Download the rulebook for free here!
Rulebook available in print on www.lulu.com
This
documentation is Copyright ã 2011 Paul Jeffcoat. The pdf file is
free to download and can be copied and printed for personal use only. The
rulebook is about 3 MB and 500 pages, has a full Table of Contents and Index,
and is divided into the following chapters:
Chapters
1. Introduction
Overview of roleplaying, dice conventions, the structure of the rulebook, etc.
2. Character Generation
Describes the process that each player should work through to create his/her character.
3. Actions
Explains how the gamesmaster and players determine whether characters' actions succeed or fail, and how to keep track of the order and timing of actions in combat and other situations when characters are in danger.
4. Combat
Details the weapons available to characters, and gives rules for determining the damage that different types of attacks do against differently armoured targets.
5. Magic
Describes how magic works, and the spells that can be cast by characters.
6. Optional Races
A short chapter providing rules for several optional races for characters.
7. Character Development
Gives rules for enhancing a character’s skills and statistics with time.
8. The GM
Goes into more detail about the role of the gamesmaster.
9. The Bestiary
Lists the most common creatures that characters may encounter.
10. Psychoses
Provides rules for handling the gradual developing insanity of characters, repeatedly faced with frightening monsters.
11. Goods and Services
Lists prices for the equipment and services that characters typically wish to buy (including healing herbs and toxic poisons).
12. Treasure
Contains rules for randomly determining the nature of any treasure that characters may find.
13. Character Sheet
A template for recording a character's details.
Old
Rule Updates
6 March 2010 – Fourth Edition!
Changes by chapter:
- Actions
- Attune skill - the difficulty of attuning a magical item decreases once you've attuned it several times.
- Replaced Pharmacy and Healing skills with Medicine.
- Combat
- Stopped allowing Dodge to be used against all attacks. Now a target must divide his Dodge skill between attacks. This will encourage the use of shields to block.
- Removed Orientation Bonus for flank and rear attacks.
- Injury Roll Tables - amended to decrease likelihood of an Injury not causing damage.
- Reworked the Location Penalty section with more examples of body types.
- Added fighter specialisations to beef up the power and customisation of those of the fighter calling, who might not be obsessed about spells.
- Added caltrops to Mounted Combat section.
- Magic
- Profane Magic
- Major reworking of disciplines and spells to strip out duplication and naff spells.
- Added rules for use of foci and true names in spell-casting. Replaced use of mark-type spells with use of foci.
- A separate SD roll is now made to resist direct spells, improving the chance of resisting them.
- Spell acquisition was too easy so have now:
- Scrapped the forgetting of spells (unnecessary complexity, and means that PCs would find spell books too regularly);
- Changed the cost of buying spells from guilds such that missions are required for ≥11 level (more roleplaying potential);
- Amended rules for spell research so that existing spells can be developed from scratch.
- Changed default spell-casting time to 3 secs.
- Alchemy
- Stripped out unnecessary complexities like Soul Stones and Familiar Stones. Have axed spells related to these concepts.
- Have limited the number of magical items that an alchemist can make (through POP reduction).
- Have limited the number of Enhancements that an item can have (bonus plus two others).
- Embedded spells can be cast a number of times per day, rather than items having pools of POPs.
- Combat and Movement
- Merged Combat and Movement into a new Force discipline.
- Wizardry, Conjuration and Time
- Scrapped Time and Conjuration disciplines. Moved the few good spells from these into a revised Wizardry discipline. Note that Permanency has gone.
- Mind and Illusion
- Scrapped Illusion discipline. Moved the few good spells into Mind. Illusions and invisibility are now mind tricks, Jedi-style.
- Necromancy
- Complete reworking. Made raising undead a lot simpler. Now centred around ghouls, vampires and liches at high level.
- Nature
- Scrapped Shapechanging discipline. Moved the few good spells into Nature.
- Wounding
- Now called Curses. Includes the few good Demonology spells.
- Pious Magic
- Invocation Prayer - now cast as if priest's SC is DV, not 20.
- Priests of Chaos now receive gifts on the third identical consecutive 1d20 throw.
- Paladin is now the name of a Priest of the Goddess of Love. Members of Guild of Combat Mages are called Knights.
- Amended some gifts from the Goddess of Fate.
- Changed default praying time to 5 secs.
- Optional Races
- Troll weight reduced to 4x Height (cms).
- Troll movement rates from normal formulae are now divided by 3, to stop them running at 50 mph!
- GM
- Augmented section on law to discuss curfews, importance of reputation, sanctuary.
- Bestiary
- Added Raven, e.g. Roac in "The Hobbit".
- Gave drakes powerful ability to deceive through conversation.
- Specified intelligence of master Fungoid.
- Have increased HIPs and Dodges of some NPCs as they were too weedy.
- Have recalculated Dodges of monsters to reflect size as well as reactions - huge creatures should be very easy to hit.
- Prices
- Added section on common taxes.
- Added prices for barrels of ale and wine.
- Treasure
- Reworked to reflect changes to Magic chapter, and simplified in the process - the old chapter was trying to do too much.
- Character Sheet
- Removed redundant reference to Birth Sign.
26 July 2009 – Third Edition!
Changes by chapter:
- Character Generation
- Have scrapped birthsigns (many becoming priestly powers).
- Amended rules for experienced character generation so as to protect differences between callings.
- Amended racial DRM modifiers for Spell-Casting skills.
- Actions
- Simplified language skills through the use of grades.
- Added Blind Fighting skill and rules for blindness.
- Added Fire-Starting skill.
- Merged the Fishing and Fish Lore skills and Forestry and Tree Lore skills, keeping the latter.
- Combat
- Added rules for mounted combat.
- Removed range modifiers for elemental spell attacks as they were too powerful.
- Made rules for rate of natural HIP/POP regain easier to find.
- Magic
- Reworked the Alchemy discipline to remove the need for embedding precious stones on all magical items, to make Golems easier to make and to provide more spells for protecting strongholds.
- Split the Elemental disciplines into four separate disciplines. Specified volumes for bolt, ball and cone spells. Made sizes of walls in wall spells vary with SC.
- Reordered Combat spells, removed Energise Attack and added Distribute Attack spell.
- Added Girdle of Misdirection spell to Nature discipline.
- Added Repel Fire spell to Elemental Fire discipline.
- Added Entropy spell to Time discipline.
- Added Cloak Item spell - turns castles into hills.
- Added Repeating Trigger spell - better for spell traps.
- Added SC km limit to Seer spell.
- Enhanced Scrying to make it markedly better than Seer.
- Priests now gain gifts from their gods.
- Pious prayers - adjusted some of the levels and descriptions.
- Removed the +1 bonus for resisting direct spells with SD<Level. This penalised characters with higher SD.
- Optional Races
- Simplified rules for slaying Trolls and the effects of sunlight.
- Fixed Dragon-Newt Pain Tolerance DRM at zero, so all callings progress through instars. Mentioned increasing proto-dragon-stench and effect on horses and riding.
- Games Master
- Amended rules for advanced character generation so that huge numbers of spells are not always obtained.
- Bestiary
- Gave all monsters an Observation skill bonus.
- Increased POPs available to some spell-casting monsters.
- Altered necromantic phylacteries to distinguish them from alchemical soul stones.
- Alterations to NPCs and creatures' spells following division of elemental disciplines.
- Amended Vampire to tighten definition of exposure to sunlight.
- Amended Great Troll to reflect tweaks to the common Troll.
- Added Goat, Rhino and Fungoid.
- Prices for Goods and Services
- Modified prices of precious stones and jewellery to reflect new Alchemy and Treasure.
- Halved values of some herbs.
- Treasure
- Reworked rules for treasure generation to reflect changes to Alchemy.
- Added Zinder Nut into herbs table in Treasure. Reordered herbs by rarity.
- Added Blood Mandrake herb in Artefacts section - a cure for vampirism.
28 October 2008 – Second Edition!
- Replaced Ranger and Thief with single Jack of all Trades calling.
- Provided examples of personalisation of callings to produce Bards, Knights, Assassins, etc.
- Made allocation of DRMs depending on calling more versatile.
- Removed weapon categories as redundant.
- Amended rules for blocks, parries and disarms.
- Changed Shield Block skill to Block.
- Added Tourettes psychosis.
19 October 2008 – working on the Second Edition!
Skills, stats and character generation:
- Replaced stat contribution with relevant stat. Training and study now only effective to 13.
- Removed redistribution of points when rolling out stats.
- Amended rules for Dodge, Shield Block and Pain Tolerance development.
- Removed practice.
- Removed skill specialisation.
- Amended rules for the effects of changing stats.
- Renamed Subdual skill as Knock Out.
- Added Garrotte skill.
- Moved Haggling from optional to core skills.
- Moved Frenzy, Knock Out, Pharmacy, Pick Lock, Pick Pocket and Trap-Setting from Core to Optional skills.
- Moved attack skill classifications for foils and rapiers, 2-ended flails, nets and bolas.
- Increased number of Lore skills.
- Altered racial restrictions on calling.
- Amended default DRMs for different callings.
- Merged Troll Spell-Casting DRM tables.
- Clarified re. off hand penalty and two-handed attacks.
- Removed high stat abilities (added some into birth signs instead).
- Replaced 36 birth signs with 12 (one per month) but which vary with time of year. Weeded out the boring signs.
- Fixed maximum number of incidental skill increases to 3 (rather than relating it to IN which penalised thick PCs).
- Clarified that changing specialised attack skills or spell-casting skills is permissible.
- Amended rules for producing powerful PCs, using a points-based system.
Religious magic:
- Added religion to the Magic chapter.
- Added Theology Lore and Devotion skill.
- Removed the Religion section from the GM chapter.
- Removed split between codified and improvised spells - now spells vs. prayers.
- Monks have become Volitants, Druids have become Hedge Mages, Mediums have become Mentalists. Edited guild hall descriptions, etc.
- Added a Diagnosis spell to the Healing discipline.
GM:
- Added guidelines for laws, the Watch, outlaws, etc.
Bestiary:
- Added rules for wargs, crows (individual and flock), barghest, entling and devil's horn and mad cap fungi.
- Removed errors in some creature's RE stats.
Prices:
- Added ammunition table.
- Simplified weights of equipment to make them easier to add up.
- Added the Zinder Nut (for fatigue).
- Simplified rules for finding herbs in the wild.
- Simplified rarities and made herbs easier to find.
Combat:
- All head injuries now have chance of causing knock down or items to be dropped.
- Altered Asphyxiation Injury table.
- Rulebook available in print on www.lulu.com.
- Changes to Character Generation chapter. Altered the formula for Reactions stat.
- Changes to Actions chapter. Simplified rules for Reactions Rolls.
- Changes to Combat chapter. Altered Location Penalties. Altered Armour Action Penalties. Altered Injury Description Tables - made head strikes more deadly and added chance of disarming or knocking down injured foe. Gave option of stunning Mental Injury from Unarmed Combat kicks and punches. Amended combat example.
- Changes to Magic chapter. New description for Spider Climb spell.
- Changes to Bestiary. Changed Reactions stat for creatures and NPCs.
- Changes to Character Generation chapter. Altered the formula for Reactions stat.
- Changes to Actions chapter. Simplified rules for Reactions Rolls.
- Changes to Combat chapter. Altered Location Penalties. Altered Armour Action Penalties. Altered Injury Description Tables - made head strikes more deadly and added chance of disarming or knocking down injured foe. Gave option of stunning Mental Injury from Unarmed Combat kicks and punches.
- Changes to Magic chapter. Separate elemental spells for different elements. Altered Potion spell. Amended Guilds section.
- Changes to Prices chapter. Added rules for banks and treasure chests.
- Changes to Treasure chapter. Added Harm Potions.
- Changes to Treasure chapter. Reworked potions – added Enhance Physique Potions.
- Changes to GM chapter. Added rules for using Luck stat to select a PC.
- Reworked herbs and poisons.
- Added index.
- Changes to Magic. Completely new Conjuration discipline. Weeded out rubbish spells from Illusion, Nature and other lists. Converted circle spells to pentagrams. Made resisting spells always problematic for the caster (old rules made it a boon for the caster if the target had a low SD c.f. his SC). Increased maximum spell-casting skill bonus for non-specialist disciplines.
- Changes to Bestiary. Modified Hydra and Lycanthropes' regeneration. Improved fear effects for huge magical creatures.
- Changes to Treasure. Simplified process for randomly determining the powers of magic items. Improved the process for determining the value of potions to reflect the power of creator.
- Changes to Actions. Added optional Haggling skill.
17 May 2007
- More changes! Introduced concept of the Resistance Penalty - this simplifies/rationalises fatigue, prohibited movement rates, encumbrance, etc. Changed Armour Mobility Penalties, Attack Damage Bonuses, times for actions, and too much other stuff to mention.
- Another mega edit.
- Added new monsters – Dire Wolf, Bog Kraken and Sea Kraken.
- Obtained a better pdf writer, so can now provide the rulebook as a single file for download.
General edit to all chapters to remove inconsistencies and enhance explanations.
- Amended Character Generation chapter to reflect strength difference between genders. Also removed the night-vision ability of Wood and Half-Elves (they are creatures of light not dark) and increased Halfling's LU stat. Amended rules for LURPs.
- Amended Actions chapter. Removed Research skill (easily replaced with IN stat roll). Simplified complimentary skills.
- Amended Combat chapter. Removed some errors in the Example Combat section.
- Updated the Magic chapter. Reworked Illusion to Wounding spells, minor tweaks to other disciplines.
- Amended Character Development chapter to allow skills >=20 to develop. Made the rules for tuition, study and practice more consistent. Required expenditure of LURPs to raise stats.
- Amended Bestiary - added Were-Bat, Wyvern, Banshee.
- Altered Character Development chapter to introduce idea of specialised attack and spell-casting skills. Development Rolls are now made at the end of the gaming session rather than the end of each day in game. Development Rolls are also made whenever a 20 is thrown in a skill roll.
- Altered Actions and Optional Races chapters following merger of Unarmed Combat attack skills. Introduced new skills for optional race natural attacks.
- Altered Character Generation chapter - added Acting and Pharmacy into the calling skills for Thieves and Rangers.
- Altered Combat chapter and Character Sheet to remove system for tracking damage to items - too complex. Also, the bonus of magical armour only reduces the Action Penalty now, and doesn't also reduce HIP loss directly.
- Altered Magic chapter - major reworking of the Combat and Elemental lists.
- Changed Actions and Character Generation chapters to divide the attack skills into categories - giving the callings a broader range of attack forms.
- Changed Character Development chapter – altered limits on attack and spell-casting skills so a character can now develop a very limited skill bonus in all Spell-Casting skills, rather than being restricted by his calling to spells of only a few disciplines.
- Changed Magic chapter – removed duplication of Harm spells from Wounding list, and made the durations of various Summon spells in different disciplines more consistent. Got rid of overcasting - too powerful.
- Changed Actions chapter – altered Subdual skill description to give rules for garrotes and blackjacks.
- Improved Treasure chapter to simplify random treasure generation. Tweaked some of the rules for gunpowder weaponry too.
- Changed Character Generation, Actions and Magic chapters and Character sheet following replacement of Attune spell with a skill. Reordered Alchemy discipline. Changed Healing discipline to reduce spell duplication.
- Total reworking of Character
Generation, Optional Races and Character Development chapters, and the
Character Sheet, to reflect changes to callings and skill development. The
semi-magician callings have been scrapped and there are now bigger
differences between the remaining callings. The minor, major, specialised
and difficult skills have been replaced with a simpler Development Roll
Modifier system.
- Actions chapter updated with
new skills - Influence has been split into Acting, Leadership and
Seduction, History replaces Etiquette and Heraldry, and Geography replaces
Region Lore.
- Magic chapter - Telekinesis has
been altered. Major changes to the Alchemy list to make the spells more
consistent and the Thief calling more useful for getting through locked
doors. Spell-casting no longer requires gesticulation.
- Simplified Two-Weapon-Combo.
Removed need for multiple skills; applied penalties instead.
- Altered Enhance Attack, Blur,
Enhanced Invisibility and Spirit Travel spells.
- New spells - The Iron Man,
Enhanced Cloak and The Two-Edged Sword of Glass.
- Gave Vampires a
beguile/seduction ability.
- Removed Item Familiar spell.
- Added Undead Familiar spell.
- Altered Detect spells,
Invisibility to Undead, Circle of Dead Soul Summoning, Invisibility to
Demons, Become Demon, Master Demon, Demon Familiar and Beast Familiar
spells.
- Reordered levels of Demonology,
Nature, Necromancy and Wizardry spells.
- Adjusted description of Ghost
to prevent them from becoming invisible.
- Changed chapter structure.
- Improved spell embedding and
attunement spells so that characters with poor Spell-Casting skills can attune
embedded spells and produce potent effects.
- Added rules for overcasting of
high level spells.
- Lowered the level of Beast
Familiar spell.
- Updated Two-Weapon-Combo skill
to make it more realistic.
- Altered rules for Troll -
changed regeneration, methods of killing and effect of sunlight. (Adjusted
Great Troll to reflect these changes.)
- Added rules for increasing
stats.
Combat
changes:
- Removed ST contribution to ADB
for unarmed attacks. Strength is already present in the stat contribution.
- Removed secondary damage types
- they were almost never used in play testing.
- Altered the statistics of
several one and two-handed weapons, and unarmed attacks. Two-handed
weapons are now faster, but do less damage.
- Changed stat contributions for
Shield Block, Pain Tolerance and missile/thrown attack skills.
- Action Penalties for some
armours have been rationalised, e.g. Soft Leather armour now gives no
Action Penalties.
- Halved the Action Penalty
applied to some moving skills because not all will be equally impeded by
encumbrance and armour, especially since armour is designed to not overly
impede the making of attacks. E.g. swimming and contortions are now fully
penalised by Action Penalties but attack skills are not.
Skill changes:
- Changed skill development
(including rules for tuition and research). It is no longer possible to
shift skill advances to other skills - you must use the skill (or get
training) for it to increase.
- Introduced dire fumbles - these
cause skill bonuses to decrease.
Magic
changes:
- Time required to memorise a
spell now varies with the spell's level.
- Reduced the potency of the
Total Regeneration spell. Added two new Wounding spells - Curse and Doom.
- Simplified the rules for improvised
spells - dialects have been replaced with Spell-Casting skills for each
discipline. The new rules are less of a copy of other systems.
- Process for codifying new
spells has been streamlined so that characters can invent new spells
whilst adventuring.
Stat
changes:
- Changed how maximum HIPs and
POPs are calculated, so that they follow similar rules (maximum numbers of
POPs have been halved). The rate at which HIPs and POPs are regained has
also been simplified.
- Changed the high CO and MA stat
abilities.
- Monster changes:
- Undead drain POPs more quickly
now - in play testing, most combats were over before undead had had chance
to drain.