.
(This is a pretty soft limitation in some ways because fight and talk is actually every bit as much of a valid
action as fight but only if the talking is part of the fighting, or if you knew when you started fighting that
talking would be important too. If it comes up unexpectedly, youd have to stop fighting or stop powering up
to reassess priorities.)
Determination
Arc 2+
Cost:
4 MP invoke an arbitrary miraculous strength and speed

2 MP at Arc 4
1 MP at Arc 5
Invoke Determination at any time to give yourself whatever power and speed you need to
accomplish a task, even ridiculous tasks like building a tall stone wall in 15 seconds or outracing a
jet. The task still needs to be notionally possible as an extension of your mundane abilities
For instance, you can outrace most soft sci-fi lasers, because outracing a red beam of light
from a gun-like object just takes an absurd level of speed, but against a hard sci-fi laser youll
have more trouble, and painting onto the sky is just plain out.
Anime Moment
Arc 3+
Cost:
4 MP take an effectively impossible action
You may invoke Anime Moment to do something outright impossible (but mythically plausible)
with local and short-term effects (e.g., punch out a movie character from the audience, drink a
whole lake, surf on a sound wave.) This includes any relevant benefits from the Ace, Push[ing]
Yourself, Determination, and Legendary Master.
You may be able to do better than this with quest miracles.

Sentimental
Sentimental is a miraculous Shepherd Arc. Its for characters who treasure a set of friends,
places, things, and creations so deeply that they can awaken (greater) powers from them.
It offers the abilities:
Miraculous Ease
Haunt
Lend Spirit (starting at Arc 1)
A Waking Dream (starting at Arc 1)
Treasures Call (starting at Arc 1)
The Shepherds Blessing (starting at Arc 2)
A Fearsome Blessing (starting at Arc 3)
Combo Move (starting at Arc 3)
Wish (starting at Arc 3)
In addition, while you are pursuing the Arc Sentimental, you have the special power Frantic.
(pg. XX)
BOX Arc Terminology
Craft: your Craft is the thing you use to create, train, or shape new Treasures. If youre not the
kind of person who makes things, its long heartfelt conversations. Youre allowed to have
more than one, although you usually wont.
Treasure: something is a Treasure if youre spiritually connected to it by:
a level 3+ Connection;
a Bond that mentions it by name;
a Perk like:
o Bond. (as long as it mentions it by name)
o Connection. (as long as its level 3+)
o Accessory.
o Its OK, Im here. (pg. XX)
o Its like a home to me. (pg. XX)
These are things that your heart treasures, and the proper subject of your generic powers.
END BOX
Miraculous Ease
Cost: 0 MP
You have a limited access to your pool of miraculous Will (pg. XX). That is, like everyone else
you have 8 Will to spend each week to enhance your mundane actions but if you are taking
certain actions involving your Treasures, you also have access to your pool of 3 miraculous Will.
Miraculous Will replenishes when you complete, or are in a scene with someone who completes,
an in-genre XP Action.
Arc 0. Pick a central person or thing for your life ideally someone who qualifies as a
Treasure. If you are taking actions for or with that person or thing, or that express your feelings
for them, you have access to your pool of 3 miraculous Will.
Arc 1. Pick a second person or thing that you receive this benefit for.
Arc 2. You receive access to your miraculous Will when taking any sort of action for or with
any of your Treasures, or when doing things that express your feelings for those Treasures. This
replaces the Arc 1 version, but you dont have to upgrade immediately if this wont work better
for you.
Haunt
Cost:
1 MP (at Arc level 0)

0 MP (Arc 1+)
When you are asleep you can project yourself into the company of one of your Treasures.
You float around its physical body.
You can perceive through its senses. If it has none, you can dimly sense the world around it.
If its asleep, you can perceive its dreams. You can speak to it mind-to-mind, in total silence.
Most importantly you can do this from any distance.
When you project yourself more than a block or two you become present where the
Treasure is. Any miracle that would normally target your Treasure can optionally affect you
instead or in addition to it. This ought to but doesnt have to make sense if youre projecting
your dream-self to your friend Ivan, for instance, and someone uses a miraculous action to stab
him with a sword, they can automatically stab you with a sword instead of or in addition to stabbing
him. They dont have to explain how that works. They dont have to make sense of it. Ultimately
thats all on you. Further, even after you stop using this power, you can still be remotely targeted
in this fashion until the end of the scene.
Lend Spirit
available at Arc 1+
Type: Special
Cost:
While you are using Haunt you may choose to extend your abilities and knowledge to the
important person or thing that youre visiting.
This gives the following additional benefits to the person or thing in question:
they resist or outright ignore attempts by others to influence their thoughts or

actions, unless you are also under that influence.
they gain a small amount of added mobility, at the HGs discretion a precious
library can shift its books or shelves around slowly, for instance, when this power is
in force.
they may call upon your abilities, powers, MP, and knowledge in addition to their
own.
People and things you lend your spirit to do not retain the knowledge, abilities, or powers that
you share with them after you stop lending them your spirit. In fact, their memories of events
afterwards become muddled to whatever extent they actually drew upon your knowledge and
your abilities! Thus, if someone wants to remember a secret of yours from when you lent them
your spirit, they'd have to write it down.
A Waking Dream
available at Arc 1+
Cost:
1 MP visit a Treasure astrally/spiritually while awake

4 MP do so a second or later time in a matter of hours
You may detach a bit of your spirit and send it to someone even while awake. While you do so,
youre aware of both your environment and theirs. You cant Lend Spirit while using this
power, but if you support what theyre doing, their mundane actions gain a +1 Tool bonus and
(all else being equal) 1 point of Edge.
The Treasures Call
available at Arc 1+
Cost: 0 MP
You can now hear or feel when one of your Treasures needs you or is desperately trying to
reach you, no matter how far away it might be.
The Shepherds Blessing
available at Arc 2+
Cost:
1-2 MP (Arc level 2)

1-2 MP, minus a 1 MP discount (Arc level 3)
free (Arc level 4+)
You can grant a single special power to any of your Treasures. If youve already experimented
with granting a power to something via an Arc 1 quest miracle (pg. XX), the power here is
probably something similar, but smaller and more immediate in scope.
If you spend 1 MP, the target can use that power as a mundane action.
If
you spend 2 MP, or you and the treasure each spend an MP;
the two of you agree on how to use the power; and
its something that helps and strengthens you
they can invoke the power as a miraculous action, instead.
The first time you invoke the Shepherds Blessing for a given Treasure, you define the
power that it receives. From an IC perspective, this isnt really a choice its just the power that
fits the Treasure: the power natural to it or the power you can most readily evoke or imbue.
From an OOC perspective you have a pretty free hand, right down to giving a random tree the
supernatural martial arts powers that it had inside it all along or awakening a deep knowledge
of Russian literary traditions in your dog, but you do have to fit your characters aesthetic and
that of the Treasure at hand.
A Fearsome Blessing
available at Arc 3+
Cost:
2 or 4 MP (Arc level 3)
You invoke the special power youve granted to one of your Treasures in a stronger and scarier
fashion.
For 2 MP, you can invoke that power as a miracle to attack somebody or inflict an
unfavorable effect.
For 4 MP, you can invoke that power as a Major miracle to help you, support you, attack
somebody, or inflict an unfavorable effect. Its not just a +3 bonus to your action level the
effects scale up, too, and you or the Treasure can do epic, world-shaking things. This can risk the
Treasures safety and health often, you or the Treasure will be wounded afterwards.
For 4 MP, as an alternative, you can invoke the power of a Treasure to accomplish . . . well,
anything, really . . . as a miraculous action. This isnt as epic, and might take a while, and in fact
could leave you sustaining an action for weeks, months, or years if youre doing something really
complicated, but you can do it, and its a miracle so hardly anything can stop your inexorable
advance.
These costs diminish as your Arc level rises.

Combo Move
available at Arc 3+
Type: Major Miraculous Action or Imperial Miracle, Ritual Power
Cost:
8 MP, 1 Deadly Wound (Arc 3-4)

4 MP (Arc 5)
You can invoke Combo Move to supercharge the powers of an innately miraculous Treasure
with your own power, whatever that might be. When it first becomes available, this ability costs
8 MP and a terrible spiritual wound, which no effect can even begin to heal for at least one book.
This power is normally a deliberately shapeless deus ex machina it solves the kinds of
problems that youd think, in a story, flooding something with wish power would solve. If youve
claimed a super-strong ogre as a treasure, then maybe youre flooding her strength with wish
power to let her pull down the sky or seize a storm and shove it back over the Lake. If youve
claimed the Child of the Sun as a treasure, maybe youre flooding her with wish power to sear
away an incursion of the Bleak Academy.
A more specific version of this effect, if you or the HG would rather nail it down precisely,
is an absolute force obeying two rules:
it must substantially alter the situation in your favor, even given the miraculous and imperial forces in
play
and
it temporarily expands the powers of the treasure in question in a fashion that evokes either your own
character themes or the general thematic quality of "wish power and wishes."
This power normally requires a Ritual to invoke. It often runs on wish rules, but its worth note
that the two rules above supercede the rules for a wish its no good to say well, changing a
persons nature takes time! if that means this power doesnt alter the situation at all!
Wish
available at Arc 3+
Cost:
8 MP, 1 Deadly Wound (Arc 4)

4 MP (Arc 5)
At most once per chapter, you may use one of your Treasures as a cauldron of miracles and
destiny through it, you reshape the world. When it first becomes available, this power costs 8
MP and a terrible spiritual wound, which no power can even begin to heal for at least one book.
This functions as a wish, and can be a fairly generic effect but the more your wish fits
the nature of the treasure, the more reliable and predictable the effects. In short, if you claim the
Idol (pg. XX) as a Treasure, and wish that you ran Fortitudes TV station (and that it had one),
thats probably easy; if you claim the Angel of Fortitude (pg. XX) as a Treasure, and wish
money would fall out of the sky, that . . . is surprisingly unlikely to end well.
This power usually takes a few minutes or hours to activate, and in that time youll have
occasional glimpses of whats to come. If these glimpses cause you to abort the power, you
wont get the MP back, but you will stop the terrible wound.
A Keeper of Gardens
A Keeper of Gardens is a miraculous Shepherd Arc. Its for characters who learn to claim
and maintain magical places as their own.
This is a glorious, soulless, and idealistic path.
It makes you a gardener of cities, forests, swamps, lakes, seas, and human tribes.
A Keeper of Gardens offers the abilities:
The World, Like Clay

Land-Rule
Toxic
Guide (Arc 1+)
The Great Magic (Arc 1+)
Perk Bonus (Arc 2+)
Guardians (Arc 2+)
Symbiotes (Arc 3+)
In addition, while you are pursuing the Arc A Keeper of Gardens, you have the special power
Immortality (pg. XX)
BOX Arc Terminology
Garden: a Garden is a place linked to you by a Perk specifically, the Perk
Its like a home to me.
You can claim a pretty big garden, but it should be at least an order of magnitude smaller than a
Region in scope. For instance, the Angel of Fortitude (below) rules a garden in Fortitude its
paved streets, and the space between the residential streets and the houses. The Principal (pg.
XX) rules the garden named School.
Treasure: your Treasures for this Arc include the Gardens themselves, their key features, and
any guides or guardians you create.
Craft: your Craft is the ability set or Skill youre most likely to use when youre shaping your
gardens.
END BOX
The World, Like Clay
Cost (Arc 0+):
0 MP mold the things of your Gardens by hand, given a few minutes concentration
Cost (Arc 1):
0 MP 1/book, mold a large portion of your Gardens

4 MP mold a large area of your Gardens a second or later time per book
Cost (Arc 2+):
0 MP mold your Gardens by hand near-instantaneously
Cost (Arc 3):
0 MP 1/chapter, mold a large portion of your Gardens

1 MP mold a large area of your Gardens a second or later time per week
Cost (Arc 4):
0 MP given a few minutes, mold a large portion of your Gardens
Cost (Arc 5):
0 MP mold your Gardens as fast as you can visualize the result

Invoke The World, Like Clay and you can shape the things of your Gardens as if they were
malleable clay.
After a few minutes of concentration, you may . . .
mold them by hand; or,

(starting at Arc 1 as a 1/book power) mold a neighborhood-sized area by dancing,
drawing architectural plans, wiggling your fingers, describing what you want, or
whatever.
This power uses your normal mundane abilities probably using some Skill like Tinker,
Art, or Domestic Skills but it elides the normal Obstacle and waives the limits of human
power.
The World, Like Clay is a metaphysical, supernatural action and not just psychic matter-
molding so function will tend to follow form. If you stretch out a street lamp, the top stays lit; if
you squish the top bulb to nothing, the whole thing probably ceases to be wired for power. If
you give a mailbox a pair of eyes, it may come to life; if you give a dandelion puff wings it may
fly away.92
The HG may elect to impose Obstacles specific to this power not, perhaps, the Obstacle
4 of nobody can bring a mailbox to life by squishing part of it to look like eyeballs but at least
the Obstacle 1-2 of bringing things to life is very hard. In short, these are Obstacles for things
that the HG imagines that even a metaphysical world-sculptor might have some difficulty with,
and reflect the overall tenor and tone of the game.
92
In fairness it may do this even if you do not give it wings. Thats its precognitive fitness!
Toxic
Type: Level 2 Bond
Cost:
There is something toxic about you something that can poison, burn away, or change the
world. You exude it, either continuously or with a conscious act.
For instance, the Angel of Fortitudes Change-Blood is a useful tool for eating through
obstacles, poisoning things, sickening things, mutating things, and transforming things. It is
classified formally as a blank toxin, meaning that it enhances the malignancy of toxins and viruses
it mixes with and exaggerates the structural weaknesses of the things it touches rather than
bringing its own distinct effects to the table as a poison.
Invoke Toxic when youre using the toxin as a practical tool to overcome an Obstacle
or win a conflict and you can add the Bond rating (2) to your Intention level. You can
only add this bonus from one such Bond.
Invoke Toxic when youre using the toxin to enhance a miraculous action and you can
add the Bonds rating (2) to your Strike. Strike from a Bond doesnt add to Strike from
other Bonds, but it does add to Strike from MP and Strike intrinsic to a miracle.
Invoke Toxic when your use of the toxin backfires as a first-order effect, this can
only happen when you want it to, but as a second-order or indirect effect it can happen
on its own and the HG may give you up to the Bond rating (2) in Will or MP. You
can also get this MP if you spend a whole week in dedicated use or study of the toxin.
It is notionally possible for you to replace food, water, sleep, and even air with the act of
spreading your toxin. For instance, if youre a poison bird and can fly around as a cloud
of ill omen, spreading ill luck behind you well, thats probably something you can do
indefinitely, even when the sun goes out and the food runs out and youre left afflicting
an empty, cold, bland, lifeless world. This gets unpleasant almost as fast for you as for a
normal person, though, and the Obstacles can range as high as 4.
BOX The Angel of Fortitude
Theres stories in Fortitude of a strange biker who travels with monsters. Blood drips from his
hands when he takes off his gloves.
Streets move sometimes when he walks or drives by he pulls them into a new
arrangement.
They say sometimes hell help people who are in need. Old Mrs. Silva was dying and he
poured a sort of respirating slime down her throat to help her breathe. Young Heath couldnt get
his dog to stop barking and the mysterious biker installed a volume control on Heaths whole
house. And my friend Lilith swears she saw him this one time fixing a pot hole in the road.
So they call him the Angel of Fortitude.
By default this Main Character is the same person as the Principal a 22-year-old male
scholar named Entropy II, the female variation Attaris II, the secretly female Entropy II, or a
kid the PCs age. That said, this is just a guess of mine they could be two different people,
particularly as NPCs.
Principal Entropy II, Magister, aka

The Angel of Fortitude
art by Tang Yuann
END BOX
Land-Rule
Type: Special
Cost:
You may shift 1-2 points from other Skills into the Skill Superior Land-Rule upon starting this
Arc, or back out again if you wind up abandoning it.
This is a Superior Skill that makes you good at wrangling the native creatures from your
gardens keeping tabs on them, keeping them from getting into too much trouble, and
protecting yourself from their violent potential. This Skill is principally used for things like I
have an eye-eating dog-squid following me around, but hilarious hijinx where peoples eyes get
eaten dont necessarily ensue.
In rules terms, this Skill is easiest to use when theres some social context for it when the
environment and situation support your authority and are relevant to it. Its easiest of all when
youre trying to stop some creature of yours from seriously hurting, transforming, or sacrificing
itself for someone. If all youre trying to do is stop them from embarrassing you, doing goofy
things, causing a little bit of harm, wandering off, or getting into a little bit of trouble, you might
not receive the full Edge from this Skill; and if youre doing politics with it or trying to earn
respect from the sentient creatures of your gardens with it, you might not have any bonus Edge
at all!
The Great Magic
Arc 1+
Cost:
0 MP, 1 Health Level 1/book, create a new Property for a garden

4 MP, 1 Health Level do so a second time in a given book
You may reshape the nature of one of your gardens, wounding one of your Divine Health Levels
to add a new Property thereto. Eventually this becomes a natural part of the garden, although
this can take weeks, months, or years. In the meantime, your wound does not heal normally;
rather, you must voluntarily abandon the magic before the wound can heal, and even then the
Health Level does not return for the remainder of the book.
You do not receive a separate wound power when you use this ability, although you may
treat turning this power off as some sort of spiritual damage and take a wound at the time that
you do.
Guide
Arc 1+
Cost (Arc 1-2):
0 MP 1/chapter, construct or invoke a guide from the substance of your Gardens

2 MP do so a second time in minutes
Cost (Arc 3):
0 MP construct or invoke a guide from the substance of your Gardens
You may impute the personality and knowledge of a guide into something youve just shaped
from a Garden with the World, Like Clay.
You create a living creature that is sufficiently aware and knowledgeable to:
instruct, guide, or lead others through its Garden;

instruct others in some other principle or rule.
For instance, you can construct a roly-poly bird that knows people should look both ways when
crossing the street, can analyze whether theyre doing so, experiences distress when they dont,
and can even philosophize on why that might be important; or a pageboy, pagegirl, or hopping
lamp from the substance of your realm to lead people from one place in it to another.
You may use mundane means to summon an existing guide, but its only guaranteed to still
exist and be reachable by you if you use this power to summon it again.
Perk Bonus
Arc 2+
Type: Special
Cost:
You receive a bonus Perk slot pre-filled with Its like a home to me. at Arc level 2. Lets
call this a Garden Perk.
(This normally increases your total available Perks to 9.)
You receive another bonus Perk slot and Garden Perk at Arc level 4.
The HG may give you a free Garden Perk, or replace one of your existing Garden Perks, if
play suddenly moves to a new location for instance, if the HG suddenly ships you all to
Calcutta, you shouldnt have to do a quest just to have something to work with there. This may
come with a temporary Perk slot (well, youre only here for the summer, so dont worry about
it) but wont come with a permanent one.
You can use these Perk slots for anything. I dont think that rule will come up very often,
because seriously, you want at least two gardens, but if it does come up, yes, you can fill them
with whatever you like.
Guardian
Arc 2+
Cost (Arc 2-4):
0 MP 1/chapter, construct or invoke a guardian from the substance of your Gardens

2 MP do so a second time in minutes
Cost (Arc 5):
0 MP construct or invoke a guardian from the substance of your Gardens
You may mold one or more guardians out of the substance of your garden, kneading some
principle or abstract thought from the world of ideas into the creatures flesh.
They become motivated to enact or enforce that idea.
A guardian might aggress against those who defy a rule, or simply help them to abide by it;
might demand the solution to some riddle, or simply give rewards to those who make answer to
it; might recite some description on demand or simply hang around remembering it.
You may mix together multiple principles but this makes things more difficult typically
its just
Obstacle 0-1 to work an entire canon of material into a guardian, but

Obstacle 2-3 if youre mixing together 2+ unrelated principles, purposes, or foci.
You use the World, Like Clay to construct these creatures, so matters like just what can they
do? and how far can I stretch some principle come down to your mundane actions; the
actual effect of this power is that you can mix abstract ideas into that clay.
Guardians may have special powers. Even though theres an Imperial miracle in play to
change whats feasible for you, this pretty much follows the usual rules for mundane actions on
your part for instance, if you want to put together a guardian with some sort of time magic,
you might need to practice for a bit and work up to it. Once youve figured out what youre
doing, though, a level 4 mundane action should be enough to make something with cool time
magic and a level 5 enough to make something with time magic thats definitely more of an
advantage than a drawback. Conceptually, a guardian almost always has mundane powers,
although a guardian that becomes an important character in its own right may start on a
miraculous path, and you can usually use a quest miracle to endow a guardian with miraculous
abilities.
Symbiote
Arc 3+
Cost (Arc 3):
0 MP 1/chapter, construct or find a symbiote from the substance of your gardens

You may create or dig up a creature from one of your gardens suited to helping somebody to
helping them abide by some rule, solve some riddle, or accomplish some task.
This functions as something like a wish:
I wish I had something to help you with this.
As one might guess from the phrasing of the wish, the effects play out over a space of time and
what happens if you try to help someone abide by a rule that they dont actually want to abide
by is a little vague
Its not that you instantly pull out a creature from your gardens and bam, the problem is
solved, so much as that you create something that in potentia can fit into their life and provide a
solution to the problem that you see.
A symbiote receives a Superior Fitting into their Lives 2 Skill for free such a creature
is automatically adept at insinuating itself into the target fold.
Empower
Arc 4+
Cost:
0 MP 1/book, empower something to the Imperial level

4 MP do the same, at another time
You can rouse the power of one of the guides or guardians of your gardens, increasing their
natural abilities essentially wishing that they would show a vast, situation-altering power.
Accursed
Accursed is a miraculous Emptiness Arc. Its for those who have lost some portion of their
natural comfort in the world those who are being driven away from existence by some curse
or alienation woven into their nature.
Accursed offers the following abilities:
Sanctuary
MP Bonus (starting at Arc 1)
The World-Breakers Hand (starting at Arc 1)
Falling from the World (starting at Arc 1)
Nourishment (starting at Arc 2)
Damaged (starting at Arc 2)
In addition, Main Characters receive the power Sickly (pg. XX) while actively pursuing this Arc.
BOX Arc Terminology
Your Curse: theres something broken in you a part of you that the Outside or some other
bleak power infests.
This is your Curse, and its manifestation is this:
There is something wholesome and normal and good that twists, for you, into something
sick and awful. This is called the Curses Trigger. Maybe you dare not dream, because your
dreams will turn into snakes of fire and crawl under your skin. Maybe you cant do simple,
honest work, because if you do simple honest work it gets tainted by the curse. Maybe you cant
touch anybody, because that risks killing them, or you cant eat your vegetables, like, no
tomatoes, no broccoli, not at all, because youd grow horrible shoulder-mounted tomato-
launchers and broccoli-lumps from your skin.
Theres something you cant actually live without, in short, but
Well. You cant do too much of it, either, or itll devour you, with awful supernatural effects.
Your Curse doesnt necessarily hurt your capacity for action. Sometimes it does I mean,
you could have a curse that disables you but it could also just provide adversity while leaving
your effectiveness intact.
END BOX
Sanctuary
Cost:
You have a place you can retreat to when the world becomes too much for you to bear. Its
entrance is something symbolic you can get there by (pick one)
wandering through any collection of books, records, and art large enough to wander?
heading down any lightless tunnel?
drawing a door on any surface and then going through?
crawling into any fireplace?
feeding yourself through any keyhole?
climbing any multi-story set of stairs?
something else?
In addition, theres a specific entrance that works for everyone else which means, if youve
chosen something like feeding yourself through any keyhole, theres one particular keyhole that
anyone can feed themselves through to reach your sanctuary, and which also serves as or is in the
rough vicinity of the exit from your hidden place.
Theres a level 2 Auctoritas guarding realitys edge that makes it a little harder to do stuff like
this across that boundary youd need 2+ Strike to enter your sanctuary from the Outside.
More generally, if theres a spiritual barrier between you and the entrance to your shelter, youd
have to travel part of the way on foot or someone93 would need to break past that barrier with
Strike before you could get inside.
93
probably you
MP Bonus
Arc 1+
Type: Special
Cost:
You receive a bonus to your starting MP equal to the Arc Traits rating.
Falling from the World
Arc 1+
Type: Affliction, based on your Sickness.
Cost:
if youre an NPC, then this is based instead on

someone elses Trust
Your Arc Curse falls upon you slips down upon you.
There is a bleakness in you that drives you from the world. You may oppose it while you
have wish power (that is, MP) but when youve spent your last MP, it will drive you from the
world into your sanctuary or the Outside.
You have wide leeway to define the nature of the curse what triggers it, what it does to
you, what advantages it might convey. Often it involves your identity and transformations in
some fashion. Often it externalizes something internal, emotional, or private. Regardless, though,
it has the following basic form:
Anytime you have 1+ points in the Sickness Issue, the following rules apply:
There is something that the curse makes unpleasant for you. It starts with minor stuff,
stuff that could be coincidental and/or stuff you can just laugh off, but by Sickness 3+,
the curses effects are overtly supernatural and escalating.
What happens?
Your Miracle Points are your lifeline. If you have Sickness 1+ and 0 MP, you have the
following three choices:
o Somebody uses a miracle with [Strike your Sickness] to help you out;
o Something happens that paralyzes you/renders you ineffectual. Do you have an

emotional collapse? Fall unconscious? Start screaming uncontrollably? Turn into
a swarm of HG-controlled bees? Pick a general option when youre choosing the
curse:
o If neither of those things happens, you must head for your sanctuary at best
possible speed, often with some supernatural side effect (e.g., youre drawn out
into a long, thin thread even before you reach the keyhole youre going to slip
through). Youre allowed to pause briefly for things like picking up a baby thats
just lying around on the street, blowing out a lamp thats about to set a room on
fire, or knocking on a doctors door and pointing the doctor towards a dying
friend, but for anything less important or more time-consuming than that youre
limited to meaningful glances and turning away. Maybe a few distracted noises or
moans. Youve got to get away.
If none of those things happen, if nobody uses a miracle with enough Strike and you dont
become ineffectual and you dont head for your Sanctuary, the HG can do . . . curse-
appropriate things, generally even worse than the above.
The HG will invoke your Curse to protect you from effects, with the specific exception of
your sanctuary, that:
o stop the effects above from taking place;
o get in the way of the Curses Trigger; or
o . . . well. Is there an or? Is there anything that your particular Curse might defend
you from?
Its still possible for something to happen that stops your Curse, or gets past any specific
defenses it gives you, but such an effect would need [Strike your Sickness] to succeed.
When this Affliction causes actual, meaningful trouble to you, the HG may give you up
to your Sickness in MP. However, you must use these MP immediately; they fade at the
end of the current scene (or, if the current scene ends almost immediately, at the end of
the next scene where you take a meaningful action.)
In general youll pick up your first point of Sickness either from Sickly, from trauma, or from
people messing with you, and then later points will come from the consequences of this
Affliction. You can also start the vicious cycle if someone tries to corrupt you, or if you just get
naturally sick!
If an NPC has this power, and the HG doesnt want to track Issues for NPCs (which is the
normal case,) then this triggers off of someone elses Issue instead basically, the Trust /
Isolation / Hollow Issue of the character whose story theyre most important in, or, if thats
not obvious, then that of whomever theyve been interacting with the most.
The World-Breakers Hand
Arc 1+
Cost (Arc 1)
o 0 MP 1/book, declare something unmade

o 1 MP unmake something a second or later time per book
o 2 MP unmake something a second or later time per chapter
o 4 MP unmake something a second time in a matter of hours
Your connection to the Outside imbues you with a terrifying power of un-creation. Maybe you . .
point and something vanishes, poof, gone

snap your fingers and cast something into the furthest depths of the Outside
see the weak point in any structure that lets you touch it and shake it apart
research and discover a shareable and infinitely advantageous weakness
wave your hand and something, anything, even a deck chair, becomes suicidal and hurls
itself into the path of destruction
revert things to a pristine, ancient, traditional form, or
strip away years and memories from the target?
Youre not limited to unmaking things, either. You can burn the sparkle from a childs eyes or the
sound of a cats footfalls. You can blast away someones property of being loud or of being near
you, or unmake the heap quality from a stack of sand. You can unmake having lost a fight, or
flatten the bumpiness out of a beach.
Note that while this is absurdly powerful it is also a bleak power and as such is vulnerable to
the standard antidotes to the bleak; further, many things you do to a Main Character with it
could be reframed, instead, into some Deadly Wound.
Nourishment
Arc 2+
Cost:
You may replenish yourself by hiding out for a while in your sanctuary. Specifically
when you spend an XP Action there, gain 1 MP (max 8).

when you skip one of your per-chapter XP Actions to be there, gain 1 MP (max 8).94
when you fail someone, miss an appointment, or otherwise let something bad happen
or cause something bad to happen because you were in your sanctuary, gain 1 MP
(max 8).
when you come out of the sanctuary with 5+ MP, at least one of which came from
your sanctuary, youre ready to face the ordinary world again. In addition,
o You may sustain a Major miraculous action that does cool, useful stuff that is
also in some fashion the antithesis of your curse. Decide what this does:
o Plus, you get some neat bonus based on what the sanctuary itself is:
o And finally, theres often a disturbing but not necessarily unpleasant visual
effect:
94
If most of the game is XP-giving actions, this doesnt actually cost the players anything youll just move on
to someone else earning XP for the group. On the other hand, if the HG has a lot of stuff going on that isnt
earning XP, then maybe finding something you can do in there (even if it winds up earning you Isolation,
Illusion, or Hollow) would be a better choice.
These benefits remain until you stop sustaining the action, spend down to 4 MP or fewer, or
suffer a specifically relevant setback:
Other characters may accompany you into the sanctuary, and exit through its normal exit. Other
characters may even use the hidden room to gain MP and acquire the other benefits. However:
only one person can gain MP from the sanctuary on any given day;
most attempts to enter the sanctuary without your presence and consent fail,
there may be weird special effects or curse effects for them using it; and
people who try to get into the sanctuary without you escorting them occasionally get
hurt.95
At Arc 5, the maximum MP you can get from this Sanctuary rises to 13.
95
the risk of failure and the risk of something going wrong are cosmological constants; if a character manages
to eliminate either risk, they simply can't get into your sanctuary.
Arc 2+
Cost (Arc 2)
o 0 MP 1/chapter, declare something unmade

o 1 MP unmake something a second or later time per chapter
o 2 MP unmake something a second or later time in a matter of hours
o 4 MP unmake something a second or later time per scene
Cost (Arc 3+)
o 0 MP starting mid-scene, declare 1-2 things unmade

o 1 MP starting mid-scene, unmake a third thing
o 2 MP starting mid-scene, destroy as many things as you like.
o 4 MP destroy as many things as you like this scene.
As the Arc level rises, so too does your access to the World-Breakers Hand.
Damaged
Arc 2+
Type: Special
Cost:
You no longer recover 1 MP at the beginning of each chapter, though you still recover MP up to
your normal maximum at the beginning of a book.
Further, as a special rule, any effect that causes a wound, or fails to cause a wound because you do not
have the relevant wound type available, also costs you one MP. If you run out of MP while you have
the Sickness Issue at level 1+, this weakness interacts with the Falling from the World
Affliction to drive you into the comfort of your hidden room.
Im sorry this happens.
It sucks.
Arc 4+
Type: Miraculous Action, Major, Bleak
Cost (Arc 3+):
o 0 MP starting mid-scene, declare 1-2 things unmade

o 1 MP starting mid-scene, unmake a third thing
o 2 MP starting mid-scene, destroy as many things as you like.
o 4 MP destroy as many things as you like this scene.
At Arc level 4, the effects of your World-Breakers Hand power become Major.
Primordial
Primordial is a miraculous Mystic Arc. Its for those who are transforming into some great
and nameless power some elemental, supernatural force with an existence no longer really
measurable in human terms.
This Arc tangles up an Element, a Mood or Principle, and a physical transformation all
into a single idea its an artistic evolution and not a rational one, turning you into a concept
and a symbol without the neat categorical distinctions of the logical adult mind. The canonical
example is the Child of the Sun, who is becoming the Sun, and Hope, and also a primordial
deity with symbolic extra limbs. You might also turn into an Earth/Ground/Soil-tied Dragon
who also represents Peace and Stability or a shapeshifting, amorphous siren tied to both Longing
and the Sea, instead!
Primordial offers the following abilities:
Unnatural Action
Scry
Digest (starting at Arc 1)
Bindings (starting at Arc 1)
Shared Witness (starting at Arc 1)
A Distant Mood (starting at Arc 2)
Evocative Transformation (starting at Arc 2)
Transform and Devour (starting at Arc 2)
Tokens of your Power (starting at Arc 3)
this Arc.
Choosing your Principle
This Arc comes with an associated Principle or Mood a high and holy, or at least exalted,
cause you serve.
Are you an agent of
Freedom?
Love?
Truth?
Hope?
Mystery?
or something else?
Youll also want to choose a way of writing your belief in that principle as a Region Property
something like:
You can claim your freedom.

Its OK to love.
Love conquers all.
The truth will out.
The truth is worthwhile.
There is reason to hope.
Youre driven to tackle mysteries!
. . . or . . . ?
Choosing your Transformation
This Arc is transforming you into something, in the name of that principle.
Are you becoming . . .
a bird-faced sky-spirit?
a prophet?
an elemental spirit?
an angelic being?
a shapeshifter, claimed by the Lake?
an emissary of the Bleak Academy?
or something else?
This ties you loosely to some Element of the natural world
the wind?
the sky?
the lake?
the sun?
twilight?
shadow?
the color gray?
fire?
the dawn?
Church bells?
or something else?
If you pick a physical element like the sun or Church bells, this usually extends to a conceptual
area influenced by that element sunlight, or the places where the bells are audible. In general,
you can think of your Element as a kind of Skill, in that you have a great deal of freedom in
defining its applications but have to work at it to push those limits once defined.
Abilities
Unnatural Action
Type: Special
Cost:
You arent just a person. You arent just one lonely little body in the middle of nowhere not
connecting to anything else.
Youre . . . well, part of your Element.
That means that you can use your Element to emote with. If youre a shapeshifter tied to
the lake, you can sit by the sea and move your hand and change the pattern of the crashing
waves. If youre the goddess of the sun, you can cloud over to show that youre upset or
illuminate something thats caught your attention with a sparkling sunbeam.
With practice, you can also use your mortal Skills to take action as your Element not
just casual emoting, but also conscious action. Smash a particular sand castle with a wave cresting
from the lake. Search for something using a sunbeam, or write kanji on the clouds. Darken the
twilight, not to express a pensive mood, but to make yourself harder to find.
Initially youll be limited to things that are pretty normal for your element the idea is that
the sun knows how to glitter and shine and cloud over, but hasnt ever really used its Skills to do
conscious stuff like using sunbeams as searchlights or writing on the clouds. The lake knows how
to have a sudden surge but not how to targetedly attack a given sand castle or use its wave-
motion action to sift the beach for hidden treasure.
But, like any other use of mortal Skills, you can practice until youve learned new tricks.
The practical effect of this power is that if you say Im going to have big surfable waves
today or I dont like this guy. Im going to glare at him all day from the sky and make him
uncomfortably hot or something appropriate to your Element, the HG should ask you for an
action level instead of just squinting at you with a dubious look.96
96
If they squint at you anyway you should draw yourself up to your full height, level an accusatory finger at
them, and say, You, sir, madam, or other, are squinting at me in direct contravention of the instructions of
Jenna Katerin Moran. I hope youre proud of yourself. Then, stick out your tongue!
And run away!
Scry
Cost:
o 0 MP after a few minutes concentrating, use your element to find something

o 1-4 MP speed this process up
Spend a few minutes concentrating and you can invoke an Element-themed search method. This
has two separate forms:
First, you can send out your sight and hearing in a mote or speck of your element
which can dart around within the space your Element covers. It can:
move through your Element very quickly;

focus your senses to see and hear from any specific place therein. However, you can only
see and hear things that are within your Element no matter how vivid or loud, you
cant actually see or hear outside your Elements boundaries.
As a speck of your Element that can only really exist in your Element, your mote is invisible for
most practical purposes but it does have unusual consistency of form and a bit of extra
spiritual thereness, so extremely alert characters may overcome a level 2-3 Obstacle and spot it
anyway.
For ubiquitous Elements like sunlight on a sunny day or water in Big Lake, it usually takes
around an hour to search a Region for a specific person-sized object that is visible to you.
Sometimes you're lucky or unlucky. Its faster to find large things and things you have an
approximate location for, and its slower to find things that are smaller or that spend less than an
hour at a time in your Element. (For instance, if your Element is rain, and youre looking for a
puppy in the rainy season, and the puppy sensibly spends most of its time indoors it might
take you a few days to find it. Conversely, a large building is only going to take you a few
minutes!)
If youre trying to move your senses to a specific, known point in the Region youre in, and
your Element is there, it takes a minute or less; a specific, known point anywhere in Town takes
up to five minutes. Its slowed down a little if you have to jump between non-contiguous patches
of your Element, but not by that much.
You can spend additional MP to hurry this process. This is up to the HG simply ask
them, can I get better results if I dump some MP in this? and theyll either shake their head
sadly and apologize or say, Sure, [1? 2? 4?] MP and Ill skip most of the concentration and get
the mote right to where it needs to go. Make sure the HG knows that they can refund some or
all of the MP if theres nothing to actually find, so naming a price isnt necessarily a spoiler.
You can optionally activate your other senses for use with this power, including smell,
touch, and any senses associated with your magical limbs (see below), but you are strictly unable
to use this power to sense things that are not in your Element. You cant even hear an air raid
siren that's right next to your virtual ear if its not within your scope.
The range of this power is initially limited to Town, but you may spend a Recharge Token
to learn to connect to your Element in a Region somewhere beyond it. If you want to widen the
scope dramatically rather than increasing it in bits and pieces a Perk might be able to add
disproportionately large chunks of territory to this powers reach.
Arc 3+. Starting at Arc 3, youll pick up a secondary manifestation. You can now spread your
Element out from a known point from yourself or from an existing reservoir of the Element
in a series of branching tendrils that have a sense of touch. Adding in sight, hearing, and
other senses is essentially an incompatible function: its not outright impossible to spread out
tendrils and see through them, but theres a large Obstacle to the mundane sensing action from
the effort of concentration, sort of like feeling out somebodys face with one hand while typing a
description of it with the other.
Arc 5. At Arc 5 you can now sense dimly from your element rather than just within it
theres a level 2 Obstacle in the way of getting clear information, but you can.
Digest
Arc 1+
Cost:
These are absolute and unquestionable truths:
You can digest anything you eat over the course of 2-3 hours, making it a part of you.
There is nothing that is notionally impossible for you to devour.
There are many things in the world that you have no idea how to eat, like shadows, energy, and
the moon. Like, you put a shadow in your mouth, you close your mouth, you swallow that
doesnt work! What a crazy idea!
. . . but with the right help, the right power, or the right trick, it's possible. No miraculous or
mundane action, Affliction, or condition can make it impossible for you to eat something, only
very difficult. Conversely, only the most dedicated effort that exploits wish rules can stop you
from digesting something that youve discovered a method to eat.97
Your digestive system is abnormal and mystical; if you get poisoned, you might still take a
wound, but you have a really good excuse to define that wound however you like. (e.g. jellyfish
venom might make you translucent instead of paralyzing you; deadly despair toxin might make
you bleed shadows everywhere instead of feeling despair.) If you throw up, youll tend to throw
up the stuff of your Element.
At the HG's option, devouring something suitably magical and powerful will give you MP,
XP, or even a new Perk.
97
Do I expect this power to come up very often? No! I absolutely do not. But if your worst enemy ever
transforms himself into an olive or you find yourself morally obligated to devour God, the Devil, and the Deep
Blue Sea, youll thank me for specifying that digestion of this sort is never notionally impossible.
Bindings
Arc 1+
Cost:
o 0 MP after a conversation, bind to someones heart or vision

o 4 MP skip the conversation & do this after a single (metaphorical) glimpse of their
heart.
You have the power to hold someone elses experience of your Principle close to your heart.
To start, you talk to them about that.
If your Principle is Truth, talk to them about the truths that are most important to them. If
your Principle is Hope, talk to them about their hopes and dreams. If your principle is Grief, talk
to them about their sorrows.
If you have a Principle that doesnt fit that very well
If youre not sure how to talk to someone about their freedom, or, at least, if your sense
of what that means falls a little flat
You can talk to them, instead, about the stories of the thing youre turning into, about your
Transformation, and hold their vision of that. Their sense of what an Angel of Freedom or
Spirit of Justice might be like.
(This is particularly effective if youve chosen something very subjective to turn into, like a
serial killer of the urban legend kind or a magical princess.)
While you hold their experience, your body changes and you gain a power. This manifests
as:
an inconspicuous and probably pleasant physical or attitudinal change and a tiny

power, like a level 2 Bond or level 1 Superior Skill, which you must store in an
unwounded Normal Health Level;
a conspicuous but concealable physical or attitudinal change and a larger power, like
an Affliction, level 2-3 Superior Skill, or a miraculous ability that you can use 1-
2x/scene, which you must store in an unwounded Tough Health Level.
At Arc 2+, it can also manifest as:
a disturbing and inhuman (though possibly aesthetic) physical or attitudinal change,

with roughly the same power level as those stored in your Tough level, which you
must store in an unwounded Divine Health Level.
For instance, if you connect to somebodys dream of going into space one day, maybe youll pick
up Martian antennae and enhanced cold and airlessness survival skills. (Or, because theyre
antennae, the ability to communicate with dogs.98) Or, after talking to someone about Towns
stories of bird-faced spirits, you could grow soft wings of light or a few feathers in your hair. The
wings would use a Tough level; the feathers, a Normal level; the antennae could go either way.
You can generally play around with these alterations and redesign them a little over the
course of that conversation and later ones. You dont have to sustain this change as an action,
but if you take a wound in that Health Level, youll lose the relevant effect.
BOX Binding to an Enemy
This power relies most fundamentally on insight its not about the words that you hear from the
person youre talking to so much as the channel that that conversation opens to that persons
heart.
If your target really doesnt want to share their ideas or experiences, doesnt want you to
bind to them with this power, but is in communication with you, you can use the action system
(usually, the mundane action system) to arbitrate whether they reveal a glimpse of themselves
anyway.
The default assumption is that they probably do. Its possible for someone to keep up a good
front in front of you and avoid your access to their experience, and being taciturn and careful
helps with that, but it isnt always enough.
END BOX
98
I assume this is how antennae work.
Shared Witness
Arc 1+
Cost:
o 0 MP someone whose experience you hold can tell you what theyd want you to know
o 1 MP after a few minutes, know the rough location/status of such a person
o 4 MP know this information immediately
If youre holding someones experience or concept of something, it can give you insights into
their life and circumstances. For starters, they can emote to you from wherever they are. Theres
a level 4 Obstacle in the way of your parsing this to get detailed information I mean, theres
nothing inherently wrong with someone emoting, Wow, I sure feel stressed about the kidnappers
demanding that I go alone to 1642 Rue dAngleterre, but parsing the address out of that is
going to be difficult but any time they want to share with you, you can get the basics of their
emotional state.
If youre willing to spend MP, you can use this power to locate someone whose experience
youre holding or to figure out how theyre holding up. Specifically, youll learn their:
rough location;
near-exact direction; and
their current level of your Mood and its inverse for instance, if your Mood is grief,
you can get a reading on how much grief and/or . . . joy? . . . theyre feeling at the time.
You can keep checking as long as you sustain this action, and you wont need to spend additional
MP it just takes a few more minutes (if you spent 1 MP) or a thought (if you spent 4 MP)
each time.
A Distant Mood
Arc 2+
Cost:
o 0 MP use this power for someone whose experience you hold 1/chapter
o 1 MP use this power a second or later time this week
Invoke A Distant Mood when someone whose experience or thoughts you hold is in need of or
at least lacking in your Principle.
This has two possible applications
a small, literal application that youll have to define after thinking about your
Element and Principle and Transformation: your Element manifests in some fashion
to help them.
For instance, if youre a creature of Earth/Stability, you might be able to form
earth bulwarks to help stabilize someones environment. Or you might be able to
grant them perfect balance on an earthen surface, or have hands of earth catch them
as they fall but not all those things, just the one that seems to fit. You can learn
additional applications with a Perk.
a more metaphorical application that manifests as a temporary level 2 Bond for

them. For instance, the Earth Stabilizes You. This is what youd use if your target
isnt literally falling over or having things fall down, but is feeling disrupted and
unstable and is somewhere where theres an abundance of earth and stone. They
could then use the Bond to calm themselves, or to help themselves think things
through, or whatever else.
A Distant Mood [Powered Up]
Arc 2+
Cost:
o 0 MP 1/book, do something awesome with A Distant Mood.

o 4 MP use this power a second or later time in a book.
Cost (Arc 3):

o 2 MP use this power a second or later time per book.
o 4 MP use this power a second or later time per chapter.
Cost (Arc 4):

Cost (Arc 5):
o 0 MP 1/chapter, do something awesome with A Distant Mood.

This power includes a free invocation of A Distant Mood.
Once per book, you can use A Distant Mood to do something really amazing.
Pick 2-3 possible wishes that fit your general use of A Distant Mood for instance, if
your usual Mood invocation is the Sun Lights the Path, to give people hope, you might invoke
the powered-up version to illuminate a really good and really hopeful path.
This would manifest as one of the following wishes:
I wish that thered be something at the end of this journey thats worth the trouble.
I wish that by the end of this journey youll understand that youre worth the trouble.
I wish that the sun would keep you safe on the course of this journey.
This tends to be a kind power its more of a power to strengthen than a power to harm
but its legitimate to handle this as a psychic attack. For instance, if someone doesnt want to
think theyre worth the trouble, then that middle wish above would just be a primordial psychic
assault upon them that runs on wish rules. If youre the kind of melancholy siren of longing that
summons people to the Lake to drown, that would be a miraculous attack as well.
(Heck, itd be an attack even if they didnt drown, but just grew cold and sprouted gills and
had to live beneath the Lake thereafter.)
Shared Witness [Powered Up]
Arc 2+
Type: Imperial Miracle, [certain applications only:] Bleak
Cost:
o 0 MP know many things about someone whose experience you hold 1/book
Once per book, if youre holding someones experience or concept of something, you can
invoke Shared Witness to know all kinds of things about that person. Specifically, this power
will tell you how to give them/make them feel [[ your Principle. ]]
For instance, if your Mood/Principle is Hope, itll tell you how to give them hope.
If your Mood is Sorrow, itll tell you what would make them grieve.
This tends to just give you whatever information the HG or the targets player thinks might
be relevant to competently pursue inspiring stability, hope, freedom, love, truth, or whatever in
them. However, if this starts getting into secret information or stuff they dont want to share,
this may switch to Bleak rules it becomes a kind of corruption or breaking down of
boundaries, and is resistable as such.
Once invoked this power usually remains in force until theres a substantive narrative payoff
or the story ends its not a one-time thing, where the HG or the targets player has to think up
everything you might need to know right then or there; rather, its a continual flow of
information to back up your ability to inspire them towards your Mood. The information will
grow a little out-of-date if you stop holding their experience but (since some of it represents an
instant of deep understanding) it wont actually stop.
Evocative Transformation / Transform and Devour
Arc 2+
Cost (Arc 2):
o 0 MP an instrumental transformation 1/book

Cost (Arc 4):

Cost (Arc 5):

Once per book, when your Mood is far from you, when its opposite threatens to consume you,
you can invoke Evocative Transformation or Transform and Devour and change yourself in
a fashion that fits your transformation
In its most limitless, thematic sense
To answer the situation. There is something more raw and primal to this than a wish: the
key to your new power isnt conceptual or semantic, but rather this:
This change must be instrumental in inspiring or invoking your Principle,
or suppressing its opposite,
in a meaningful and well-grounded way.
That language doesnt seem very primal in the generic case, but thats purely because the generic
case isnt a very primal idea. The key to this power, the primal thing about it, is that you dont
just, e.g., create Hope.
You become something that meaningfully improves your chances of handling a situation
real, justified hope.
You dont just create Longing.
You create something or make yourself into something worth longing for, by the standards
of the game. If youre an NPC siren, and youre trying to make a PC who is totally disinterested
in longing for you do so, you become something that can grant them something they genuinely
want.
If youre transforming to devour the despair in a beleaguered army, you might become
something that can raise their fallen dead.
You dont just get a power to crush despair in the heart.
You get a power to crush the hopeless element of a situation.
And to fulfill that rule, this means the new transformation that comes upon you will have
whatever powers the HG thinks it must have, and theyre as easy or difficult to use as the HG
thinks appropriate, to guarantee that that rule applies. It might be a +1 Tool when you need it. It
might be a miracle. It might be an overpowering wish-level effect. The only real limitation is that
if the limb has a Bleak or Imperial power that overrides ordinary miracles, or complex powers
that need time and effort to figure out, the standard wishing rules or Bleak rules will apply.
Since its just 4 MP to invoke this power at any time, you can often invoke it to resolve an
Issue. Its particularly common for you to invoke Transform and Devour for resolution when
you have
a level 4-5 Calling

a level 5 Hero Issue
a level 4-5 Over your Head Issue
a level 5 Sickness
a level 5 Vice
an enemy that has just showily defeated you and your friends twice
. . . and youll treat it as an Issue, and get the 4 MP discount for resolving an Issue in that last
case, even if you dont actually have a relevant Issue to resolve.
The HG assigns the transformation to one of your Health Levels normally to a Divine
Health Level, but the limb can use one of your subtler Health Levels if appropriate. It displaces a
held experience if necessary and can even displace a wound. However, if it displaces a wound,
the change is temporary: it lasts only as long as necessary to fulfill its function, and then, unless
the wound would have healed by then, the change goes away and the wound returns.
If you had an available, unwounded Health Level of the necessary level or above, you are
absolutely allowed to keep the change afterwards, for as long as you like. (Even into the next
story, if thats what youd prefer!)
Tokens of your Power
Arc 3+
Cost (Arc 3):
o 0 MP 1/book, you may pull some of your Element or Principle out of a situation and
create a token from it, or unleash it from a token formerly created
o 1 MP do so a second or later time per book
o 2 MP do so a second or later time per chapter
o 4 MP do so a second or later time in a single scene
Cost (Arc 4):
o 0 MP 1/chapter, you may pull some of your Element or Principle out of a situation
and create a token from it, or unleash it from a token formerly created
o 2 MP do so a second or later time in a single scene
Cost (Arc 5):
o 0 MP starting mid-scene, invoke this power 1-2x/scene

o 1 MP do so a third or later time in a single scene
o 4 MP release a powerful token as an Imperial Miracle, instead.
You can extract some portion of your Principle or Elements presence in a place into a physical
object wrapping up sunlight into a gem, extracting the freedom or hope from a situation for
use later, and the like. It becomes a token.
Doing this usually takes a few minutes and the precision of your efforts
Not its fundamental effect, but your ability to avoid overdoing it or underdoing it if youre
doing something tricky or someones struggling
Is based on a mundane action that you take.
Later on you or someone else can release the bound Principle or Element. Youre the one
who has to supply the MP, so you can veto the use of a token, but you dont need an action or to
be on-scene when it happens to do so; you just have to consent to a token breaking and the
Element or Principle in it getting free.
Bindings [Powered Up]
Arc 4+
Cost:
o 1 MP 1/chapter, you can talk to yourself and hold your own experiences
Youre no longer strictly dependent on others to transform every now and then, you can put
together something based on your own ideas. This can be as situational as you like: if right this
second, youre longing for a lockpick, and youre a shapeless Siren of Longing, you can probably
manifest, say, lock-picking hair.
You dont need to actually talk to yourself aloud, but you do need to think things through
properly and/or thoroughly feel a given mood.
Index
[[ Layout/Art Note:
The Near Outside (level 1) is lightly surrealist.

The Low Outside (level 2) is increasingly surrealist, symbolic, and a little
abstract.
The Low Outside (level 3) is orphic cubism.
The Deep Outside (level 4) is geometric art, verging on neoplastic composition
(e.g. Mondrian)
The Deep Outside (level 5) is a darker, more psychedelic style of this
The Far Outside (level 6-7) is socialist realism with a limited color palette.
The Bleak Academy is a standard, cool fantasy college campus under a dark sky,
and the Far and Sunless Land is probably very clean and digital pieces a
mostly barren CGI night sky with a bright red star, that kind of thing. ]]

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Chuubos Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine

The Roleplaying Game

Hi! This is Jenna Moran.

This is my current working draft of the Chuubos Marvelous Wish-

editing and possibly content rearrangement;

This draft release is meant to reward the campaigns supporters by giving

Accordingly, please only read this document if youve supported, or fully

Best wishes, Jenna

Written and Conceived by: Jenna Katerin Moran

Layout and Visual Design by:

Design and Development Contributors:

I didnt know yet that the world had fallen.

I dont think I was fully real again yet when I boarded.

It wasnt because Id been unreal, exactly.

That there was more.

There is so much to experience here. You could live.

For this game, Im targeting forum and tabletop play

The Wishing Boy (or Girl)

And lets start by imagining you as a pretty ordinary kind of person.

Youre normal and you have no trouble fitting in.

Youre ordinary and you like it that way.

Because, obviously, in fact, you can.

Its right there.

Chuubo or Shokyou, with their wish-granting engine;

But at the core of it all?

At the heart of it?

This is the kind of game where your wishes come true.

At its core, Town is

Fortitude, a sweet, laid-back pastoral region;

and beyond and around all of that is the Outside.

She was the sun.

What is this For?

I want you to heed the call if you ever hear it.

The Chuubos Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine RPG is a game of pretend.

It plays out in the course of a conversation. It can be an online conversation or a bunch of

Most people are playing a single character their PC or Avatar.

(Or ask a question like, Wait, what?)

Instead, they play the world.

The rule is . . . players take actions, the HG describes what happens.

PC or Avatar Player Character. Your Avatar in the world of the game.

NPC Non-Player Character.

IC IC actions are taken by your character, in character.

OOC OOC actions are things you do as a player, out of character.

Theyre the targets of your time and focus, in whatever form.

There are three major sources of XP in this game:

Emotion XP comes from evoking certain emotions and semi-autonomic responses

Action XP exists to open those meaning/mattering paths a little wider.

Heres how it works.

In that case, youll have the chance to take an XP Action

Youll do something, and earn an XP for the group.

For instance, in a Pastoral game, youll be watching for opportunities for . . .

Shared Action (pg. XX)

Obsessive Action (pg. XX).

BOX Conditions, Actions, and Details

Heres the internal anatomy of an XP action.

BOX Session Goals

For instance, take the Slice of Life XP Action.

What kind of story are they in?

Thats how an Issue works.

Get in a lot of trouble? Grow towards being a Hero!