Ascmearc

Ascmearc is a turn-based roguelike played on a grid, in the spirit of the classic ASCII game ADOM. Everything on screen is a glyph: creatures, terrain, and the menus too. The glyphs are drawn on the GPU with colored light, real shadows, and gently animated terrain.

This wiki explains how the game works: the rules you play by and the facts of its world. It is written for players, and it describes the game as it is today, which is an early build.

In this build you can walk and explore, travel the overworld, and watch the days, the moon, and the weather change. You hear what you cannot see. You talk to the people you meet. You pick up and carry objects, wear them, and wield them.

Creatures go about their business, notice you, and fight each other and you. Blows and arrows are rolled against your Defence. They hurt, they kill, and death is final. Spells work the same way, whether a creature casts them or you do; they cost mana (see Magic). How well you fight depends on your stats, your weapon, and your armour.

The numbers here are exact. The game keeps many numbers to itself and tells you in words instead: a creature looks “badly wounded”, you “feel more skilled”, boots make you “move faster”. The wiki gives the real numbers, generated from the game’s data so they cannot drift. That includes your bonus to hit and where it comes from, the stat modifiers, speeds, how loud things are, what a rank gives, and every creature’s stats, attacks, and senses (Creatures in numbers).

• Play in your browser: https://ascmearc.com/ (needs a browser with WebGPU)
• Download for Windows, macOS, and Linux: https://github.com/jannef/ascmearc/releases
• Build a version from source: cargo install --git https://github.com/jannef/ascmearc --tag v0.18.0 --locked --no-default-features ascmearc (details in the README)
• Source and issues: https://github.com/jannef/ascmearc

Where to start

• New to the game? Read Your first run. How do I…? links the answers to the questions players ask most.
• Choosing a build? Your character, Classes, and Talents are where to start.
• Looking something up? The sidebar is in the order you meet things in play, from making a character to the reference at the end, How the world works.

Starting a run

The game opens on the main menu. New run starts a new character in the Ascmearc, the world you play in. (See Saving for the characters you keep.) You make your character one step at a time: your race, your gender, and your class. A summary then shows your age and birth sign and the stats you will start with (see Your character). You set out with your starting kit:

The Ascmearc: Through Beorggeat into the Ascmearc, where the ash falls and no road leads home.

Tables in this wiki that list names, times, or numbers are generated from the game’s own data, so they match the version of the game this wiki was published with.

The Ascmearc, “the ash march”, is the first world. You come down into it through Beorggeat, a pass in the mountains on its western edge. Snow closes the pass behind you, so there is no way back. The road runs east to Cēaptūn, a market town an easy morning’s walk away (see The Ascmearc).

Apart from the land and its places, this wiki does not describe levels or walk you through them. The game’s world is still being built.

See also: Your first run, How do I…?, and What’s in the game.

Your first run

New to the game? Make a warrior, walk into the little cave beside the pass where you start, then on to the market town to the east. Rest when you are hurt, eat when you are hungry, and leave a fight that is going badly. Death is final. This page tells you the rest of what you need for your first hour; the other pages tell you everything else.

Make a character

Choose New run on the main menu. You pick your race, your gender, your class, two talents (or let Random pick them), and a name (see Your character). Any race will do for a first run. Your class matters more.

Choosing a class

The warrior, the berserker, and the paladin are the best first picks. They have the most hit points, they start with good arms, and they fight by walking into the enemy. Casters and the thief are harder: they have few hit points and need to keep their distance or stay unseen. The everyday folk are hardest of all, and two of them are a joke.

The key stats are the ones the class rolls dice to raise. Hit points and mana are what the class adds to yours. Each class’s page says how to play it (see Classes).

The keys you need first

These are the default keys. ? shows them in the game, as you have bound them (see Controls).

What the status bar tells you

The line under the map (see The screen) shows your hit points as HP 18/24. When something is wrong, it says so in words: Bleeding, Poisoned, or Diseased for what ails you, Hungry or worse for hunger, and Burdened or worse when you carry too much (see Burden). Each of these is a reason to stop and deal with it.

Your first hour

The run starts at eight in the morning on Beorggeat, the pass on the western edge of the Ascmearc. Snow closes it behind you.

• Lytelscræf, a little cave two cells from the pass, is the easiest dungeon there is: three short floors of rats, bats, and kobolds, with a chest at the bottom (see The dungeons). On the overworld map, walk onto it and press >.
• Cēaptūn, the market town, lies six cells east along the road, under two hours’ walk (see Cēaptūn). It is safe. Its shops sell food, arms, and armour; at the Mynster you can rest, and Sister Hild cures and mends for gold; at the Gildhalle, Wat One-Eye gives out work (see Quests).
• Cealdhlāw, the cold barrow in the downs east of the town, is the next dungeon, and harder (see Dungeons and danger).

Pick up what the dead leave behind: arms, armour, potions, and gold. Sell what you don’t need in town, and buy food before you run short.

When you level up

Kills and finished quests give you experience. At each new level your hit points grow, and a screen opens by itself for the choices you make: skill rolls at every level, and a talent at every third (see When you level up).

Staying alive

• Rest when you are hurt. Press b once no enemy is about. You heal twice as fast resting (see Healing).
• Eat when you are hungry. Press e. Carry food; the corpses of what you kill can be eaten too, but not all of them safely (see Food and corpses).
• Bleeding and poison wear off by themselves, but they hurt, and they slow or stop your healing while they last. Potions, the Heal skill, and prayer end them sooner (see Curing bleeding, poison, and disease).
• Carry a light. Most races start with a lantern; press u to light it in a dark dungeon. Dwarves and the other races that see in the dark start without one.
• Don’t fight burdened. Too much in your pack makes you slow and clumsy (see Burden). Drop what you don’t need with d.
• Leave a losing fight. Walk away, drink a healing potion, or take the stairs. A foe right beside you that knows you are there follows you up or down the stairs (see Stairs), so get a step ahead first.
• Death is final. When you die, your character’s save is deleted. Your save is your character: you can stop and go on later, but never go back (see Saving and Death).

Questions about a task? How do I…? links the answers.

See also: Controls, Your character, and Combat.

How do I…?

Each question links to the place that answers it. New to the game? Start with Your first run.

Getting going

• …pick a class for my first run? Choosing a class
• …find the keys? Controls, or ? in the game
• …use an ability or cast a spell? The abilities menu
• …save and quit? When the game saves
• …know what happens when I die? Death

Growing stronger

• …level up, and what do I choose? When you level up
• …pick a talent? When you get a talent
• …raise a skill? Improving a skill
• …learn a skill I don’t have? Training
• …raise a weapon skill? Raising a weapon skill
• …learn a new spell? Learning a spell
• …become a prestige class? Callings

Staying alive

• …get my hit points back? Getting your health back
• …cure poison, or stop bleeding? Curing bleeding, poison, and disease
• …cure a disease? Curing a disease
• …rest? Resting
• …eat a corpse safely? Corpses
• …carry more? How much you can carry
• …see in the dark? Your lantern
• …get away from a fight? Stairs

Fighting

• …shoot a bow or throw a dagger? Shooting and throwing
• …make a sneak attack? Sneak attacks
• …use openings and Exploit, as a thief? Exploit
• …rage, as a berserker? Rage
• …fight more boldly or more carefully? Stances
• …train on something that can’t hurt me? Target dummies

Allies

• …get an animal companion? Taming
• …give my allies orders? Orders
• …get my familiar back, as a witch? Call familiar

Items and money

• …buy and sell? Buying and Selling
• …find out what an unknown item is? Unidentified items
• …open a locked door? Locked doors
• …open a locked chest? Locked chests
• …find secret doors and hidden traps? How to search
• …disarm a trap? Disarming traps

Making things

• …make a sword? Forging a weapon
• …make arrows? Fletching
• …brew a potion? How a brew goes
• …enchant an item? Enchanting an item
• …get magic crystals? Magic crystals
• …cut a gem? Gem cutting
• …take an item apart for its materials? Salvage
• …dig through a wall, or mine ore? Digging and Mining

Out in the world

• …find work? Getting a quest
• …talk to someone? Chatting
• …travel across the map? Travel
• …find a hidden dungeon? Hidden locations
• …lift a room’s curse? Cursed rooms
• …pray at an altar? Forgotten altars

See also: Your first run, Controls, and What’s in the game.

What’s in the game

A short tour of what the game has today. Each section links to the page that explains the rules.

Creatures hunt you, fight, shoot, cast spells, and die. Your own death is permanent. You grow by experience levels and by skills that improve with use.

The world

You come into the Ascmearc through a mountain pass that closes behind you. It is an overworld with a 12-month, 30-day calendar, day and night, and weather. Every step across it takes real travel time: a road is quick, a swamp slow, and mountains cannot be crossed. Its locations lead to the market town of Cēaptūn and to the dungeons. Two of them stay hidden until a quest tells you where they are. Any other cell opens an outdoor area made for your run (meadow, forest, hills, swamp, or riverbank), which you leave by walking off its edge.

The dungeons lie under the barrows, the fen, and the hills. Their levels, rooms and corridors or caves, are made anew for each run, with hand-made vaults set into them. Creatures of the floor’s danger keep coming. Some levels have a special room that changes the rules inside it, such as a shadowed room that drains all light or a sanctuary where wounds heal fast and nothing hostile follows you in.

Light, sight, and sound

Every cell carries light from torches, lamps, crystals, braziers, and your lantern. Walls and pillars cast shadows, and creatures cast soft ones. Firelight drifts gently in hue and strength; magical light holds steady.

What you see depends on your eyes. Normal vision needs light. Low-light eyes see by faint fungus glow. Darkvision sees in the dark, in fading grey. UV sight reveals runes no one else can see. Explored ground stays on the map as dim memory.

Footsteps, doors, and fights make noise that travels around corners. You hear what you cannot see as faint marks on the map and short messages (“You hear footsteps to the north-east.”). Creatures hear you too, and come to look.

The sky

The sun crosses the sky of outdoor levels: warm and low at dawn and dusk, white at noon. Shadows from trees, walls, and stones turn and stretch with it.

By night a faint moon lights the land, waxing and waning with the month. Under a full moon you dimly make out open ground. Low-light eyes see by a half moon. A new moon leaves you to your lantern.

Weather comes and goes with the season: clear, overcast, rain, and heavy rain. Clouds dim the sun and the moon for you and every creature alike. Rain shortens your sight on the overworld.

Every place has a temperature. Water freezes slowly in the cold and thaws in the warmth, even while you are away. Ice holds by its thickness against your weight: a laden dwarf breaks through where a light elf crosses, and falls into the freezing water.

Your character

You make a character at the start of every run. There are thirteen races, each with its own eyes, three genders, and twelve classes to choose from, from berserker and wizard to aristocrat, though not every class is open to every race (Who may take which). Your year of birth gives you a horoscope sign. Characters are not balanced, on purpose: some are a challenge.

Six stats describe you and every creature. Skills such as Stealth and Open lock grow with use. Every kill you make earns experience; levels run to 60. One menu (a) holds everything you can do because of who you are.

Fighting

Every blow and shot is rolled with two twelve-sided dice against Defence. A miss tells you why (“You block the kobold’s spear with your shield.”). Criticals hit hard, and armour and hides soak damage (“Your sword glances off the cave beetle’s shell.”). Creatures look as hurt as they are, and drop what they carried when they die.

Weapon skills and fighting styles improve as you fight. Ranged combat has bows, a crossbow, a sling, and throwing weapons; you aim with a cursor and pick up your arrows where they fell. Big hits leave blood on the floor and the walls.

Wounds can bleed, bites can poison, and diseases take points off your stats. Hit points come back with time, twice as fast while you rest.

Magic

Spells cost mana. A few come with a casting class; the rest are learned from scrolls. Wands cast their spell from charges, for anyone. Rods do what no spell does, such as digging or sending a creature away, for your own mana. Some classes use resources of their own, such as a berserker’s rage.

Things to find and use

Objects lie in piles to pick up and drop: weapons, armour, tools, potions, scrolls, food, gems, coins, rings, and amulets. Each is made of a material, from tin to nicrosil. You put things on in the equipment screen. Everything you carry has weight, and too much leaves you burdened.

Magic items roll prefixes and suffixes: “Sharp long sword of the Bear” in blue, or a rare one with a name of its own, “Grim Bite, long sword”, in yellow. They work even while unidentified.

You get hungry. Eat rations, bread, and apples before they spoil, or the corpses creatures leave behind.

The dungeon’s defences

Some doors are locked: open them with a key, or kick them in (k). Traps lie hidden until someone steps on them. Secret doors look like the wall until you search (s, or any wait) or notice them in passing. With a pick-axe you can dig through walls.

People, quests, and shops

Cēaptūn has folk to chat with (C). Some have topics to ask about, and some sell services for gold. Quests come from the people you meet: kill something, bring something, go somewhere, or carry something to someone. Some tell you where a hidden place lies.

Shops show the price of their goods. What you pick up you owe until you pay (p). Your Presence and the Negotiation skill get you better prices. Cēaptūn has two shops on its square, and now and then a dungeon level has one.

Effects and settings

Ponds glint in the torchlight, streams flow and foam against rocks, torches flicker, and braziers throw sparks and heat haze. Every effect can be turned off on its own in the settings, and a reduced-effects preset turns them all off. Settings also cover font size, color palettes (including high contrast and a colorblind-friendly one), °C or °F, and fully rebindable keys.

The game saves one file per run, when you quit and as you play. When you die, the save is deleted. It runs on Windows, macOS, Linux, and in the browser (WebGPU).

See also: Controls, Your character, and Combat.

Controls

The game is played with the keyboard. These are the default keys for play. You can rebind every one of them (see Rebinding keys), and the hints on screen always name your own keys. In the game, ? shows the list made from your current keys, so trust it over this page. The screen explains what the window shows: the map, the message line, the status bar, and the info pages.

The ten keys you need first

Key	Does
numpad or arrows	move; move into a hostile creature to attack it
numpad 5 or s	wait a turn, searching around you
,	pick up what is underfoot
i	equipment: wear and wield
a	the abilities menu: spells, class abilities, skill uses
t	shoot or throw
> / <	down or up stairs
l	look around
?	every key, as you have bound it
Esc	the pause menu: save and quit

All the keys

Wherever ADOM has the same command, the default key is ADOM’s, so ADOM players find keys where their fingers expect them. You move with the numpad or the arrows; the arrows move in four directions only. If you prefer the vi keys (hjklyubn), bind them in Controls. Give Kick, Look around, and Use a tool other keys first, since they use k, l, and u, as in ADOM.

Some commands ADOM does not have, or has only behind a prefix. They get keys ADOM leaves free: the message history v, rest b, the talents G, and repeating an ability X. Waiting and searching are one command, numpad 5 or s, and searching for a while is Alt with either. You save and quit from the pause menu (Esc), or bind a key for it in Controls.

Symbol keys such as <, >, and ? are matched by the character they type, so they work on any keyboard layout.

More about the keys:

• Menus, lists, and text fields: the fixed keys of menus and screens, picking up and dropping, the abilities menu, and the equipment screen.
• Rebinding keys: changing your keys in Controls, and sharing them.
• Prompts, looking, and aiming: the questions a command asks, look mode, and aiming a shot, a throw, or a spell.

See also: Settings, How do I…?, and Your first run.

The screen

The map fills most of the window. Above it, the message line (two rows) tells you what this turn brought. Prompts and look mode use the same line. This page also covers the info pages, the menus, and the death screen; the keys are on Controls.

Below the map, the status bar shows, from left to right:

• The name of the level. On the overworld and in its local areas, also the region you are in.
• Your hit points, as HP 18/24: what you have left, then your most (see Combat).
• Your mana, as MP 5/12, the same way (see Mana).
• Each resource you hold, as Rage 7 or Focus 7/10 (see Resources).
• What ails you, if anything, the most urgent first: Bleeding, Poisoned, Diseased (see Status effects and Diseases).
• How hungry you are, unless you are not hungry: Hungry, Weak, Fainting, Starving, Satiated, or Bloated. From Hungry down, the colour grows more alarming as it gets worse (see Hunger).
• Your burden, when you have one: Burdened, Strained, or Overloaded (see Burden).
• Your level, as Lv 3, and your combat stance unless it is neutral.
• How your companion or familiar looks, as Snel: unhurt.
• The time of day, as 14:32 (see Time and the calendar).

The date, the moon, the weather, and the temperature are not on the status bar: the pause menu tells them.

At its right end, ? controls reminds you where the keys are. It names the key as you bound it (Esc menu when the controls have no key), and so does the welcome line at the start of a new run.

When the window is too narrow for everything, the status bar leaves out the least important parts first: the region, then your animal’s health. The time, your burden, your hunger, your status effects (the least urgent go first), your resources (the last one goes first), your mana, your hit points, and the name of the level stay longest. From Hungry down, your hunger outlasts them all. Parts come back as soon as there is room. The character screen always lists everything that ails you, even what the status bar has no room for.

Messages

The message line shows this turn’s messages: everything said since you last acted, one after another, wrapped at the ends of words. Rows they leave free show earlier messages, one per row; those from before the last turn are dimmed. A message repeated in a row is shown once with a count, as in You open the door. (×2).

When a turn says more than the two rows hold, the line shows what fits, then --more--, and waits. Space or Enter shows the rest, a page at a time, and Esc skips the rest of this turn’s messages. Until then no other key does anything, and a key you hold down never turns the page, so nothing happens that you have not read.

A rest or a long dig counts as one turn here: what was said during it, and what stopped it, shows the same way. Both keys can be rebound in their own group in Controls. Skipping has no key until you bind one, but Esc always skips. A screen that opens by itself, such as someone answering you, comes first: --more-- waits beneath it until it closes.

v opens the message history: the last 200 messages, the newest at the bottom, where it opens. The up and down keys scroll it a line at a time, and < and > (or PageUp and PageDown) a screenful. Esc, Enter, or v closes it. It takes no time.

Character

@ shows who you are:

• your name, race, gender, and class;
• your age, birthday, and birth sign;
• your stats; one lowered by a status effect or a disease is shown lowered, in red;
• your hit points and Defence (Dv; see Combat);
• everything that ails you, all of it, even what the status bar has no room for: your status effects, being dazzled, your hunger, and your burden (Status Bleeding, Poisoned, Hungry, Burdened), and the diseases you know you have (Diseased Filth fever; see Diseases);
• your weight, what you carry, and the weights at which your burden changes.

It takes no time. Press @ or Esc to close it, or A for your skills.

Skills

A lists the skills you are trained in. Each shows its value and a small meter of how practised it is, which is how big its next roll at a level-up will be. Pick a skill with the arrow keys to read what it does. It takes no time. Press A or Esc to close it.

Info pages

Nine screens form one set of numbered pages: the character screen, the inventory, the equipment screen, the skills screen, the weapon skills screen, the Magic page, the quest log, the talents page, and your story. The bottom edge of each shows

1 Character · 2 Inventory · 3 Equipment · 4 Skills · 5 Weapons · 6 Magic · 7 Quests · 8 Talents · 9 Story

with the page you are on highlighted. All pages are the same width, so the frame stays put as you turn them. The game keeps most of its numbers hidden, with one exception: every list of items, the inventory and the equipment screen among them, shows after each item what it gives, its to-hit and damage, or its Defence and Protection, “a long sword (+0 hit, 1d9)”, “a chain mail shirt (Dv +2, Pv 3)” (see Equipment). In a small window the pages go by short names (1 Char · 2 Inv · 3 Eqp · 4 Skl · 5 Weap · 6 Mag · 7 Qst · 8 Tal · 9 Story), and in the narrowest by their numbers alone.

While one of them is open, 1 to 9 switch to the page with that number. These are the number keys above the letters; on a page the numpad moves the selection, as the arrows do. Tab and Shift+Tab go to the next or previous page, wrapping around. The new page replaces the one you were on, so Esc closes it and takes you back to where you opened the first one.

The number keys do nothing during play. On a screen that is a step of a page, such as choosing what goes in a slot, they keep their own meaning. Every page except the Magic page also has its own key (@, I, i, A) that opens and closes it; you reach the Magic page by its number from another page. The digits and Tab are fixed; only “Previous info page” can be given a key in the Controls screen. They are separate from the play keys, so Tab can be both “next target” while aiming and “next info page” on an info screen.

Death

When you die, a screen says what killed you (if you saw it), where, when, and after how many turns. Your save is already gone (see Saving). Enter or Esc returns to the main menu.

Menus

Esc during play, when no prompt is open, opens the pause menu: Resume, Settings, Controls, Save and quit to menu, and Quit, which saves too. Under its title one line tells the date, the moon’s phase, the weather when you are under the open sky, and the temperature where you are, for example: The 11th of Darkening, 1444, under a waxing gibbous moon, rain at 4 °C, the world waits. Indoors and underground it says the air at 10 °C instead of the weather. In a narrow window the moon is left out first, then the weather.

The main menu, where the game opens, has Continue (when there is a saved run), Characters (when any character is saved), Graveyard (once any character has died), New run, Settings, Controls, and Quit; see Saving and Settings. New run goes on to creating your character, one step at a time. The arrow keys (or j and k) choose, Enter goes on, and Esc goes back a step (see Your character).

No game time passes while a menu or screen is open. That includes the inventory, the equipment screen, the character screen, the pick-up screen and the pack’s drop mode, the abilities menu, and the screen of topics someone you chat with offers. Only what you choose to do there takes time: picking up, dropping, putting on or taking off, and using an ability. Asking about a topic takes none.

Developer keys

Test builds, and desktop builds started with --dev, add a few keys for trying things out. They are not part of normal play, and the browser version does not have them. They are fixed: Controls cannot rebind them, and ? does not list them:

With these keys on, the status bar also shows, at its end, the turn count, your position (column, row), how brightly your own cell is lit (Light, where 255 is full light), and your vision type. They give way first when the window is narrow.

See also: Controls, Menus and lists, and Your character.

Menus, lists, and text fields

These are the keys inside menus, lists, and screens. The keys of play are on Controls.

Menus and screens

On every menu and screen these keys are fixed: you cannot rebind them.

Text fields

In a text field (your character’s name), every key types what it types, but these fixed keys:

Some lists name their rows by letter, such as your pack, a pile, or the equipment slots. Others name them by number, such as the topics someone offers. On those lists the letters and digits always pick rows, whatever else they are bound to. The numpad’s digits never pick rows or turn pages: on a screen the numpad moves the selection, as the arrows do, with Num Lock on or off. In a text field they type.

A list of items is grouped by kind (weapons, armour, food, and so on) and shows one page at a time. The letters name the rows of the page you see, and start again at a on every page.

Objects

, or ; picks up what lies where you stand. A single stack is picked up at once; where several lie, you choose from a list. d opens the same kind of list for what you carry, to drop.

On these lists:

• A letter marks or unmarks a stack, even h, j, k, and l.
• , marks everything, on every page.
• The arrows and Space work too.
• > and < turn the pages of a long list. What you marked stays marked.
• Enter confirms, and Esc cancels.

I shows your pack, what it weighs, and how much more you can carry before your burden grows. It takes no time. See Objects and your pack.

T opens a list of what you carry that can be thrown. Choose one by its letter and aim it.

e (Consume) opens a list of what you can eat, titled “Consume what?”. It shows food lying where you stand first, then the food you carry. A letter, or Enter on the marked row, eats it. Potions and magic crystals are in the same list. See Food and corpses.

Abilities

a opens the abilities menu: everything you can do because of who you are. That includes throwing your voice, a shield bash, disarming a trap, the other skills you use as actions, and racial and class abilities. They are grouped by where each comes from and lettered like a list of items.

Choose one by its letter, or press Enter on the > row. One you cannot use now is greyed out, with the reason. The ability then asks for what it needs, such as a direction or a place to aim at. The menu opens on the ability you used last, and X uses that one again at once.

Abilities have no keys of their own unless you give them one in Controls, where they are listed last, under “Ability keys”. See Abilities.

i shows what you wear and wield, slot by slot, as ADOM’s i does (I is your pack). On this screen every letter names a slot. A slot’s letter opens a list of what you carry that fits there. Picking an item puts it on, swapping out what was there; picking what is already there takes it off. Each change takes its time. You stay on the equipment screen until you press Esc. See Equipment.

See also: Controls, Prompts and aiming, and Objects and your pack.

Rebinding keys

You rebind the keys of play in the Controls screen: open the main menu or the pause menu, then Controls. The keys of menus and screens, text fields, the question windows (y and n), the info pages (the digits and Tab), the rest prompt (h, d, n), and aiming (Tab and Enter) are fixed. The hints on screen name them.

Controls lists the commands in groups, by where they are used: in play, while aiming, at --more--, on menus and screens, in text fields, and on the info pages. Outside play, each group holds only a “back” or “previous” command. It has no key until you give it one, since Esc and Shift already do it, and it cannot take a key that is fixed there. Last come the ability keys, which have no key until you give them one.

A command can have several keys: moving north is numpad 8 and Up. To change them, select the command and press Enter. Its keys open in a short list under it, one per line, with Add a key last. The first key is the main one, the key the hints on screen name.

• Replace a key: select it, press Enter, then press the new key.
• Add a key: select Add a key, press Enter, then press the new key.
• Remove a key: select it and press Delete. A command may be left with no key.
• Esc closes the list.

If another command in the same group already uses the key you press, the key moves to this command and the screen says what moved. The old command keeps its other keys, or shows (none) if that was its only one.

A key of play can be held with Ctrl, Alt, or Super (on a Mac Ctrl, Option, or Cmd; Controls calls Option Alt): hold them while you press the new key, as in Ctrl+r. A modified key is its own key: Ctrl+r never does what r does, and r does nothing while Ctrl is held. Shift counts with keys that type no character, such as Shift+Up; a letter carries it already (K is not k). Keys your system or browser keeps for itself, such as Cmd+Q, Alt+F4, or Ctrl+W in the browser, cannot be bound, and the screen says why. The back commands of menus, screens, and prompts take no modifiers.

The same key can mean different things in different places. Tab is the next target while aiming and the next page on an info screen. d drops in play but rests until dawn in the rest prompt.

You cannot lock yourself out. Esc always backs out of every screen and cancels every prompt, and it cannot be taken. The keys of the menus, which you need to get back to Controls, and of text fields, which you need to name a new character, are fixed. Delete on a command whose keys are closed puts its default keys back, and Reset all keys resets every command. If your keys still get in the way, start the game with ascmearc --reset-keys: every key goes back to its default, and the game starts as usual. Your keys are kept with your settings.

Sharing your keys

Export keys… in Controls writes all your keys to a file, ascmearc-keys.toml, in the folder with your settings (Settings, then Files, shows where). In the browser it downloads the file. Import keys… reads it back; in the browser, you choose the file. Use it to copy your keys to another computer, to back them up, or to share them.

It is a plain text file you can edit. It lists each command by name with its keys, in the same groups as the Controls screen, as in descend = [">"]. An import changes only the commands the file lists and moves keys the way rebinding does. It skips anything it does not know, says so, and is saved at once. From the command line, ascmearc --export-keys FILE and ascmearc --import-keys FILE do the same. The desktop downloads come with the default keys in such a file, keymaps/default.toml.

See also: Controls, Settings, and Menus and lists.

Prompts, looking, and aiming

Prompts

Some commands ask a question on the message line before they act:

• Kicking asks In which direction? (Esc to cancel), and so do opening or closing a door, bashing with your shield, and stealing when more than one thing beside you could be meant (see Something beside you).
• Digging, with more than one wall beside you to dig, asks Dig in which direction? (Esc to cancel) (see Digging and walls).
• Chatting when several creatures are near asks Talk in which direction? (Esc to cancel) (see People and talk).
• Disarming a trap, with more than one known trap beside you, asks Disarm in which direction? (Esc to cancel) (see Traps).
• Resting asks how long (see Resting).

Answer with a direction or the key shown, or press Esc to cancel. Pressing any other command also cancels the prompt. The rest prompt’s keys (h, d, n) are its own and fixed: in play d still drops.

A few things ask first, in a small window over the map: quitting, stepping onto a trap you know (see Traps), leaving a shop owing money, and dropping something a shop would buy (see Shops). The window lists its answers, each with the keys that choose it. y picks the yes answer, n the no answer, and Esc the one that backs out. You can also move with the arrow keys and press Enter. The safe answer is selected at first, so pressing Enter alone never does something you might regret. The yes and no keys are their own: you can rebind them without touching any key of play.

Something beside you

A command or ability that works on something next to you looks around you first:

• With nothing beside you to use it on, it does nothing and tells you so at once, taking no time. No prompt opens.
• With one thing, it acts on that at once, without asking.
• With two or more, it asks which way, as above.

Only what you know counts: a door or chest you see or remember, a trap you know of, a creature you can see. What each one looks for:

Kicking always asks: you may kick any way you like.

Look mode

l puts a cursor on the map, on you. Move it with the movement keys, and the message line describes what you know about the cell under it:

• What you see there. For a creature: “hostile” if it is hostile to you, how hurt it looks (unhurt, lightly wounded, wounded, badly wounded, or nearly dead; see Combat), whether it bleeds (see Status effects), and what it wields and wears. Then the objects lying there and the terrain: “A giant rat (hostile, unhurt), on stone floor.” or “A kobold (hostile, badly wounded, bleeding), wielding a spear, on stone floor.” A wall you have started digging into is “partly dug”.
• A trap you know there, as part of the ground: “A pit, on stone floor.” (see Traps).
• What you remember there, if you cannot see it now: the terrain and the objects you saw on it.
• Where stairs and places on the overworld lead.
• The special room the cell lies in, once you have been inside it: “A stone floor in an echoing hall.”
• A sound you heard there this turn (Hearing).
• Otherwise, “You don’t know what is there.”

If your Knowledge is above a creature’s level, a second line says what you know of its kind: “You know the skeleton is immune to poison, resistant to piercing, and vulnerable to bludgeoning.” (see Skills).

Looking takes no time. Press l or Esc to leave.

Aiming

t shoots or throws whatever is in your Missile weapon slot. A bow, a crossbow, or a sling shoots its ammunition from the Missiles slot; you ready both with i. A throwing weapon (a dagger, a spear, rocks) or any other weapon is thrown. T instead lists what you carry that can be thrown, so you can choose one. There is no separate key for firing a launcher: t does it.

Either key puts a cursor on the map:

• It starts on your last target if you still see it and it is within range (an empty spot is never remembered), else on the nearest hostile creature you see within range, else on you.
• Tab moves it to the next creature you see, nearest first, and Shift+Tab moves it back. The movement keys move it anywhere, into the dark too.
• A faint dotted line shows the way the missile would fly, as far as you know the ground. It ends before anything solid you know of, and at the edge of the range. A target past the line’s end is marked on the cursor, and the message line says “Out of range.” or “The way is blocked.” (a wall, or a creature in the way that the missile would reach first).
• The message line describes the target as look mode does. It never shows a chance to hit.
• Enter, or the key that started the aim (t again, or T for a throw), shoots or throws, and Esc cancels. The next time, the cursor starts on the same target, so t Enter shoots it again.

Tab and Enter are fixed. Only the previous target is in Controls, with no key until you bind one. An ability that asks for a place is aimed the same way: Enter, the abilities key a, or the key that repeats the last ability, X, uses it.

A spell scroll you read (r, see Scrolls) is aimed the same way, and Enter or r reads it at the cursor. A lightning bolt runs through creatures, so only walls block its line. If a fireball would land close enough to catch you, the game asks first.

Throwing your voice (an ability) is aimed the same way too. Nothing flies, so there is no line. On a cell you do not see, or a wall, the cursor is marked and the message line says “You do not see there.”; beyond 6 cells it says “Out of range.” Enter throws your voice there.

See Ranged combat.

See also: Controls and Menus and lists.

Settings

Open Settings from the main menu or the pause menu (Esc). Up and Down choose a row, and Left and Right change it. Enter also turns a switch on or off and picks Reset to defaults. Changes apply and are saved at once. Nothing you change here affects the game itself. Keys are changed in the Controls screen instead; see Controls.

Effects never hide anything

Every effect is only for show, and no information depends on one:

• A sound you hear is marked on the map whether or not it ripples in (see Hearing).
• With the Weather switch off, a rainy day is still as dark as it is; only the falling drops are gone (see Weather).
• With Light flicker off, lights are steady at the brightness the rules use for them.
• A fireball or a lightning bolt always shows the cells it hits, if only as a brief still flash; its light, the darkening, and the shake are only for show.
• Creature shadows are always drawn, and they never change what you or anyone else can see (see Light).
• With Spell circles off, nobody’s buffs and hexes are hidden: the status bar shows yours and look mode names a creature’s.
• Blood is only for show: with the Blood switch off, nothing about a fight changes, and look mode stops mentioning it.

Palettes

A palette changes how colors are drawn on the screen, not the colors of the world. A red crystal still gives red light by the rules, whatever the palette shows. The menus stay readable in every palette, and never tell you something by color alone: the selected row is marked with >, and a refused choice starts with !.

Where settings are kept

On the desktop your settings, key bindings included, are kept in the file settings.toml in the game’s configuration folder. In the browser they are kept with the page (see Saving). A damaged settings file does no harm: the game uses the default for anything it cannot read.

See also: Controls, The screen, and Light.

Saving

Every character has a save of its own. You can stop a run and continue it later, and keep several characters going side by side. There are no manual save slots and no going back: saves are for continuing, not for retrying.

Death is final. When you die (see Combat), that character’s save is deleted at once. Your other characters are untouched. A run that has ended is never saved again, since there is nothing to continue.

When the game saves

• When a run starts, so a new character is saved at once.
• When you close the window (no question asked).
• When you choose Save and quit to menu or Quit in the pause menu (Esc) and answer Yes. Quitting always asks first: y, or Enter on Yes, confirms; n, Esc, or Enter on No (the default) cancels. You can bind a “Save and quit” key in the Controls screen; it asks too.
• Automatically every 50 turns.
• Automatically when you change level.

On the web the page is also saved when it is hidden or closed.

Your characters and the graveyard

Continue on the main menu resumes the character you played last, and names them. It appears only if a character that this version of the game can continue is saved.

Characters lists every saved character: name, race and class, and level. For the one selected it also shows where they are and when you last played them (in UTC). Press Enter to resume one, or Delete to delete one for good (the game asks first). A character saved by another version of the game is listed as made by that version. It cannot be continued, and Continue skips it, but you can still delete it.

Graveyard appears once any character has died. It lists every fallen character, the one with the most experience at the moment of death first: name, race and class, level, and experience, then what killed them, where, when (in UTC), and how old they were. Characters who died before the game began keeping their experience count as 0 and come last, the highest level first. If the list is longer than the screen, the arrow keys or > and < turn the page; Esc goes back.

New run lets you create a character for the Ascmearc and starts a fresh run with a save of its own. It never touches your other characters.

Where saves are kept

Desktop. Each character’s save is a file in the saves folder of the game’s data folder, named after the character with a number: brakka-1.sav. Beside it, brakka-1.toml holds what the list of characters shows. A second Brakka is brakka-2. Your settings are settings.toml in the configuration folder:

Logs and crash reports are in a logs folder: on macOS and Linux inside the data folder, on Windows in %LOCALAPPDATA%\ascmearc\data\logs.

To see the exact folders for your launch, and why they are there, run ascmearc --paths, or open Settings, then Where are my files?, which also has an Open folder action for each.

Portable mode

To keep everything with the game, for a USB stick or a game folder you can copy, make an empty folder named ascmearc-data next to the game (on macOS, next to Ascmearc.app, not inside it). The game then keeps its settings, key bindings, saves, and logs in it:

ascmearc --portable does the same, and makes the folder if it is missing. ascmearc --portable DIR uses the folder DIR instead. When several apply, the first of these wins: --config-dir and --save-dir (each for its own folder), then --portable DIR, then an ascmearc-data folder next to the game, then the standard folders above. If a portable folder cannot be written to (a read-only disk), the game says so and carries on. It reads what is there but does not save.

ascmearc --move-data native moves a portable folder’s files into the standard folders and renames the emptied folder to ascmearc-data.moved-<date>. ascmearc --move-data portable [DIR] does the reverse. Add --dry-run to see the plan first. Nothing is overwritten: a file already there is kept as NAME.bak-<time>. It will not run while the game is running.

From Warlock. The game was called Warlock before version 0.18. The first time the new version starts, it moves your files from the old folders (warlock in place of ascmearc above, or a warlock-data folder next to the game) to the new ones, and in the browser from the old storage. Your settings, keys, and graveyard carry over. Saves from before 0.18 do not load, as after any update. The game only moves files where the new place is still empty, and notes each move in its log.

Browser. Saves and settings are kept in your browser’s local storage for the page, under ascmearc/saves/ (ascmearc/saves/brakka-1.sav). They survive reloads. If the browser blocks storage (some private modes do), the game runs but cannot save, and writes a warning to its log. If the browser runs out of room, a message appears on the message line.

Good to know

• A save only works in the version of the game that made it. After an update, your earlier characters stay on the list, marked as made by another version, and cannot be continued. The older version of the game can still continue them.
• A save that cannot be read at all is renamed (brakka-1.sav.bad), never deleted, and no longer shown in the list of characters.
• Saves from before each character had its own (a single run.sav) are left where they are and not read.
• The status bar shows the run’s seed: give it when you report a problem with a run.

See also: Your character, Hit points and death, and Settings.

Your character

Every new run starts with character creation. Choose New run on the main menu and you decide who you are, one step at a time, before you set out into the Ascmearc.

1. Race: your people. Your race shapes your stats, gives you your eyes, and sets how old you can be (see Races).
2. Gender: a small push to one stat (below).
3. Class: what you did before the adventure. It shapes your stats again and trains you in a handful of skills (see Classes).
4. Talents: pick two talents from those your character may take. A bard or a human picks three, a human bard four. A letter or Enter marks one, Random lets chance pick, and Done goes on.
5. Name: type your character’s name, up to 20 characters (below).
6. Summary: everything you chose, and what follows from it. It shows your name, race, gender, class, and talents; your age, birthday, and birth sign; the stats you start with, and beside them the skills you are trained in; your starting kit item by item; the alignment you start in; your vision; and where you start. Start the run begins it. Name, Race, Gender, Class, and Talents take you back to that step.

Each step lists its options with a short description. Races and classes also show how they change your stats. Move with the arrow keys (or j and k), press Enter to choose and go on, and Esc to go back one step. The steps remember what you chose when you go back and forward again.

Every step also has Random, which leaves the choice to chance. Come back and press it again for another pick. On the Talents step, Random always gives the same picks for the same character.

Name

On the name step every key types its letter (j and k too), as long as the game’s font can draw it. Backspace erases and Enter accepts. Tab puts in one of your people’s names, picked at random by race and gender; press it again for another.

A name cannot be empty. If you accept an empty field, you get the random name it shows, dimmed. These keys are fixed (see Text fields).

Your name appears on the character screen, the summary, the death screen, and the list of saved characters (see Saving). It changes nothing else.

Gender

For other, fate chooses the stat. Character creation does not tell you which, and the summary shows only your final scores. Once the run has begun, the character screen names it.

Age, birthday, and sign

You do not choose these. Your age is picked at random from your race’s range, and your birthday from the whole year. The year you were born gives you your birth sign: an animal and an element from the horoscope, such as the Fire Manticore. Your sign changes your stats a little too.

How your stats add up

Each of your six stats starts at 10, the average. Then the changes are added in order: your race’s, your gender’s, your class’s, and your sign’s animal’s and element’s. Nothing goes below 1.

Some changes are dice, rolled when you start:

• 1d3 is one three-sided die: 1, 2, or 3.
• 2d2+1 is two two-sided dice plus 1: 3, 4, or 5.
• 1d4-1 is one four-sided die minus 1: 0 to 3.
• −1d2 takes one two-sided die away: −1 or −2.
• A plain number, such as +2 or −1, is always that.

Classes roll their key stats. A warrior’s Strength is 1d3+1, a wizard’s Intelligence 2d2+1. Races are mostly plain numbers, with a few dice. The horoscope rolls none. The summary shows only the final scores. Change a choice and the dice are rolled again.

The choices are not balanced, and they are not meant to be. Some combinations are poor on purpose: a halfling commoner or a gnome berserker has a hard start. That is part of the fun. There is one consolation. Your race and class also set how much experience each level needs. Long-lived races and patient callings level slowly; short-lived races and everyday folk level quickly.

Seeing who you are

The character screen (@) shows:

• your race, gender, and class, your age, birthday, and sign;
• your stats, with your attacks beside them: what you hit with, your bonus to hit, your damage, and a missile’s range (see Combat);
• your alignment, your level, and your experience (see Experience);
• your hit points: your Toughness plus what your race and class give;
• your mana, Defence, and Protection;
• each resource you hold;
• what ails you (see Status effects) and the diseases you know you have (see Diseases);
• what you weigh and carry, against what you can carry (see Burden).

A, there or anywhere in play, shows your skills. W shows your ranks in each weapon skill, which your race and class start you with, and in each fighting style, which your class starts you with.

Your race, gender, class, and sign never change once a run has started. You do get a year older on every birthday.

See also: Classes, Stats, and What’s in the game.

Races

Your race is the first choice of a new run (see Your character). It does several things:

• It changes your starting stats.
• It gives you your eyes: the vision type you start with.
• It sets how old you can be when you start.
• It adds to your hit points.
• It trains you in a skill or two. Humans instead get a little more in one of their class’s skills (see Skills).
• It may give you a rank in a weapon skill or two, on top of your class’s.
• It adds a few things to your starting kit: an elf’s waybread, a dwarf’s pick-axe, a halfling’s pipe. It also gives the everyday clothes and shoes of your folk where your class gives none (halflings go barefoot).
• It may close a few classes to you: no drow paladins, no elven witches (see Who may take which).

The first table is what each race adds to your starting stats. The second gives its eyes, its starting ages, its hit points, and its weapon skills. A short description of each race follows.

Stats: St Strength, Dx Dexterity, To Toughness, In Intelligence, Wi Willpower, Pr Presence.

• Elf: Graceful and long-lived, keen of mind and eye but frail; elven eyes need little light.
• Half-elf: Of two peoples and at home in neither: adaptable and charming, with some of the elves’ eyes.
• Human: Short-lived, ambitious, and everywhere: no gift and no flaw.
• Dwarf: Stout, stubborn folk of the deep halls: hard to kill, hard to hurry, and at home in the dark.
• Halfling: Small, quick, and unflappable, with nimble fingers and quiet feet; no match for anything big.
• Gnome: Small, tireless tinkerers and illusionists, curious about everything; they see well by little light.
• Half-orc: Strong, tough, and sharp-eyed in the dark, but slow with letters and short on charm.
• Goblin: Small, weak, and short-lived, but quick-handed, sneaky, and at home in the dark; goblins eat little.
• Drow: The elves of the deep dark: graceful, sharp, and long-lived but frail, hard to poison, and dazzled by strong light.
• Kobold: Small, scaly, and the weakest of all, but clever with traps and quick to spot them; kobolds live fast and die young.
• Lizardfolk: Strong, tough swamp folk with scaly hides, cold-blooded and slow of wit, and alien to everyone else.
• Duergar: The dwarves’ grey cousins of the deepest dark: tough, dour, and joyless, unbowed by loads and wise in stonework.
• Ratfolk: Small, nimble scavengers of sewers and ruins: weak and shunned, but hard to sicken, and they eat anything, rotten or not.

The changes are added to the average score of 10, together with your gender’s, your class’s, and your birth sign’s. Most are plain numbers. A few are dice, rolled when you start: 1d2+1 is one or two, plus one (see How your stats add up). Your starting age is picked at random within the race’s range.

Races are not balanced against each other. Humans start with no gifts and no flaws. The others trade one strength for one weakness, or for two.

Halflings, gnomes, goblins, kobolds, and ratfolk are small, and carry three quarters of what the others do. Dwarves and duergar are not slowed or hindered by a load until they strain under it. See Burden.

Races need different amounts of food. Elves, drow, goblins, and kobolds need the least, halflings (second breakfast) the most. See Hunger.

The evil races

Six races start on the evil side of alignment. Goblins, kobolds, lizardfolk, and ratfolk start Callous; drow and duergar start Evil. Some are poor choices on purpose, and their levels come quicker for it (see Experience).

• Goblins are the quick, crappy choice. They are weak and frail but quick-handed and sneaky (Stealth), short-lived, and light eaters. Only the kobolds’ levels come faster.
• Drow are the elves of the deep dark: graceful and sharp, but frail. They are a little resistant to poison, and like elves they notice every hidden thing in passing. Strong light dazzles them (below). They are long-lived, so their levels come slowly.
• Kobolds are the weakest of all, but good with traps. They notice hidden traps in passing (never a secret door), find hidden things more easily, and start trained in Disable device. With their huge families, their levels come cheapest of all.
• Lizardfolk are strong and tough, dull and alien. Their scales soak a point of every physical blow, as natural armour does for a creature’s hide (see Combat). They are cold-blooded, and will be slower in the cold once the cold slows anyone.
• Duergar, the dwarves’ grey cousins, are tough and dour. Like dwarves, they shrug off a load until they strain under it, and they notice what is hidden in stone.
• Ratfolk are nimble scavengers, weak and shunned. They are hard to sicken, with a bonus on every check against a disease, and they eat rotten food without harm (see Food).

No creature takes your side because of your race. Hostile kobolds attack a kobold too. Good folk greet an Evil character coldly, but that comes from your alignment, not your race.

Strong light dazzles drow. Light is strong enough when the sun is well up under a clear sky, or a bright fire is close by; your own lantern alone is not enough. While the light on your own cell is that bright, you see nothing farther than ten cells and fight a little worse. The game tells you when it begins and ends, and the status bar shows Dazzled while it lasts.

Each race’s gifts and flaws beyond its stats, exactly:

Racial talents

Each race except the humans has talents that only it may pick, in the Racial tree. Humans get Versatile instead: one more talent at creation and at level 30.

See also: Classes, Horoscope, and Stats.

Classes

Your class is the last choice of a new run (see Your character). It is what you did before you set out. Your class:

• changes your starting stats;
• adds to your hit points;
• trains you in a handful of skills, and sets how many skill rolls each level gives and which skills it is known for (see Improving a skill);
• gives you your first ranks in a few weapon skills (a berserker has learned one of two) and fighting styles (a thief or an ascetic one of two);
• decides most of your starting kit, its garb among it (a wizard’s robe, a priest’s habit).

No spells come with it at the start. Each class also gives class abilities as you reach its levels, and bonus talents (see Levels below). You keep your class for good, but a class may later open onto a prestige class.

The first eleven classes are adventurers. The last four are everyday folk: an aristocrat, a commoner, a craftsperson, and a merchant. They were never trained for this, and it mostly shows. A new run offers all four.

At a glance

New to the game? The warrior, the berserker, and the paladin are the easiest to start with: plenty of hit points, armour or rage, and a plain way to fight. The everyday folk are the hardest, and two of them are a joke on purpose.

The role says how the class fights, and the difficulty how forgiving it is while you learn the game. The key stats are the ones the class rolls dice to raise. Hit points and mana are what the class adds to yours at the start; each level adds half of that again, plus what your stats add (see Levelling up). The spells given are those the class’s level table hands you, and from which level.

Each class’s page starts with the same card, then how to play it, its level table, and what its abilities do.

Stats, hit points, and weapons

The first table is what each class adds to your starting stats. The second gives its hit points and the weapon skills and fighting styles it starts you in. A short description of each class follows, linking to its own page: its level table, what each ability does, and its spells and resource.

Stats: St Strength, Dx Dexterity, To Toughness, In Intelligence, Wi Willpower, Pr Presence.

• Ascetic: A wandering ascetic of the old discipline, body and breath trained as one: quick, enduring, inward-turned.
• Berserker: A warrior of the wild lands who fights in a fury: mighty and hardy, quicker to rage than to read.
• Paladin: A holy knight sworn to an oath: strong and commanding, steadfast to a fault, and slow to doubt.
• Ranger: A hunter and tracker of the borderlands: sharp-eyed, sure-footed, and easier with beasts than people.
• Warrior: A trained fighter of the shield wall and the dueling ground: strong, steady, and well drilled.
• Druid: A keeper of the old ways who speaks for forest and beast: hardy and patient, and uneasy in towns.
• Priest: A servant of a god, schooled in rite and scripture: strong of will and voice, soft of hand.
• Witch: A hedge-magician of herbs, hexes, and old bargains: cunning, wise in strange ways, and feared.
• Wizard: A scholar of the arcane who traded sunlight for candlelight: brilliant of mind, frail of body.
• Bard: A wandering singer and teller of tales who gets by on charm, quick fingers, and a quicker tongue.
• Thief: A cutpurse, burglar, and picker of locks who lives by nimble fingers and a quick wit.
• Aristocrat: Born to wealth and command and never asked to lift anything heavier than a goblet.
• Commoner: A farmhand, laborer, or servant with no training to speak of: used to hard work, not to being heard.
• Craftsperson: A smith, carpenter, or weaver who knows a trade inside out: sure hands, a patient mind, and few words.
• Merchant: A trader who knows the price of everything: shrewd and persuasive, softened by years behind a counter.

The changes are added to the average score of 10, together with your race’s, your gender’s, and your birth sign’s. Each class rolls dice for its key stats, and sometimes for a weakness too: 1d3+1 is two to four, −1d2 takes away one or two (see How your stats add up). Classes are not balanced against each other, and some are poor choices on purpose.

Who may take which

Not every class is open to everyone. A new run lists only the classes open to the race and gender you chose, and its Random picks only among those. No goblin, drow, kobold, lizardfolk, duergar, or ratfolk is taken into a paladin’s order. Elves and dwarves keep no witches. Among the drow, only women are priests.

Levels

Each class’s level table gives an ability at levels 1, 6, 12, 18, 25, 32, 40, 50, and 60. It also gives a bonus talent at a few levels in between, from the trees it names. The bard’s table is shorter. It stops at level 30, with its abilities at 1, 3, 6, 9, 12, 16, 20, 25, and 30.

An ability comes the moment you reach its level (“You gain Fencing.”) and works from then on. The game describes each in words; the class’s page gives the exact numbers. A stat an ability raises rises for good, both score and potential. Some abilities are used from the abilities menu; the rest simply work.

A table may hand out an ordinary talent: the ranger’s and the thief’s Evasion, the bard’s Fast healer, the druid’s Beast-friend. If you took that talent already, the level gives you a talent pick in its place.

Some classes give spells: the priest, druid, wizard, and witch a few, a bard, a paladin, or a ranger one or two (see What your class gives and Casting a spell). Some fight from a pool of their own, such as the berserker’s rage or the thief’s openings (see Resources).

See also: Races, Starting kit, and Prestige classes.

Ascetic

A wandering ascetic of the old discipline, body and breath trained as one: quick, enduring, inward-turned.

Plays like: Fights unarmed and unarmoured, quick on their feet, spending ki on extra blows and stuns.

Starts with: a quarterstaff (wielded, with Staff Fighter); a pair of leather gloves (being worn, with Brawler); a wool cloak (being worn); a frock (being worn); a pair of sandals (being worn); 3 apples; 7 copper coins (see Starting kit).

See also: Ki.

How to play

You fight with bare hands and kicks, in light clothes. Martial arts makes your bare blows roll 1d6 and gives you ki, and Flurry spends a point of it on a second blow with every attack. Ki comes back by itself, a point every 18 seconds. Keep your hands empty, and wear no body armour or shield: much of what your levels bring works only so. You are hard to pin down but not hard to hurt, so do not let a crowd surround you.

Levels

A bonus talent at levels 10, 20, 30, 45, 55, from Vigour or Finesse.

Abilities

The ascetic’s flurry, stunning strike, and quivering palm run on ki.

Martial arts gives you ki at level 1, full. You have 5 with Willpower 12, and more as your Willpower and your level grow.

Flurry (level 1) spends it. Every attack with nothing in your hands strikes a second blow, at −2 to hit, for a point of ki. With no ki left, the attack is a single blow.

Step of the wind (level 6) makes your steps 10 % quicker while you wear no body armour and carry no shield. For a point of ki, taking no time at all, it also leaves you light-footed: your next action, whatever it is (a step, a blow, a shot), takes half its time. It cannot be stacked. While you are light-footed already it is refused and costs nothing.

Stunning strike (level 12) costs 1 ki. It is a blow of your bare hand that leaves a foe it wounds stunned: caught flat-footed and slow to act. It cannot be used with a weapon in hand.

Patient defence (level 18) costs a point of ki and the time of a wait. It leaves you poised until your next action, whatever it is. While poised you have +4 Dodge, and you answer at once with a blow of your own, a riposte, every melee blow you dodge (it misses by your Dexterity or Dodge) or parry. Used again while poised, it holds for one action more. It works with any grip, a staff too.

Stillness (level 25, with still mind):

• Cost: 2 ki, and no time at all. Any grip will do.
• Effect: it ends at once whichever of these you suffer, so you act this very turn: held, pinned, staggered, stunned, surprised, transfixed, frightened, drowsy, and webbed.
• Refused: with none of them on you, for no ki.

Diamond soul (level 40) adds +2 Deflection. While you hold no weapon and no shield, it also lets you pluck from the air a shot or a throw that would hit you, a trap’s arrow too, for a point of ki, spent by itself. The hit becomes a miss, and the missile falls at your feet. With no ki left, or a weapon or shield in hand, it hits. Spells and blasts are never caught.

Quivering palm (level 50) costs 5 ki and has no other wait. It cannot be used with a weapon in hand.

Ki

The ascetic gets ki, full, with martial arts at level 1. The pool holds 4, plus your Willpower modifier, plus a point per 6 levels, and never less than 3. For example, Willpower 12 holds 5 at level 1, Willpower 14 holds 10 at level 25, and Willpower 16 holds 17 at level 60. Inner calm adds 2.

Ki comes back a point every 3 base turns (18 seconds), resting too. Perfect self (level 60) brings it back twice as fast, a point every 9 seconds. What spends it:

• Each second blow of a flurry (level 1) spends a point. With none left, the attack is a single blow.
• Step of the wind (level 6) spends 1 and takes no time.
• Stunning strike (level 12) spends 1.
• Patient defence (level 18) spends 1 and takes a wait’s time.
• Stillness (level 25) spends 2 and takes no time.
• Diamond soul (level 40) spends 1 by itself on each missile it catches.
• Quivering palm (level 50) spends 5.

The talent on it

Inner calm (Finesse; ascetic, level 18): ki holds 2 more and comes back half again as fast, a point every 12 seconds instead of every 18. Inner calm changes nothing until something gives the ascetic ki.

See also: Abilities and Fighting styles.

Berserker

A warrior of the wild lands who fights in a fury: mighty and hardy, quicker to rage than to read.

Plays like: The most hit points of any class; rages for harder blows and wades in.

Starts with: a great axe (wielded, with Axes); a great sword (wielded, with Great blades); a fur cloak (being worn); a bone amulet (being worn, perhaps magic); 3 strips of dried meat; 4 gold coins (see Starting kit).

See also: Rage.

How to play

You fight up close with a great axe or a great sword, whichever you are trained in, and you have the most hit points of any class. When a real fight starts, use Rage from the abilities menu (a): while you hold rage you are stronger and tougher, but you can neither read nor cast. Being hit and killing keep it going. When it runs out you are Exhausted for two and a half minutes, so save it for the fights that matter, and rest after.

Levels

A bonus talent at levels 10, 20, 30, 45, 55, from Vigour or Might.

Abilities

The berserker’s rage runs on a pool of its own, Rage.

Rage

A berserker’s Rage ability (from the abilities menu, taking a wait’s time) gives them 12 rage. They are Raging (see Status effects) for as long as they hold any: Strength +2 and Toughness +2, Intelligence −2, and they can neither read nor spend mana.

Rage wears off a point every base turn (6 seconds), starting with the turn of the rage itself, and while resting too. Fighting feeds it:

• Every blow, shot, or throw that hits you builds 1. It need not hurt you: one your Protection soaks or you resist to nothing still counts.
• Every critical of yours that does damage builds 2.
• Every kill of yours builds 3.

A blow of yours that merely lands builds nothing. Rage holds 20 at most, so a long fight does not store up a long rage after it.

When rage reaches 0, the rage ends, its bar with it. The berserker is then Exhausted for two and a half minutes (150 seconds), and can have no rage until that passes. Anything else that ends being Raging ends the rage too.

The berserker’s later levels add to it (see Talents):

• Battle-scarred (level 6): Protection +1, and +2 more while raging (3 in all), whatever armour you wear.
• Headlong (level 12): while raging, every step costs a fifth less time, in any armour and under any burden.
• Blood frenzy (level 40): while raging, every melee attack costs a fifth less time, and every kill builds 5 more rage (8 in all).
• Mighty rage (level 50): Raging gives Strength +4 and Toughness +4, rage holds up to 30, and the exhaustion lasts 75 seconds.
• Unstoppable (level 60): while raging, bleeding and poison cost no hit points. A blow that would take your last hit point leaves it to you for 10 rage, as often as you have that much. Spending the last of the rage this way ends it.

The talent on it

Battle trance (Might; berserker, level 6): your rage starts at 18 instead of 12 (never above its maximum), and wears off at two thirds of its pace: a point about every 9 seconds instead of every 6.

See also: Resources, Buffs and hexes, and Stances and stamina.

Paladin

A holy knight sworn to an oath: strong and commanding, steadfast to a fault, and slow to doubt.

Plays like: Sword and shield; smites foes, the undead and fiends hardest, and heals with zeal.

Starts with: a long sword (wielded); a small shield (in off hand); a hardened leather jerkin (being worn); an iron helm (being worn); a pair of gauntlets (being worn); an amber amulet (being worn, perhaps magic); 2 strips of dried meat; 15 gold coins (see Starting kit).

See also: Zeal.

How to play

You fight up close with sword and shield, like a warrior, and you hold zeal: every blow of yours that hits, and every blow that hits you, builds a point. Spend it from the abilities menu (a) on Smite, a harder blow, hardest against the undead and fiends, or on Lay on hands, hit points back at once. Your few spells come from level 6. A deed that moves you toward evil empties your zeal (see Alignment).

Levels

A bonus talent at levels 10, 20, 30, 45, 55, from Vigour or Guard.

Abilities

The paladin fights from one pool, zeal, for wrath and mercy alike. It holds 10, plus your Presence modifier, plus a point per 10 levels. It comes with Smite at level 1, holding 5.

You build a point of zeal with every blow, shot, or throw of yours that hits, and with every blow that hits you. It also comes back a point a minute, resting too (see Zeal). Your mana is for your spells; none of this spends it.

A deed that moves you toward evil empties the pool at once (“Your zeal deserts you.”). It fills again, and bars nothing (see Alignment).

The unholy are the creatures holy wrath falls hardest on: every type tagged undead, fiend, demon, devil, or yugoloth. What a creature has done, or which side it is on, plays no part. A hostile bear takes your smite as well as a ghoul does; only the ghoul takes the unholy die.

The smites are each a row of the abilities menu. Each is a melee blow with what you wield at the hostile in a direction:

• Cost: its zeal (the table below), and the time of the attack. A miss still spends its zeal.
• Effect: your Presence modifier is added to hit, and 1d6 more damage per 10 levels (at least 1d6), with one die more against the unholy.
• Refused: with nobody hostile there, for no time and no zeal.

A smite’s extra effect still spends its zeal when it has nothing to do, and a blow that does no damage carries no extra effect.

Lay on hands (level 1) spends 6 zeal and a spell’s time to heal 2 hit points a level. Avatar (level 60) makes it heal fully, cure every status that ticks and every disease, and cost half: 3 zeal.

Retribution (level 25) works by itself. When a hostile creature beside you lands a blow of its melee attack on you, your smite answers once the attack is over. It costs 4 zeal and an exertion, and no time. The blow has already built its point, so 3 zeal is enough. With less, or while you are off guard, nothing happens. An attack it answers is not also riposted; see Combat.

Holy wrath (level 40) works by itself and costs nothing. Every blow, shot, or throw of yours that hits the unholy, smites too, rolls 1d6 more of the blow’s own kind. It is resisted but never soaked by Protection. From Avatar on, it lands on every creature you hit.

Zealot is the one talent pick on the pool, from level 6. Every blow that hits you builds 2 zeal instead of 1, for a paladin who stands in the doorway and takes them.

Which side you are on. Lay on hands, the smites, and Holy radiance work only while you are Kind or better; Consecrate while you are Neutral or better (see Alignment). Otherwise you can still use them, but nothing happens and no zeal is spent. A smite says “You call for holy wrath, but none answers.” The abilities that work by themselves do not care, except Retribution, which answers no blow while you are outside them. Your zeal builds whichever side you are on.

Zeal

The paladin gets zeal with Smite at level 1, holding 5. The pool holds 10, plus your Presence modifier, plus a point per 10 levels, and never less than 6. For example, Presence 12 holds 11 at level 1, and Presence 16 holds 16 at level 30.

• Every blow, shot, or throw of yours that hits builds a point, and so does every blow that hits you.
• It also comes back a point every 10 base turns (a minute), resting too. Spent, it sits at 0, and an empty pool is full again in about ten minutes.
• Smite spends 3, Branding smite 3, Wrathful smite 4, Banishing smite 6, and Lay on hands 6 (3 with Avatar). Retribution (level 25) spends 4 for every blow it answers. So wrath and mercy are paid from the one pool.
• The blow that hits you builds its point first, so 3 zeal is enough for Retribution to answer it. With Zealot you need 2, and every blow that hits you builds 2.
• A holy gift that does not answer (because you are not Kind or better, see Alignment) spends none.
• A deed that moves you toward evil (see Alignment) empties the pool at once: “Your zeal deserts you.”

The talent on it

Zealot (Grit; whoever holds Smite, so the paladin, level 6): every blow that hits you builds 2 zeal instead of 1. A blow you give still builds 1, and the pool holds no more.

See also: Alignment and Abilities.

Ranger

A hunter and tracker of the borderlands: sharp-eyed, sure-footed, and easier with beasts than people.

Plays like: Shoots from a distance with a bow, beside an animal companion that holds the foe.

Starts with: a short bow (readied); 24 arrows (quivered); a short sword (wielded); a leather jerkin (being worn); a pair of leather boots (being worn); a knife; 3 strips of dried meat; 8 gold coins; 1d2 random spell scrolls (each the scroll of one of the 45 spells of spell level 9 or below, as likely as any other) (see Starting kit).

See also: Focus and Companions.

How to play

You fight from a distance. Shoot with your short bow (t, then aim), and let your animal companion, with you from the first turn, keep foes off you; the short sword is for when they get close. Pick your arrows up after a fight, and make more with your knife (Fletching): the Fletcher makes twice as many. Favoured prey makes you better against the kind of creature you have killed most.

Levels

A bonus talent at levels 10, 20, 30, 45, 55, from Weaponcraft or Wayfarer.

Abilities

The ranger’s rapid shot and volley run on focus.

The ranger’s favoured prey is the kind of creature you have killed most, counted over every level. When two are tied, the one that got there first stays favoured until another is killed more often.

Pack tactics (level 18) makes you and your companion hunt as one. A creature standing beside you both is flanked. Your melee attacks and your companion’s at it get +2 to hit (not shots, throws, or spells). Your companion’s attacks at your favoured prey also carry your favoured prey bonus to hit and damage (Master hunter’s too).

Sic ’em (level 40) sets your companion on a creature you see, for 5 focus. It hunts that creature, savage.

A volley looses three shots of your readied missile weapon at the place you aim at, one after another, for the time of one ordinary shot. It stops early when you run out of ammunition, and costs 6 focus.

Rapid shot gives you focus (10, full). Every shot you loose while you have at least 2 focus spends 2 and takes 10 % less time. With less, it is an ordinary shot.

Focus

The ranger gets focus, full, with rapid shot at level 12, and keeps it for good. A shot you loose while you hold 2 focus spends them and takes 10 % less time. A volley (level 50) costs 6. Focus comes back while you act, but not while you rest.

The talent on it

Steady hand (Weaponcraft; ranger, level 12): focus comes back half again as fast, a point every 4 seconds instead of every 6. It still does not come back while you rest.

See also: Resources, Ranged combat, and Companions.

Warrior

A trained fighter of the shield wall and the dueling ground: strong, steady, and well drilled.

Plays like: Armour, a sword and a shield, and steady blows. The simplest class to start with.

Starts with: a long sword (wielded); a small shield (in off hand); a hardened leather jerkin (being worn); an iron helm (being worn); 2 food rations; 20 gold coins (see Starting kit).

See also: Weapon skills and Stances and stamina.

How to play

You fight up close and take the blows. Your sword, shield, jerkin, and helm make you hard to hurt, and only the berserker has more hit points. Keep to one kind of weapon: Weapon drill makes every melee weapon skill rise faster with use: a hit earns 4 marks instead of 3. Charge, in the abilities menu (a), rushes you at a foe you see and strikes it, for stamina. Fight in corridors and doorways, so foes come at you one at a time, and rest between fights.

Levels

A bonus talent at levels 4, 10, 16, 22, 28, 34, 46, 58, from Weaponcraft or Guard.

Druid

A keeper of the old ways who speaks for forest and beast: hardy and patient, and uneasy in towns.

Plays like: Staff and sling, spells of storm and frost, and beasts called to fight beside them.

Starts with: a quarterstaff (wielded); a sling (readied); 20 sling stones (quivered); a travelling cloak (being worn); an angelica root; 4 apples; 3 gold coins; 1d2 random spell scrolls (each the scroll of one of the 45 spells of spell level 9 or below, as likely as any other) (see Starting kit).

See also: Magic and Allies.

How to play

You fight from the back with spells and a sling, and with the quarterstaff when something gets close. Cast Spark from the abilities menu (a), and rest to get your mana back. Beast-friend keeps the animals of the wild from attacking you until you attack one of their kind. From level 6 Call of the wild brings a wolf to fight beside you, and from level 12 Call lightning strikes under the open sky.

Levels

A bonus talent at levels 10, 20, 30, 45, 55, from Vigour or Wayfarer.

Abilities

Call lightning answers only under the open sky. The druid’s calls bring wolves, bears, and elementals to fight beside them as allies.

Priest

A servant of a god, schooled in rite and scripture: strong of will and voice, soft of hand.

Plays like: A mace and a shield, and a prayer that mends their wounds and more, for no mana.

Starts with: a mace (wielded); a buckler (in off hand); a wool cloak (being worn); a habit (being worn); a pair of sandals (being worn); an amber amulet (being worn); a scroll of light; 3 wax candles; a loaf of bread; 10 gold coins; 1d2 random spell scrolls (each the scroll of one of the 45 spells of spell level 9 or below, as likely as any other) (see Starting kit).

See also: Prayer, the priest’s prayer in full.

How to play

You fight with mace and buckler and heal yourself. Your prayer, Orison in the abilities menu (a), costs no mana and answers the worst thing that ails you: at first only your wounds, later hunger, disease, poison, and more. Pray too often and it fizzles (the strain). Save your mana for Mend and, from level 3, Cure wounds and Blessing.

Levels

A bonus talent at levels 10, 20, 30, 45, 55, from Vigour or Grit.

Abilities

The priest’s prayer (Orison, from level 1) costs no mana and takes the time of a spell. It answers the worst thing that ails you, as far as your prayers reach. At first that is only wounds. As the levels come, it reaches hunger, disease and poison, hexes and holds, stat damage, and mana. At 40 a prayer brings two answers, and at 60 everything. All of it is on Prayer.

A hidden strain makes prayers too close together fizzle. A priest fallen to Callous or worse (alignment) is answered by the dark powers instead, with a twist: the sicknesses and poisons they cure pass to the nearest creature you see. See Prayer for every use, the names, the strain, and the dark powers’ answers.

Consecrate is the priest’s at level 9 and the paladin’s at 12. It works only while you are Neutral or better. A minute’s prayer, for 15 mana, lifts a cursed, draining, or haunted room’s curse for good (see Special rooms).

Its dark twin is Communion with the dark (the priest’s at level 9). It works only while you are Callous or worse. While you stand in a cursed, draining, or haunted room, or on a level such a curse lies over, your prayers add no strain, and the place’s drain (Ebbing) never touches you.

The priest’s Sanctuary (level 50) costs 30 mana and a minute’s kneeling. It hallows the ground about the priest for an hour. Hostile creatures keep off it, and whoever stands on it heals and gets mana back three times as fast. It ends when the priest strikes from it (see Special rooms).

Witch

A hedge-magician of herbs, hexes, and old bargains: cunning, wise in strange ways, and feared.

Plays like: Frail; lays hexes from afar and lets her familiar harry what she has hexed.

Starts with: a dagger (wielded); a wool cloak (being worn); one of a gown or a kirtle (being worn); a bone amulet (being worn, perhaps magic); 2 angelica roots; one of a potion of healing or a potion of mana; 2 wax candles; 2 apples; 6 gold coins; 1d3 random spell scrolls (each the scroll of one of the 45 spells of spell level 9 or below, as likely as any other) (see Starting kit).

See also: Familiars, the witch’s familiar in full.

How to play

You have almost no hit points of your own, so keep your distance. Lay Evil eye on a foe and strike with Grave breath, from the abilities menu (a). Your familiar, with you from the first turn, goes for what you have hexed, and its touch lays your evil eye. Rest to get your mana back. From level 6 Cackle makes your hexes last longer for no mana.

Levels

A bonus talent at levels 10, 20, 30, 45, 55, from Scholar or Grit.

Abilities

The witch’s familiar (Familiar, from level 1) is a small beast at her heel. Its touch lays her evil eye, and it goes for what she has hexed. If it is lost, another comes to an hour’s calling. From level 30 that may be an imp. All of it is on Familiars.

The witch’s cackle (Cackle, from level 6) keeps her hexes on. It costs no mana and takes the time of a spell. Every hex she laid herself on a creature she sees grows a degree, up to its maximum, and the time of its degree starts again. The hexes are hexed, weakened, sluggish, drowsy, and webbed. A hex already at its maximum only starts again.

Another caster’s hex and a creature out of sight are untouched. With no creature in sight under one of her hexes, she does not cackle at all, and no time is spent. The cackle is loud: a voice of loudness 60, louder than talk. Whoever hears it comes to look.

The witch’s malison (Malison, from level 18) works by itself. A creature under a hex, anyone’s, takes 3 more damage from her blows, shots, and spells for each hex it is under, before its resistances. When a creature dies under a hex she laid herself, whatever killed it and wherever it is, she gains mana equal to half its level (rounded down, at least 1), never past her maximum: “The hex comes home.”

The witch’s soulglass (Soulglass, from level 16) is a ray of necromancy. A creature it kills leaves no corpse but magic crystals of its nature, for an enchanter to bind or for her to consume.

Wizard

A scholar of the arcane who traded sunlight for candlelight: brilliant of mind, frail of body.

Plays like: The most mana and the fewest hit points; kills with spells before anything gets close.

Starts with: a quarterstaff (wielded); a wool cloak (being worn); a robe (being worn); a pair of slippers (being worn); a scroll of light; a scroll of identify; one of a scroll of fireball, a scroll of frost, or a scroll of lightning; 4 wax candles; a loaf of bread; 15 gold coins; 1d3 random spell scrolls (each the scroll of one of the 45 spells of spell level 9 or below, as likely as any other) (see Starting kit).

See also: Magic, Learning spells, and Scrolls.

How to play

You have the most mana and no hit points from your class at all: one or two blows can kill you. Kill from afar with Ray of frost and, up close, Burning hands, cast from the abilities menu (a). Read your spell scrolls when a fight turns bad: you read them twice as fast as anyone (Scroll adept). Learn more spells from grimoires, and rest after every fight.

Levels

A bonus talent at levels 10, 20, 30, 45, 55, from Scholar or Spellcraft.

Abilities

The wizard’s Knock (from level 4, 5 mana) springs the lock of the locked door or chest in a direction. It opens nothing by itself (see Chests).

The wizard’s Scribe (from level 12) writes a scroll of a spell he knows on a blank scroll. It costs three times the spell’s mana and the time its grimoire takes to read (see Scrolls). It is mana banked between fights, to be read in the next.

Bard

A wandering singer and teller of tales who gets by on charm, quick fingers, and a quicker tongue.

Plays like: A little of everything: songs, many skills, and any weapon, but frail. Stops at level 30.

Starts with: one of a short sword or a scimitar (wielded); a travelling cloak (being worn); a doublet (being worn); a dagger; a lute; a loaf of bread; 30 gold coins; 1d4 random spell scrolls (each the scroll of one of the 45 spells of spell level 9 or below, as likely as any other) (see Starting kit).

See also: Inspiration and Songs.

How to play

You can do a little of everything, and nothing best. You start with a blade, a lute, the spell Mend, and four skill rolls a level. Your hit points are few, so pick your fights. Travelled hands at level 3 makes you a beginner with every weapon, and your songs come at 9 and 20. Your levels stop at 30, so plan on a prestige class beyond it.

Levels

A bonus talent at levels 5, 10, 15, 23, 28, from any tree.

Abilities

The bard’s inspire spends inspiration.

The bard knows a little of everything and masters nothing. They are a wandering singer who has handled every weapon once and picked up every trade a little. Their table is shorter than the others’: it gives its last ability at level 30 and stops there. A bard learns nothing new past 30. Experience earned after that still counts, but buys no level, and what comes after is found, not given (see Prestige classes).

The bard has two songs:

• Inspire (level 9) lifts you. It is paid in inspiration.
• The lullaby (level 20) makes hostile hearers drowsy. It is paid in mana.

Songs tells them in full: what they cost, how far they are heard, how Music lengthens them, and the odds of shaking the lullaby off. A virtuoso (level 30) sings for nothing, a degree longer.

Travelled hands (level 3) raises, once, every weapon skill and fighting style the bard has at rank 0 to rank 1. It never raises a hidden style. The bard is a point surer with whatever comes to hand.

Jack of all trades (level 12) trains every skill the bard lacks at 1d4+1, except Sneak attack, the thief’s. From then on they are skills like any other: used, marked, and raised at a level.

Master of none (level 25) makes every skill the bard is trained in count 5 higher.

Inspiration

The bard gets inspiration with inspire at level 9, starting at 0. Every kill of your own gives one, up to 5, and one fades every 30 base turns (3 minutes). When empty, the pool stays with you.

Only Inspire spends it: 3 inspiration and nothing else, and with less you cannot sing it. (The lullaby is paid in mana; see Songs.) A virtuoso’s inspire spends none.

See also: Resources and Talents.

Thief

A cutpurse, burglar, and picker of locks who lives by nimble fingers and a quick wit.

Plays like: Strikes from hiding and builds openings on one foe, then spends them on one deep blow.

Starts with: a dagger (wielded); a dagger (wielded, with Twin Blades); a stiletto (with Duelist); a leather jerkin (being worn); a wool cloak (being worn); a pair of leather gloves (being worn); a loaf of bread; 25 gold coins (see Starting kit).

See also: Openings.

How to play

You fight best before the foe knows you are there. Hit a creature that has not noticed you and your blow is a sneak attack; each sneak attack that hits gives you an opening in that one foe’s guard. Spend them all on Exploit (a), one deep blow. Keep to one foe at a time: attacking another loses your openings. Your blades are light and your hit points few, so sneak (Stealth) and strike first.

Levels

A bonus talent at levels 4, 10, 16, 22, 28, 34, 46, 58, from Finesse or Shadow or Delver.

Abilities

The thief’s sneak attacks build openings. Exploit, theirs from level 1, spends every one they hold on a single sneak attack, deeper for each, and Low blow at 12, Improved sneak attack at 32, and Master thief at 60 add to it (see Exploit). From level 18 Thrown exploit makes the same blow with a thrown weapon, at a foe up to 6 cells away. The thief has no stamina until a weapon rank teaches an active ability.

Openings

Every thief holds openings from level 1 (Sneak attack), starting at 0.

• Every sneak attack that hits gives one, up to 5.
• Every feint the foe falls for gives one.
• Killing your mark yourself gives one more.
• One slips away every 20 base turns (2 minutes). When empty, the pool stays with you.
• From level 1, Exploit (an ability, aimed in a direction) spends every opening you hold on one melee blow that counts as a sneak attack, whatever the foe knows. The thief’s class talents make it bigger as they come (see Exploit).

The mark

Your openings are gaps in one creature’s guard: your mark. The character screen shows whose guard they are in (“Openings 3/5, in the kobold’s guard”), and looking at the creature says “your mark”.

• Switching foes loses them. The first creature you choose to attack becomes your mark. A blow, a kick, a shield bash, an ability’s blow, a shot or a throw at its square, a spell that rolls to hit, or a feint, made or not, all count. Choose to attack a different creature while your mark lives, and every opening is lost (“Your openings on the kobold are lost.”); the new creature is your mark.
• Blows you did not choose change nothing. A free blow (a riposte, an opportunist’s blow, a lurk’s) makes its target your mark only when you have none. On anyone else, its sneak attack gives no opening. Area effects, like a fireball, never touch your mark.
• A kill carries them over. When your mark dies, by anyone’s hand, your openings stay, and the next creature you attack becomes your mark with them. If you killed it yourself (a bleeding wound you dealt counts), you get one more opening.
• Your mark is forgotten when it vanishes (a summoned creature’s time runs out), when you take the stairs to another level, and when your openings run down to 0. Your openings stay. A mark that steps out of sight is still your mark.
• Spending them on someone else is refused. Exploit at a creature other than your mark does nothing and takes no time (“Your openings are in the kobold’s guard.”).

Exploit

Exploit is the thief’s way to cash in openings, from level 1. Choose a direction, and you strike the hostile there with what you wield, in the time of a melee blow.

• It spends every opening you hold, from 1 to 5 (more with an item of Guile, see Suffixes; there is no cap). You choose how many by when you strike.
• It is a sneak attack whatever the foe knows. The sneak attack dice land if it hits. The foe is not Surprised and keeps its whole Defence.
• Each opening spent adds 1d6 damage on a hit, after the sneak dice. Like them, it comes after Protection, and a critical never doubles it.
• Its own sneak attack gives no opening. After it you hold none, and your mark is forgotten. If the blow kills your mark, that kill still gives you one.
• It is refused, taking no time and spending nothing, with no opening (“you have no opening” in the menu), with no hostile there (“There is no one there.”), at a creature other than your mark (“Your openings are in the kobold’s guard.”), and at a creature you see that has no vitals (“It has no vital spot.”: skeletons, spirits, animated things; see Criticals).
• The game tells you how deep it cuts: “You strike at the opening.” (1), “You press your openings.” (2 to 4), “You tear into every opening!” (5).

The thief’s class talents add to every exploit, per opening spent:

A stunned foe’s next action costs half again as much, and your next blow finds it flat-footed.

So at level 12 an exploit of 4 openings is +4 to hit and does the blow, the sneak dice, and 4d6 more, and the foe is stunned. At level 32 the same exploit does 8d6 more. At level 60 its critical threat is 16 lower, and 2 lower again as on any sneak attack (that step never below 3), so a weapon that threatens on 20 threatens on 3. An exploit of 5 or more is a critical whenever it hits, with no confirmation roll. The critical doubles only the weapon’s part: the sneak dice and the exploit’s dice are never doubled.

Thrown exploit

From level 18 the thief can also exploit by throwing, for a mark that stepped back, blinked away, or a foe across the room after a kill. Choose the Thrown exploit ability, then something to throw, then the target.

• It is Exploit’s blow, thrown. It spends every opening, and it is a sneak attack whatever the foe knows. Every addition in the table above applies: the dice per opening, the stun and +1 to hit per opening, the lower threat and the sure critical at 5. It uses the thrown weapon’s attack and your Thrown rank, not the weapon in your hand.
• One of what you throw leaves your hand, as any throw. It lands by the foe or breaks.
• Its reach is the weapon’s throw range, but never more than 6 cells (more with Long reach): past that the sneak dice would not land. A dagger throws 5.
• It is refused, taking no time and spending nothing, for everything Exploit refuses (no opening, no hostile you see there, a creature other than your mark, no vitals), for a flask (“You cannot exploit an opening with …”), for a target too far (“That is out of reach.”), and for a wall or a creature you see between you and the target (“Something is in the way.”).
• A creature you did not see in the way takes the throw instead, as a plain throw: no sneak dice and nothing per opening. The openings are spent all the same.

The talent on it

Patient blade (Shadow; thief, level 32): openings slip away half as fast, a point every 40 base turns instead of every 20. Killing your mark yourself gives two openings instead of one.

See also: Surprise and sneak attacks, Resources, and Abilities.

Aristocrat

Born to wealth and command and never asked to lift anything heavier than a goblet.

Plays like: Soft and unfit for this, but money and finds from home wait in town at every level.

Starts with: a rapier (wielded, perhaps magic); a gold ring (on left hand, magic or rare); a fur cloak (being worn); one of a doublet, a gown, or a houppelande (being worn); a pair of leather boots (being worn); one of a ruby, a sapphire, or an emerald; 250 gold coins; 2 apples (see Starting kit).

See also: People and talk and Shops.

How to play

You were never meant for this: few hit points, weak arms, and a rapier you barely know. What you have is money: plenty of gold at the start, a magic ring, a gem, and a stipend from home that waits for you in Cēaptūn at every level. Talk to your servant at the Gæsthūs to collect it, and spend it on the best arms, armour, and potions the shops sell.

Levels

A bonus talent at levels 10, 20, 30, 45, 55, from Weaponcraft or Delver.

Abilities

The aristocrat’s stipend (Stipend, from level

1. is money from home. Every time the aristocrat gains a level, their family puts by 150 + 10d10 gold (about 200). With an 85 % chance it also adds one loot roll at that level, with magic and rare items twice as likely as usual. The find is kept if it is magic or rare, a potion, a scroll, or a gem, and thrown away otherwise. About 38 % of level-ups bring a find. Every level counts, a prestige class’s too, and levels gained far from town count as well.

It all waits with the aristocrat’s own servant at the Gæsthūs in Cēaptūn: a squire for a man, a chambermaid for a woman, a servant for anyone else, of the aristocrat’s own race and speaking as their people speak. Only an aristocrat’s run has them. Talk to them and they hand over everything: the gold and the finds go into your pack, and whatever would leave you overloaded is set down at your feet. With nothing waiting, they tell you how splendid you are. If the servant dies, no one else brings the stipend.

Landed noble, a talent only an aristocrat can take, and only as a new character, doubles the gold, makes the loot roll every time, and makes magic and rare items four times as likely as usual: about 47 % of level-ups then bring a find.

Commoner

A farmhand, laborer, or servant with no training to speak of: used to hard work, not to being heard.

Plays like: A club and a few turnips. Levels come quickest, and their bonus talents come from any tree.

Starts with: a club (wielded); 2 turnips; a loaf of bread; 12 copper coins (see Starting kit).

See also: Talents and Crafting.

How to play

You are the plainest of folk: a club, a few turnips, and twelve copper coins. Levels come faster for you than for any other class, and your bonus talents may come from any tree, so you can grow into anything. Pack mule lets you carry more. Buy a weapon and armour in Cēaptūn as soon as you can, and take the easy dungeons slowly.

Levels

A bonus talent at levels 10, 20, 30, 45, 55, from any tree.

Craftsperson

A smith, carpenter, or weaver who knows a trade inside out: sure hands, a patient mind, and few words.

Plays like: Makes, mends, and takes apart gear with two trades of their choice; a poor fighter.

Starts with: a hand axe (wielded); a knife; a pair of leather gloves (being worn); a leather apron (being worn); a pair of leather boots (being worn); 2 wax candles; a food ration; 25 gold coins (see Starting kit).

See also: The patron and Crafting.

How to play

You make things. Pick two trades as a new character; each trains a craft skill and comes with its tools. Make, mend, and salvage your own gear, and from level 12 a patron in Cēaptūn buys your best work. You are a poor fighter, so start with the easy dungeons and let your work arm you.

Levels

A bonus talent at levels 10, 20, 30, 45, 55, from Scholar or Grit or Delver.

Two bonus talents at character creation, from Crafts, taken before the others.

Abilities

A craftsperson works their trades better than anyone, and their class abilities change the rules of Crafting. The burgher who buys their best work is on The patron.

Trades

A craftsperson learns no craft from the class itself. Instead they pick two trades as a new character, before their other talents: the Talents step asks “Choose a trade” first. Each trade trains its craft skill at 3d6, and Time served adds 6 to that, so a trade starts at 9 to 24. Each also comes with the tools of the trade. A craftsperson may spend an ordinary pick on a third trade too. Their skills grow fast: three skill rolls a level, and a roll on a trade throws the die one step up.

Eye for the make

Eye for the make works whenever you look at an item’s description. It adds a line on what salvage would give of it if every check went well, a line on how many more improvements the anvil (for metal) or a knife (for wood) could still give arms or armour, or that the thing is damaged (and, once you have Make do and mend, that your own hands could mend it), and a line when its main material is hard or soft to work. Like Appraise, it also tells you how many enchantments the item can bear. It never tells you the odds, or how often a smith has worked the piece before. With Waste not it counts the three quarters salvage then gives back.

Waste not

From level 6 a craftsperson has Waste not: nothing is lost in their hands but time.

• Salvage gives back three quarters of each material’s weight instead of half (still at least one piece). The hardwood quarterstaff on Salvage gives 8 billets instead of 5. A gem’s fate is unchanged: a failed check still chips it, and a natural 2 still shatters it.
• A failed recipe gives back all of its stock and inputs instead of half. A failed batch gives back all its wood and metal. A failed brew is still spent on its murky draught.
• A failed temper at the anvil, or a failed whittle, damages nothing, even on a natural 2: the item stays as it was, and a damaged item is never destroyed. The attempt still counts, so the next one is as hard as it would have been.

Patron

The patron (Patron, from level 12) is a well-to-do burgher at the Gæsthūs in Cēaptūn who commissions Fine work from the craftsperson’s trades, one piece at a time, hands over the stock for it, and pays its full worth on delivery. See The patron.

Make do and mend

Make do and mend (from level 18) mends a damaged thing you carry, anywhere, with no anvil and no tools. Choose it in the abilities menu, then the item. It takes ten minutes. If something comes into view, you stop, the item is untouched, and the time is lost.

When the time is up you make one check: 2d12, plus the modifier of the stat of the craft that works the item’s main material (Strength for metal, Dexterity for wood and leather), plus what that craft skill gives you, against 10 plus the material’s work. Untrained in the craft, only the stat counts. A steel sword is 10 to beat, mithril 14, wood 9.

• Made: the damage is gone. The improvements it lost stay lost, and the next attempt at an anvil is just as hard as it would have been.
• Failed: nothing happens to it. It stays damaged, and you can try again.

It never destroys anything. You cannot mend something you wear or wield (take it off first), a protected item, goods you have not paid for, or something of a material no craft works, like cloth or glass. If you are trained in the craft, the check may earn it a training mark.

Trapwright

Trapwright (from level 25) rigs a trap on the cell beside you: a tripwire from arrows, stakes from a billet of wood, or a pitfall dug with your pick. A creature your trap kills is your kill. See Rigging traps.

Field forge

Field forge (from level 32) makes an anvil wherever you are: a makeshift anvil from one ingot and an hour’s work.

Quick hands

From level 40 a craftsperson has Quick hands: every craft takes half its time. That is every recipe (an enchanting too), a temper at the anvil, a whittle, cutting and setting a gem, salvage, Make do and mend, Field forge, and rigging a trap. A long sword takes half as long to forge, and salvage five minutes instead of ten. A ranger’s Fletcher halves arrows too, and the two together make them in a quarter of the time. Gathering herbs, foraging, scribing, and deciphering are not crafts and take as long as ever. The times the game shows are the halved ones.

Master’s hand

From level 50 a craftsperson has Master’s hand: when a check is made, 4 is added to its margin before the grade or the cut is read. A failed check still fails, and a natural 2 still fails or shatters the gem. So a Fine piece comes from a margin of 2, Marvellous from 8, and a Masterwork from 16, and every cut comes 4 sooner. The grade tables above and the cut tables under Gem cutting have a “With Master’s hand” column. Setting a gem, batches, and brews have no grade and are unchanged.

Maker’s mark

From level 60 what a craftsperson makes bears their mark. Every weapon, piece of armour, shield, tool, ring, and amulet they make is marked, whatever its grade, plain ones too. Ingots, batches of arrows and stones, and brews are never marked. Its description says so: “It bears Brakka’s mark.” Its name does not change.

• Worth: a marked piece is worth half again (+50 %, rounded down), on top of its grade. A marked Fine steel long sword is worth three times a plain one. A marked piece that is later damaged is worth half of that.
• The patron pays for that higher worth: a marked piece fetches half again what the same piece unmarked does (The patron).
• Enchantments: a marked piece can bear one more (Capacity).

The mark stays for good: tempering, damage, and mending never take it away.

The patron

A craftsperson who reaches level 12 gains Patron: a well-to-do burgher in Cēaptūn who buys their best work.

Where is the patron?

In the north-east corner of the Gæsthūs, Cēaptūn’s inn. The patron is of your own race and speaks as your people speak. Only a craftsperson’s run has one. If you have been to Cēaptūn before level 12, the patron moves in the moment you gain the talent; otherwise they are there when you first arrive.

What does the patron want?

Talk to the patron and they ask for one piece of work: something one of your trades can make that can be Fine or better, such as a sword, an axe, a bow, a shield, a helm, a suit of armour, gloves, or boots. Never jewellery, potions, tools, or arrows. The piece is picked at random from every recipe of every craft you are trained in that your skill is high enough to make.

With the request the patron hands over the stock for it: the metal, wood, leather, or other pieces the recipe takes, as much as one piece takes, and any other material it needs (a bow’s sinew). Never a gem: that is yours to add. Whatever would leave you overloaded is set down at your feet.

The commission shows in your quest log while it is open. It is not a quest: it gives no experience and does not count toward your guild rank or a town’s goodwill.

Delivering

Talk to the patron again with the piece in your pack. They take the first one you carry that is Fine, Marvellous, or a Masterwork (one you are not wearing or wielding first), and pay 100 % of its worth in gold. Its grade counts: a Fine piece is worth twice a plain one, a Marvellous one three times, a Masterwork five times. A shop pays far less. Every delivery trains Negotiation.

A piece that bears your maker’s mark is worth half again, so it is paid 50 % more than the same piece unmarked.

Magic you know of counts as it does in a shop (see Magic items).

The patron never asks who made it: a Fine piece you found will do. A plain one will not (“I asked for Fine work”), and a damaged one is no better than plain.

How many?

One commission at a time. Deliver it and the next talk brings the next. There is no limit and no waiting. The road to town and the hours at the anvil are the only price.

If you never deliver, nothing happens: the patron waits, and the stock is yours to keep, sell, or salvage. If the patron dies, the commission is off, and no one takes their place.

See also: the craftsperson, Crafting, and Shops.

Merchant

A trader who knows the price of everything: shrewd and persuasive, softened by years behind a counter.

Plays like: Weak in a fight; their gold grows with a business partner in town.

Starts with: a dagger (wielded); a travelling cloak (being worn); a long coat (being worn); a pair of leather boots (being worn); one of a garnet, an amethyst, or a topaz; one of a garnet, an amethyst, or a topaz; 120 gold coins; a wool cloak; 10 wax candles; a coil of rope; 4 strips of dried meat; a scroll of identify (see Starting kit).

See also: Shops and People and talk.

How to play

You are weak in a fight, but you have gold: 120 coins, two gems, and a scroll of identify to start, and better prices in every shop (Haggler). Put your gold with your business partner in Cēaptūn (Invest) and it grows week by week. Spend the rest on the best arms and armour you can buy, and fight carefully.

Levels

A bonus talent at levels 10, 20, 30, 45, 55, from Scholar or Delver.

Abilities

The merchant’s investment (Invest, from level 1) works like a fund. The merchant has a business partner at the corner desk of Factor Wulfrun’s office in Cēaptūn, of the merchant’s own race and speaking as their people speak. Only a merchant’s run has them. Talk to them and they tell you what your stake is worth, to the coin. Then pick a topic:

• Invest 100 gold, Invest 1000 gold, or Invest all your gold: the partner keeps 2 % as a fee (rounded up to a whole coin), and the rest goes into your stake.
• Withdraw 100 gold, Withdraw 1000 gold, or Withdraw everything: the partner keeps 2 % of what you take out, and you get the rest. Gold that would leave you overloaded is set down at your feet.

Each takes as long as a chat. Every game week (seven days, counted from the start of the calendar), wherever you are, the stake goes up or down by a random return: 0.10 % plus a roll of 4d201−404 hundredths of a percent, so anything from −3.9 % to +4.1 %, mostly within about 1.2 % either way. Weeks spent resting or travelling count just the same. Over a 360-day year that comes to about 5 % a year on average, but about three years in ten lose money.

The more Cēaptūn owes you, the better the partner does. Every quest you have completed for one of Cēaptūn’s people adds 0.01 % to every week’s return (each quest once). Completing Wulfrun’s Fire in the deep, which slays the fire drake and lets the town dig in its mines again, adds 0.06 % more. With all of Cēaptūn’s fourteen quests done the stake grows by about 16 % a year, and only about one year in thirty loses.

If the partner dies, your stake dies with them.

Resources

Everyone has hit points and mana. Some characters also hold resources of their own: pools of points that a class or a talent gives them, such as a berserker’s rage or a ranger’s focus. You may hold several at once, and each has its own rules:

• Some come back by themselves over time, up to their maximum.
• Some wear off over time, down to nothing.
• Some build up from what you do: a kill, a blow that hits, a critical, being hit, a sneak attack.
• Abilities may spend them. An ability that costs more than you have is greyed out in the abilities menu (“not enough focus”).
• Some end when they run out: the resource is gone, and its bar with it, until something gives it to you again. Others stay with you, empty, and fill up again.

While you hold a resource, the status bar shows it after your mana, as Rage 7 or Focus 7/10 (what you have, and for some your maximum). The character screen (@) gives it a row of its own.

A resource that wears off while you rest may run out before you wake. One that does not come back while resting waits for you to get up. Creatures never hold any resources.

Nothing converts between resources and mana: each is spent only by what asks for it.

Times below are given in base turns. A base turn is 6 seconds.

The resources

Each class’s own pool has a page of its own, beside its class:

• Rage: the berserker’s fury, from the Rage ability.
• Focus: the ranger’s, for quicker shots and volleys.
• Openings: the thief’s gaps in a foe’s guard, spent by Exploit.
• Ki: the ascetic’s, for flurries and the open-hand arts.
• Inspiration: the bard’s, for the Inspire song.
• Zeal: the paladin’s, for smites and laying on hands.

Stamina is no one class’s: it is the pool of anyone who fights with a weapon’s active abilities.

Stamina

Stamina is the fighter’s breath: the pool that active weapon abilities are paid from (see Combat), and the warrior’s Charge. A warrior holds it, full, from level 1 (Charge gives it). Anyone else gets it, full, from the first weapon rank that teaches an active ability.

The pool holds 10, plus your Toughness modifier, plus a point per 10 levels, and never less than 5 (Toughness 14 holds 12 at level 1). It comes back a point every 2 base turns (12 seconds), resting too, and sits at 0 when spent.

A berserker holds rage and stamina at once. Raging blocks spells, but not active weapon abilities.

Magic items on resources

A magic item may name a pool and change it while you wear or wield it, whether identified or not. It can give:

• a larger maximum, by so many points;
• a faster pace, by so many percent, added to what talents add. Steady breathing’s 50 % and an item’s 30 % make 180 %;
• for stamina, every active weapon ability costing so many points less. This adds to Drillmaster’s discount, and a cost never goes below 1;
• so many more points on a kill (of the Hunt), never above the maximum. This follows the same rule as mana of Siphoning: only your own blow, shot, or spell counts, with the one you killed within 3 cells of you (see Mana on a kill). It comes on top of what a pool builds on any kill by its own rule (inspiration’s point).

Two items naming the same pool add up. Taking the item off lowers what you hold to the smaller maximum at once.

Such an item never grants a pool: it does nothing for someone who does not hold it. Who holds which pool:

• Stamina: every warrior, berserker, paladin, ranger, ascetic, thief, and bard, and anyone else once a weapon rank teaches an active ability.
• Rage: a raging berserker, only while the rage lasts.
• Focus: a ranger from level 12.
• Ki: an ascetic from level 1.
• Inspiration: a bard from level 9.
• Openings: a thief from level 1.

A ring of rage on a wizard is dead weight. Creatures never hold a pool, so such gear does nothing for them, only for whoever takes it from them.

Talents on resources

Five talents change a resource. Only the class that has the resource may take them, as a pick from its trees. Each is on its resource’s page: Battle trance, Inner calm, Steady hand, Patient blade, and Zealot.

See also: Classes, Mana, and Stances and stamina.

Horoscope

Everyone is born under a sign: the animal and the element of the year they were born. You do not choose yours; the stars decide. When you make a character (see Your character), the game tells you right after you choose your race when you were born, under which sign, and what the stars gave you (Born under the stars).

The summary and the character screen (@) show it again, for example Age 34 · born 29 Greenleaf 1410 · year of the Water Basilisk. The character screen also lists your sign’s gifts by name on its Stars line.

The Great Race

When the world was young, the years had no names, and the Keeper of Days could not tell one from the next. So she called every beast of legend to a race. It would run from the Ash Peaks in the north, down across the Glass Waste, over the Wide River, and through the Mistwood to the Gate of Dawn by the sea. The first twelve through the gate would each have a year, in the order they came.

The Salamander was the smallest racer of all and could not swim, so it asked the Hydra to carry it across the river. The Hydra was the strongest swimmer there and agreed. Its heads were busy arguing about the way, and none of them noticed the Salamander climb up the middle neck. As the Hydra reached the gate, the Salamander leapt down and through, first. The Hydra came second.

The Manticore ran the whole course without resting once, and every racer who saw it coming left the path; it came third. The Unicorn crossed the river leaping from stone to stone without wetting a hoof, and came fourth.

The Wyvern could have flown in first. But it saw that the Mistwood was so thick that the racers on foot were lost in it, so it stopped and burned a path through for them, and came fifth. Then came the Roc, the mightiest of fliers, who had soared so high that it lost sight of the gate and had to come down to look for it. It never knew that the Basilisk had been coiled around its talon since the Ash Peaks. As the Roc landed, the Basilisk slid off in front of it, and so the Basilisk came sixth and the Roc seventh.

The Griffin landed on every hilltop along the way to make sure that no one was after its gold, and came eighth. The Sphinx stopped every racer it met to set them a riddle. Those who answered went on ahead, and the Sphinx lost the whole morning; it came ninth. The Phoenix burned to ash in the noon heat of the Glass Waste, rose again from its ashes at dusk, and flew on to come tenth. The Kraken could not leave the water, so it swam the long way round, down the river and along the coast, and came in on the evening tide, eleventh.

Last, at midnight, came the Barghest, the black hound. It had been fast enough to win, but it had run behind the others all the way, to see that no racer was left behind. The Keeper of Days was so moved that she gave it the last year, and set it to guard the gate between one great cycle and the next. It stands there still.

So that no year would be lonely, the five elements, Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water, agreed to walk beside the animals, one each year, in turn. The year of the race itself was the year of the Wood Salamander. It is Year 1 of the reckoning.

The great cycle

• Every year has an animal and an element. Both change on the 1st of Frostmere, the first day of the year.
• The animals follow the order of the Great Race. After the Barghest comes the Salamander again, so an animal comes back every 12 years.
• The elements follow the order Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water, so an element comes back every 5 years.
• Together, every animal meets every element exactly once in a great cycle of 60 years. The first great cycle began in Year 1, the year of the race; the latest ones began in 1381 and 1441. The year 1444 is a Metal Unicorn year.

Your sign is the sign of the year you were born in, so the day matters at the turn of the year. Someone born on 30 Deepwinter is a sign earlier than someone born the next day, on 1 Frostmere.

What a sign does

Your animal gives you two gifts and a flaw. Your element gives you two gifts; elements have no flaws. These are talents of their own tree, Stars: given at birth, never picked, and never lost. The game tells you what they do in words (“you move and act a little faster”); the tables below give the exact rules. Some animals’ gifts are still to come, and the tables list only those already in the game.

Some gifts are things you do rather than rules that hold. You use them from the abilities menu (a), under Birth sign:

• Fire’s Blaze. Afterwards you are Burnt out for a while, and cannot use it again until that passes.
• The Unicorn’s Horn’s grace and the Basilisk’s Transfixing stare. Each then rests for a while (a status that wears off) before you can use it again.

The abilities table lists them with everything else you can use.

Your animal also nudges where your alignment starts. The Alignment column is what it adds to your starting score; elements add nothing. The game never shows the number, only the band you start in.

Picks for your sign

Every animal and every element also has one talent of the Stars tree that only those born under it may pick. You pick it at a level-up or at character creation, like any other talent whose prerequisites hold. Most ask for a level as well; a few ask for a stat or a weapon skill. The Talents page and the level-up screen show only your own sign’s.

Most of these picks make one of your gifts stronger. The Hydra’s Another head heals even while you starve, and the Phoenix’s Second rising rises from the ashes once more. Two are things you do, used from the abilities menu under Birth sign: the Wyvern’s Fire breath and the Barghest’s Hound’s bay. Each rests a while after use.

The Phoenix’s Rise from the ashes comes once in a life, twice with the pick Second rising. Once you have risen, the gift is spent (the character screen says so), and the next death is your last.

Hound’s nose tells you in a word on the eat list how fresh food is: fresh, turning, or rotten. Food that is turning is still fine to eat; rotten food is not.

Gatekeeper strikes a foe that steps up beside you only sometimes, depending on your stance (see Free blows):

Your animal and your element also each change your starting stats a little, and both count. The changes are in the tables at the end of this page. They are added to your race’s, gender’s, and class’s (see Your character). The changes are small and fixed: the horoscope rolls no dice.

Lucky days

Five signs have a lucky day: one animal for each element, born in its year and on one day of the month (any month). The day is the animal’s place in the Great Race. The Salamander came first, so its day is the 1st; the Manticore’s is the 3rd, the Phoenix’s the 10th, the Kraken’s the 11th. The Barghest, who guards the gate between the cycles, has the 30th, the last day of the month.

Someone born on a lucky day has a title after their name (“Brakka, the Iron Scourge”) and one gift more, an unfair one. The game never mentions lucky days until a character is born on one.

How likely a lucky day is for each race, for a run that starts on 11 Darkening 1444 (the showcase’s start; another start date moves it). Every age in the race’s range and every day of the year are equally likely.

A short-lived race reaches fewer years at a given start date, so its chances differ. A human or a half-orc is likelier to be born lucky than an elf, and only the long-lived can be born the Racer at the default start.

Your birthday, your month, and the full moon

The calendar and the moons touch a few gifts, a little:

• On your birthday you heal faster.
• In the month you were born, your sign’s actives rest sooner.
• While the moon is full and up, the gifts that reach out reach farther.

The game shows nothing new for them; the status bar already shows the moon’s phase. Here are the exact rules.

Your age and birthday

Your starting age depends on your race. A human starts between 16 and 35 years old, an elf between 90 and 300 (see Races for every race). Your birthday can be any day of the year.

Your birth date is counted back from the day the run starts, so you are exactly that old on it. You get a year older on every birthday, and the character screen shows your age on the day you look.

Animals

Stats: St Strength, Dx Dexterity, To Toughness, In Intelligence, Wi Willpower, Pr Presence.

Elements

Every sign

Every sign of the great cycle in order, with its years in the cycles that began in 1321, 1381, and 1441. Add or take away 60 years for any other cycle.

See also: Your character, Your story, and Talents.

Your story

Every character you make has a youth behind them. When the run begins, fate tells it: a short story in four paragraphs, one sentence for each chapter of a life. You choose nothing in it, and you cannot undo it. It is told after every choice you made in character creation, and it may change what you start with.

When it is told

The story is shown once, as the run begins. Right after you start the run from the summary of character creation, it opens over the first turn, before you can move. There is nothing to choose on it. Enter (or Esc) goes on into the run, and the arrow keys scroll it on a small window.

Afterwards it is page 9 of the info pages, “Story”: open any info page and press 9. A character with no story reads “Your story is not written.” there. That is the start of a scenario played as its own character, or a character saved before stories were told. A run you continue never shows the story again, and the death screen does not repeat it.

The chapters, in order:

Each sentence fits the character it is told of. A line may ask for any of these:

• a race, a class, or a gender;
• a birth animal or element, or a lucky day;
• your starting alignment;
• the talents and skills you start with;
• your age, or the beast at your side;
• what the story has already said (a foundling’s leaving is not a quarrel with their parents).

A whole chapter may be for some characters only. The companion is told to a ranger and a witch, who each begin with a beast. Everyone else skips it, and their story is no shorter for it.

What a story gives

A sentence may give or take:

• Stat points. One or two points of a stat a sentence; the score and its potential move together. A score never falls below 1.
• Gold. A purse; when gold is taken, never below none.
• An item, as the starting kit gives one, worn or wielded if a slot is free. A magic item from a story is already identified (you grew up with it), and a scroll from it is known.
• A skill: a start in a skill, or more of one you have.
• Marks in a weapon skill, never a rank.
• A nudge to your starting alignment.
• A talent, for life, whatever it would ask of you (the flux sentence gives Hardy). It is never one you hold already: a sentence that would give one is not told to you. If your class’s table names that talent later, it gives you a talent pick in its place at that level. The Talents page marks it “(story)”.
• A flaw: one of the birth signs’ flaws, for life, in the same way. It is marked “(story, flaw)”.

Nothing limits what a story gives or takes in all. A kind story may give a lot, a grim one may take a lot, and nothing protects you from either. The game tells you the story in words only; your scores, your pack, and your skills show what it did.

The heritage talents are not paid twice. With Family wealth, your parents are always the old money the talent gave you, and the story gives no more gold for it. With Father’s sword, the story tells of the blade you carry, and gives no other heirloom.

How rare

Each chapter is drawn in two steps. First comes how rare its sentence is (its kind). Then a sentence of that kind that fits you is drawn, by the weights below. If none fits, a sentence of the next commoner kind is drawn; every chapter has a plain common sentence that fits anyone. The kinds:

• Common: the plain sentences, the small turns, the griefs with something kept.
• Uncommon: a gift, perhaps at a price.
• Rare: a thing people tell; always good news.
• Fateful: once in a life.

The odds of each kind, for every chapter as it is drawn, and what a sentence of each kind is worth. The expected counts are for a story in the Ascmearc, whose road is the eighth chapter.

What a sentence gives is weighed in points. A sentence’s worth, what it gives less what it takes, must lie in its kind’s range above. Nothing adds up a whole story’s points; they only keep each sentence true to its kind.

Only a character you make is told a story. A run that is resumed keeps the story it had.

Every sentence

Every sentence of every chapter, with what it asks for, what it gives, and what it leaves for the chapters after it.

• A sentence’s weight is its share among the sentences of its kind that fit. A weight of 4 is told twice as often as a weight of 2.
• Tags are what the story remembers. A later sentence may ask for one (“after orphan”) or refuse one (“never after deep”).
• Some sentences choose words a later one uses: {guardian} (who raised you: “your family” until a sentence says otherwise), {home} (“home”), and {trade} (“your trade”).

Dice are written as the game rolls them: 2d4 is two four-sided dice added together. A skill’s dice start the skill if you were not trained in it, or raise it if you were. Weapon marks bring you toward your next rank, never past it.

Parents

Birth