Unbound RPG

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Grant Howitt and Chris Taylor

By Grant Howitt and Chris Taylor, 2016

Cover and internal art: Adrian Stone Layout and design: Alina Sandu Proofreading and copy editing: Harry Goldstone Producer: Mary Hamilton

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Contents Welcome to Unbound 5 The Core Mechanic 8 Cores 14 Devout 15 Magi 17 Outlaw 19 Pactbound 21 Warrior 23 Wild 25

Roles 26 The Brawler The Deadeye The Protector The Striker The Warden

27 29 31 33 35

Traits 36 Aura 37 Companion 39 Captain 41 Dirty Fighter 43 Fire 45 Mighty 47 Rage 49 Shadows 51 Spirit 53 Transform 55 The Unnatural 57

Character Details Playing the Game

Dramatic Scenes Battle Scenes Scars, and Going out of Action

Gamesmaster 78 Twists by Core 80 Running the Game 87

Adversaries 108 The Giant of Moorfell Peaks 113 The Demon Prince and his Harem 115 The Thin Street Arsonist, Gang Leader 119 The Great Khan 122 The Twice-Born Queen 126 The Dragon 132 Modern Adversaries 134 Narrative Enemies 136

Appendix 1: Optional Rules 138 Appendix 2: More Touchstone Tables 140 Credits 151 Character Sheet 156 Index 158

58 62 63 67 76

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WELCOME TO UNBOUND Welcome to Unbound. With this book, you and your friends can spin infinite stories in numberless worlds. Do you want to steal the still-beating heart of the city from corrupt magi governors and use it to summon griffons? Do you want to strap into a supercharged police mech suit and fight crime on the dark streets of London 2074? To drive back the encroaching tide of extradimensional invaders with nothing but homemade guns and unstable explosives? To lead armies of disciplined troops into battle, marching across the nuclear-scarred wastelands of tomorrow? Unbound can let you do all of that and more. Unbound is a game of pulp action and rapidly-changing worlds, with tactical combat sitting alongside storygame worldbuilding. In it, you’ll uncover secrets of a world of your own creation by playing multiple groups of characters, changing every five or six games, to build a full saga.

THE SETTING Unbound has no default setting - you and the other players will make your own setting during character creation and play, and we’ll guide you through every step of the process.

THE GENRE The genre of Unbound is action - the player characters are competent and willing to do what it takes to achieve their aims, and “what it takes” often refers to combat of

some kind. Every character in Unbound is, by default, able to hold their own in a proper fight, and can be expected to have a few as the game progresses. (Or, alternatively, if they can’t hold their own in a fight, they’ll have access to allies who can - armies, gangs, protector drones and so on.)

HOW DO I PLAY UNBOUND? In some ways, Unbound is a lot like other roleplaying games. If you’ve never played one before, here’s how it’s done: one player - called the Gamesmaster - creates a fictitious world in their imagination, and the the other players - generally just called the “players” - take on the roles of characters in the world. The gamesmaster’s job is to make the world challenging and exciting to explore, and the players’ job is to steer their characters through said world and have as much fun as possible. Much of the time, when a player describes their character making an action, the GM can say if it works. But if it’s interesting to see whether or not they succeed, the GM calls for some kind of check - often this is the result of a die roll, with bonuses or penalties to the roll dependent on the character’s abilities. If the result is high enough, the action succeeds. If it’s too low, the action fails. Unbound uses normal playing cards to resolve challenges - both parties involved draw a card, and the higher card wins (in practice it’s a little more complex than that, but at the heart of it, that’s what’s going on - there are more detailed rules for battle scenes and dramatic scenes later in the book).

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Unbound is different from many other roleplaying games in that the players and the GM work together to build the world at the start of the game and explore it together as a group, with the GM reacting to the players’ actions as they perform them. Also, unlike other games where you might play the same characters for many sessions and take them from obscurity to legend, in Unbound each group of characters is only supposed to hang around for four to six four-hour-long sessions - or an adventure, to use our word for it. The base unit of Unbound is the adventure, a story about the player characters. What’s the most important thing happening right now? What are the characters trying to achieve? What challenges and threats await them? You’ll find out through play. Once you feel the characters have achieved their aims, move on to the next adventure in the same world. What questions have been raised during play? What other parts of the world are you looking to explore, what characters do you wish to play? Pick a different core and make some new characters. Lots of adventures together is called a saga. With this model you can quickly generate a world, figure out what the characters want, see if they get it and repeat until the players and GM have worked together to build something incredible.

WHAT DO I NEED TO PLAY UNBOUND? Every player - including the GM - will need their own pack of playing cards - just normal ones will do, with 2 Jokers (GM, take your Jokers out and put them to one side - you don’t need them). We don’t recommend that you use fancy ones, because you’ll be scribbling on them as your character grows and changes. You’ll need pens that can write on playing cards, too. Players - your deck of cards is referred as your character deck. GMs, your deck of cards is called your GM deck. You’ll also need some paper to make notes (we like using A3 sheets, because there’s lots of room) and either a set of printed character sheets or some paper for players to note down their character abilities.

CONVENTIONS IN THE TEXT We assume that you’re using a standard pack of playing cards with 2 Jokers. Aces are low. We will refer to specific cards and suits using the following notation: the numerical value of the card followed by an icon representing the suit. So the four of diamonds becomes 4 , the Jack of Clubs is J and so on.

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We refer to characters played by the players as “player characters” or, sometimes, just “characters”. Hostile characters controlled by the GM are known as “adversaries”, and non-hostile characters are known as “NPCs” or “non-player characters.” We’ve done our best to keep things even with regard to gender; with male, female and non-binary genders being represented throughout the book.

WHAT DOES BEING A PLAYER INVOLVE? As a player, you’ll create a character to take part in an action-packed story - during the adventure, you’ll play as them, and act using them as your avatar in the world. A big part of making a character is applying your own descriptions for your role and trait abilities, so get creative! (Your character gets their own deck of cards, too. This will last them until the end of the adventure.) When you play, it’s up to you to craft stories with the other players and the gamesmaster, so make sure that you put your character forward into challenging situations to see what happens. (Even if your character wouldn’t want to run into danger, as players it’s exciting to tackle difficult problems - and as an audience, it’s fun to watch it happen. So find a reason to get involved!) You’re also there to make everyone else look good. Don’t worry about being the coolest, the smartest, or the most inventive player at the table; worry about helping everyone else be that. When you make other players, and their characters, look good and give them fun opportunities to play with, you generate a good session for everyone. (And if you’re worried about feeling left out? Don’t worry, everyone else is working to make you look good, too.) But you’ll also be responsible, in no small part, for creating the world that you and the other characters inhabit. During the first session of each adventure, you, the GM, and the other players will answer questions that shape the world around you. There’s no default setting for Unbound, and that can be challenging at first for some players, but making a world together - and then exploring it, and probably blowing parts of it up - can be really satisfying. When you answer questions about the adventure, try not to say no to things - instead of thinking why your character wouldn’t do a thing because it seems out-of-character, try wrapping your head around what sort of extraordinary circumstances would get them to do such a thing!

WHAT DOES BEING A GAMESMASTER INVOLVE? The gamesmaster, or “GM” for short, is in charge of running the game. You’re in control of everything that isn’t a player character - so that’s all the other characters in the world, the terrain, the environment, and the pace of the story. You’re also probably in charge of hosting the game, deciding when it begins and ends, and when to move from one adventure to another - or to a new Saga altogether. During the first session of an adventure, the GM is in charge of leading the group in creating the world. Ask the questions given in the core (which is a background and motivation that all the player characters share) and keep asking questions related to the group’s answers until you feel like you’ve worked out a stable platform to build the world from. Write everything down, in note form, on a big piece of paper. When players answer the questions from their trait, do the same. Make suggestions to players that connect parts of the world together. During play, it’s your job to find adventure and challenge in everything the players do. A common belief among gamesmasters is that they have to spend ages preparing a branching plotline for players to experience, but this can be frustrating when the players make unexpected decisions and throw the game “off course”. Instead of writing yourself into a corner, react to the decisions that players make, and draw from the world you’ve all created to make each scene exciting. Part of finding adventure is running battle scenes, which you’ll do plenty of. Before a battle starts, it’s up to you to pick out a selection of adversaries for the characters to tackle. There’s a guide to doing this in the adversaries section, page 106. Although every player is responsible for every other player having a good time, you’re the authority on that. It’s your job to make sure that people understand the rules, are comfortable with (and even excited about!) the plots and characters, and are generally having fun together as a group.

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THE CORE MECHANIC If a character is attempting to perform an action (hitting an adversary in a battle scene, climbing a building, picking a lock, dodging incoming fire) then their player plays a card from the top of their deck. The GM does the same, drawing from their own deck, and the person with the higher result gets what they want out of the exchange. Card values are ranked from Ace to King, with Ace being low and King high. Jess’ character is attempting to scale a wall without being seen by some nearby guards. She draws a card - 10 . The GM draws an opposing card. She draws 5 , which is lower than the 10 , so Jess’ character manages to ascend unseen.

SHUFFLING Players shuffle their character deck at the following times: ĐĐ Before each dramatic or battle scene ĐĐ Immediately after healing from their discards

On a draw, player characters always win. If two player characters are competing against each other, re-draw on a draw.

Players shuffle their discard pile immediately before they heal.

If a character has an appropriate proficiency, they treat some low-value cards as 10 which gives them an edge. Proficiencies are represented with A, 2, 3, etc - this treats any card of that value or lower as a 10.

GMs shuffle their deck before each dramatic or battle scene. When all their cards are in their discard pile, they shuffle it and it becomes their deck. During a scene, GMs shouldn’t shuffle their deck unless their discard pile is full.

A player whose character has STRIKE proficiency 2 plays an Ace on a STRIKE action. They treat that card as though it was a 10 of the same suit.

JOKERS

This is also true of adversaries - almost every adversary has a proficiency rating that covers all of their actions (some adversaries don’t have proficiency ratings, because they’re simply not very good at fighting). For most actions in battle scenes, if a player plays a FACE card, their character gets access to a boost - some special trick or bonus defined by their role.

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If a Joker is played as part of an action, it opens up the possibility of great success or crippling failure. In a battle scene, the player who drew the Joker chooses which of their actions to play it on, and then draws another card on top of it. If a Joker is drawn as a DEFENCE action, simply draw another card on top of it (remember: GMs don’t use Jokers, only players). If a face card or a story card is played on a Joker, it triggers a boost as usual. If the Joker is a story card itself, it triggers two positive effects on a success and two negative effects on a failure

CRITICAL SUCCESSES IN BATTLE When a player draws a Joker and the subsequent action succeeds, fate has smiled upon them. The player should choose one of the following benefits and explain how it happens: ĐĐ Gain the benefits of a boost on the action ĐĐ Recharge a limited power ĐĐ Immediately take a mook-level character within range of the character out of action CRITICAL FAILURES IN BATTLE When a player draws a Joker and the subsequent action fails, circumstances have conspired to really mess their character up. Describe a negative effect on the character, often due to outside influence from an unexpected source, and choose one of the following effects: ĐĐ The character is reduced to 0 stamina ĐĐ The player must choose an ally in their or a connected area; that character makes only one action on their next turn ĐĐ Place one mook-level character on the battlefield; it may act as normal next round

DRAMATIC SCENES In a dramatic scene - that’s any scene without a battle map - players only draw one card at a time, so there’s no need to choose which action to apply the Joker to. A dramatic scene requires a number of successes before a number of failures to resolve one way or the other, and jokers increase the number of successes or failures possible from a single action. The player who drew the Joker introduces a new element to the scene, and their successes or failures from the action are doubled.

Ten-Thousand Knees, the legendary orc drunken boxer, is in a dramatic scene where she is trying to reclaim a sacred text from the merchants who stole it from her temple. Her player describes Ten-Thousand sneaking through the tunnels underneath the merchants’ warehouse to reach the scroll, but then draws a Joker.

The player draws again to resolve the action and gets 7 of hearts. The GM draws a five of diamonds, so Ten-thousand has succeeded in sneaking into the warehouse - and with that joker, it counts as two successes towards completing the scene. “Horatio can’t handle the power of the scroll, it seems,” says the GM, “and upon speaking the first of the koans of drunken wisdom is blown back through the doors of the warehouse with an almighty flash of light! This should provide Ten-thousand with the distraction she needs to get in there.” If a story card is played on a Joker and the player fails, they may redraw a card to replace their story card (they can only do this once per Joker played), but it is still treated as being played on top of the Joker. If the Joker drawn is a story card itself, the scene now hinges entirely on the card; on a success, the players win the scene. On a failure, they fail.

POWERS A character’s core, role and trait give them access to special abilities called powers. Powers allow a character to perform unique actions in battle scenes, and come in one of three types: Always-on powers trigger whenever your character satisfies the conditions (inflict a wound, are in the same area as an ally who is hit, etc). Some of them are only usable once per round. Boost powers give your character an alternative boost to use on a certain action, or all actions. Limited powers are usable once, then unusable until you meet the conditions required to use them again. When you make an action in combat (including DEFENCE actions), if the value of the card played on the action is lower than the recharge value of the power, you may recharge that power. Declare that you are recharging at the time of the action. You may only recharge one power per card. You cannot recharge a power on the same turn that you use it unless expressly stated in the power’s description. You can use multiple powers as part of the same action.

“Ah,” says the player. “Okay: I look up through the grate and see that the merchant’s brattish son Horatio is reading our scroll - and it looks like he’s absorbing its power! I’ll have to move fast.”

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SAGA CREATION CHECKLIST When you start a new adventure in a new saga, go through the following steps in order (we’ve ordered the book in the same pattern). There might be a few phrases in here that you don’t understand yet - don’t worry. We’ll explain everything in detail in the relevant chapters. You can take as long as you want to build the world and your characters; some groups prefer to rattle through the

process in 10 minutes and get playing right away, and some like to spend a whole evening slowly building a detailed world to explore. Work out what’s right for your group. Once you’ve played your first adventure in the saga, you can skip step one and go straight on to step two, if you’d like.

ONE. Pick base setting and tone. As a group, select a rough base setting for your saga to take place in by drawing touchstones to spark your imaginations. Depending on which set of touchstones (or which sets of touchstones) you use, you can make almost any kind of setting you desire. TWO. Pick core. Create core foundation. Answer all core questions as a group, and note down your core’s RECOVER power. Every player character will share the same core; it defines what the game’s going to be about, what sort of adversaries and challenges the characters will face, who the characters are, and what sort of victories they’ll strive to achieve. THREE. Each player picks a role for their character, and one power from that role. Answer the questions from the role. A character’s role determines what they do in the party; whether they’re a front-line combatant, a spry ranged fighter, a tactician and motivator, or something entirely different. FOUR. Each player picks a trait for their character, and one power from that trait. A character’s trait helps describe their existing abilities and gives them access to special powers. FIVE. Each player creates a foundation for their character, and the group works together to create a second foundation for each character. Check your core foundation and modify it if necessary. SIX. Each player creates a fate for their character, and the group creates a fate for each character. Work together to make interesting fates that will challenge your characters and put them in difficult situations. SEVEN. The GM picks a twist, and creates one fate and two factions to start play. Twists are dirty tricks that the GM uses to level the playing field in battle scenes. Factions are groups of NPCs that can help or hinder the player characters. EIGHT. Each player draws for a scar, as detailed in the permanent injury rules on page 76, redrawing aces. NINE. Finishing touches. The players and GM describe and name their characters, if they’ve not done so already. Talk about how their traits manifest, and their relationship to the other characters. TEN. Play the game! You’ll discover the rest of the world by getting into it and exploring, so start playing.

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INTRODUCING NEW PLAYERS As Unbound relies on the whole player group to create the setting, it can feel difficult to introduce new players into an ongoing saga or adventure - the existing players have narrative authority over the environment, and they might feel like they’re intruding. Here’s how to rectify that: When the player makes their character, determine their character’s link to (at least) one existing player character, and have them create a story card that describes what they learned or experienced through that link. Have the group connect their character to an existing faction, and explain how they’ve come to blows with, or helped out, that faction in the past. Finally, have them answer two of the following questions:

Why are you risking your life to help these people?

I ALREADY KNOW WHAT THE SETTING IS! We’ve written Unbound with the intention that when everyone sits down to play at the first session, no-one knows what the setting is going to look like, and everyone is willing to be surprised along the way by exploring it together. But - if you want to, you can use the system to explore an existing universe. If you want to play superheroes from your favourite comics, or gear up for a dark future where there is only war, or get involved in father-son disputes in a galaxy far, far away, or to learn and build upon an original setting of your own creation - go for it.

Why are you the only person that can help? What do the other characters suspect about the world that simply isn’t true? Who’s the real threat? Why are you late to the party? What’s the name of your contact in one of the existing factions?

SETTING Before you start making characters, or the world in which your saga is going to take place, you’ll need to decide on a setting as a group. Talk about what sort of stories you’re interested in telling, what sort of characters you want to create, and what sort of world you want to explore. It’s hard to make up a setting from nothing at all, so here are a few basic building blocks that you can start from. After you’ve taken your building blocks, your core will add a slant on what sort of stories you’ll tell, but we’ve also provided a table of keywords to help you make your setting unique. FANTASY. In days of old, knights roam the land, wizards concoct magical spells, and mighty beasts prowl across the wilderness. Strange creatures - dwarves, elves, orcs - share the world with men, and the world is one of adventure, with vast riches from forgotten kingdoms to be found on the edge of civilisation. This is, in many ways, the “default” setting for Unbound, because it’s one of our favourites.

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SCI-FI. What will the future be like? Our heroes set foot on alien worlds, battle in zero-gravity, broker peace treaties between galactic empires (or break them), dual-wield ray guns and count extra-terrestrials, sentient gases, advanced robots and manifested AIs amongst their allies. Sci-fi also includes, usefully, Cyberpunk and Post-Apocalypse, which are perennially popular settings for roleplaying games. URBAN HORROR. It’s a dark world out there. Supernatural forces lie beneath the surface of the city; werewolves hunt in an abandoned shopping mall, vampires drain kids dry in nightclub bathrooms, the sewers are filled with razortoothed ghouls and that old guy on the street corner is a wizard with power beyond your wildest dreams. Whether the player characters are hunting down the creatures of the night, or teaming up with them to carve out their niche, it’s going to be a wild ride. PULP. Derring-do! Biplanes! Nazis! Lost civilisations! Danger! Thrilling tales abound as bold adventurers set out to defend, or possibly take over, the world! Daring train robberies - scandalous romances - mobsters with hearts of gold - an ape with the brain of a MAN - tracking the twogun terror through the rainy streets of Chinatown - snakeworshippers - the whole shebang, baby! SUPERHEROES. For whatever reason, some folk have superpowers - flight, incredible speed and strength, teleportation, control over the elements, mind-control, etc - and the player characters are amongst them (or maybe they don’t have powers, but they have the means to fight those who do). Will they use their powers for good or evil? Will they fight over a city block, a country, or the world?

VARIATIONS TONE You can change up a lot by deciding on what kind of theme your saga is going to have with regards to the base setting. If you decide that the tone of your Fantasy saga is going to be light and upbeat, then it could move to Saturday-morning-TV-heroics; of wicked villains who kidnap but never kill their targets, and are always foiled; of dragons with problems to solve, rather than to be killed outright. If you make it darker and more serious, though, then maybe that villain kills people outright - people that the players care about. Maybe the dragon is a criminal mastermind with a web of informants and lackeys, bringing them gold to heap on their hoard. Maybe our heroes aren’t bold and brave adventuring knights, but demobbed soldiers looking to deal with the fallout of the kind of war that’s fought by normal people but won by the almighty magic of wizards. Or you could make it hopeful; ships that fly on the winds of magic through the sky, lost civilisations ready to be explored, player characters as adventurers, sages, bards, animated statues and talking owls; limitless sources of power, noble sacrifice, and save-the-world scenarios. Or make it hopeless, if that’s your thing; civilisation is

overrun, the mad gods and bestial forces of the underworld won the war, and the player characters scratch out a desperate existence in the ruins of a lost dwarven city, fighting for food, fuel and means to survive while they evade patrolling orcs and ravenous tentacled beasts. Not every game is going to sustain the same tone all the way through - there’ll be sad moments in lighthearted campaigns, levity in grim and grimy hopeless ones, and so on. But getting the overall theme in everyone’s minds right from the start will help you all work together. TOUCHSTONES Below is a table of 52 different phrases that we thought would be useful to help generate an original world. When we play Unbound, we tell each player to draw a card and tell us what word (or “touchstone”) they get, then brainstorm a setting from the results together. You can do the same, or you can use them to flavour a base setting you’ve all agreed on, or you can each draw four and “pitch” your world to each other, or the GM draws three lots of four and the players decide which lot they’re interested in exploring. There are several more lists of touchstones by a variety of authors in Appendix 2 on page 140.

A

Zeppelins

Androids

Sorcery

Narcotics

2

Vampires

Virtual

A Lost Civilisation

Vehicles

3

Demons

Aliens

Jungles

Transhuman

4

Corporations

Apocalypse

Politics

Frontier

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Dictatorship

Heavy Armour

Shanty Towns

Omens

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No More Magic

Music

Pirates

Trade

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Dragons

Doors

Flooding

The Dead

8

Stone

Werewolves

Guns

Walls

9

Ocean

Crime

Prison

War

10

Plants

Wizards

Beasts

Exoskeletons

J

Ice

Hybrids

Shadows

Bugs

Q

Fire

Nanotech

Revolution

Dust

K

Disease

Sky

Holy

Light

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Cores CORES Your character’s core determines who they are and what they’re doing. Every character in the adventure will choose the same core. You’ll see that there are five or so questions per core you, and the other players, will answer these questions to help determine the world, your allies and adversaries, and the sort of adventures you’ll embark on. Don’t feel limited by these questions, or that you have to rush through them to get on with the game - take as long as you want, and create more questions, if it helps you get a handle on the world. Create a group foundation once you’ve answered the questions. The group foundation is a shared history between all the characters that they can draw on in

dramatic scenes. You’ll get a chance to modify your group foundation later on. Each core has a list of sample foundations to act as inspiration for your core and character foundations. There is more information on foundations on page 58, but for now, foundations are descriptions of your characters’ abilities and history that help them succeed in dramatic scenes. Every core has a RECOVER power that your character gains at the start of play. Whatever core, role and trait you choose, your characters will be capable fighters - that’s just how Unbound works. So if you want to play a librarian, for example, make sure it’s a Librarian who can throw a punch or two.

DEVOUT DEVOUT adventures are about the player characters paladins, clerics, pilgrims, zealots, agents and priests - bringing light to dark places because of a strong, unifying belief in what’s right. Members of a devout adventure might all follow one god, worship the same pantheon, be part of a multi-faith team, or just devoted to noble ideals, but they’re all in broad agreement that their actions must be right and just. SAMPLE CORE FOUNDATIONS: The Ladies of the Chapel Perilous; Dark-Elf SunWorshippers; The Boston Saints; The Heimdallr Private Detective Agency; The Knights of Hammersmith and City; Skull-covered Baroque Space Fascists; Missionary Librarians for the God of Knowledge; Cultists of a Tentacled Doomsday God; Grandfather Passed, but he still talks to us. SAMPLE CHARACTER FOUNDATIONS: The Only Honest Cop in this Dirty Town; Disgraced Purgemaster General; Hand of God Assault Squad Leader; Idealistic Freedom Fighter; Monk of the Iron Scales; Starbound Missionary for the Almighty Dollar; Clueless Leader of a Doomsday Cult; a Fallen Angel, wanted for crimes in heaven; Pacifist Cleric, possessed by an Avenging Spirit.

The GM and each player should answer the following questions about the world:

What is sacred to us? What evil are we trying to stop? What will happen if we fail? Where can we find unexpected allies? What has challenged our faith in the past?

POWER OF THE RIGHTEOUS: [Recharge: End of scene] When you make a RECOVER action, instead of normal stamina recovery, heal 15 and either: heal all other allies in your area for 3, or PUSH all adversaries in your area.

EVERY PLAYER MUST ANSWER:

What do I believe in? (You can answer the same as another player, if you’d like; this is encouraged but not required. It can be a higher power, a noble ideal, or a philosophical concept.)

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Cores

MAGI MAGI are members of a magical tradition (or traditions) that are on a quest for information, people of note, and items of power - wizards, sorcerers, swordmages, teachers, researchers, explorers, interdimensional consultants, and so on. They’ll travel far and wide to uncover lost secrets, because knowledge is power and keeping it in the right hands is of paramount importance. If they happen to attain some glory along the way, so much the better. SAMPLE CORE FOUNDATIONS: Post-Graduate Students on a Field Trip; Apprentices of old Oximalfucious; The Great Dragon’s Brood; Endlessly Resurrected Minions; Familiar Worker’s Union; Blazing Battle-Wizards; Full-tilt Urban Adepts; Sword-bound Spirits of the Ancients; The Council of the Wyrmwood Star; Augmented Xenobiologists; Mystical Wayfinders for Hire. SAMPLE CHARACTER FOUNDATIONS: Unpaid Part-time Intern Sorcerer; Occluded Acquisitions Consultant at the Guild of Relics; Exile from the Brotherhood of Masks; Two-fisted, eight-fingered Archeologist; Jolly Old Dwarven Runesmith; A floating Collection of Spheres that whisper dark truths; Discount Demonologist; the Crystal Shard in my head lets me see the future, honest; I am a Crystal Shard, and I’m stuck in some chump’s head who thinks I let him see the future; Sole Survivor of the Dewey-decimal purges.

The GM and each player should answer the following questions about the world:

What (or who) are we searching for? Where do we reckon it’s hidden? Who would rather we didn’t get our hands on it? What happens if we don’t get control of it? Where is the first stop on our journey?

LAST CHANCE ARCANA: [Recharge: End of scene] When you make a RECOVER action, instead of normal stamina recovery, heal 8+ the value of the card used and either: gain 2 temporary stamina or make an immediate attack action.

EVERY PLAYER MUST ANSWER:

What is my magical tradition? (You can answer the same as another player, if you’d like; this is encouraged but not required.)

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Cores

OUTLAW OUTLAWS aren’t bad people, necessarily, but they end up on the wrong side of the authorities - they’re thieves, killers, bandits, morally grey professionals, dealers and heretics. Outlaw adventures are about breaking the law, for good or bad reasons, and dealing with the fallout. SAMPLE CORE FOUNDATIONS: Roving Jetcycle Gang; The Murkways Thieves’ Guild; Explosive-collared Supervillains; No Grave Could Hold Us Down, and Now we want Revenge; Undercover Cops; This Is Our One Last Job; The Order of the Gilded Pocket; Survivors of a Shattered Cult; Hang On, is Anyone here NOT an Agent Provocateur; The Kingpin’s Chosen Henchmen. SAMPLE CHARACTER FOUNDATIONS: Defector from the unsuccessful Half-Orc Navy; Smuggler with a hundred bounties on her head; Owner and Bartender at The Four Dragons Dancing; The Best-looking Gunslinger in all of Time and Space; Escaped AI in a stolen vat-grown body; Vampire Hunter in a corrupted city; Average Conman, Brilliant Killer; Drone-piloting Hacker Wunderkind; Fox-blood Trickster. EVERY PLAYER MUST ANSWER:

What is my crime?

The GM and each player should answer the following questions about the world:

What’s the name of our city, and what’s weird about it? What do we want, and what happens if we don’t get it? Who’s in charge of the law round these parts? Who’s the one person we can trust? Who are we looking to screw over?

DESPERATE MEASURES: [Recharge: End of scene] When you make a RECOVER action, instead of normal stamina recovery, heal 15 and either: make an immediate escape move, or make the area you are currently occupying Dangerous 2 until the end of the battle.

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Cores

PACTBOUND PACTBOUND characters are agents of something greater than themselves - witches, warlocks, summoners, elemental-blooded, faesworn, demonic brokers, angel-touched, and so on - and they’re on a quest for personal gain. They’re already used to brokering deals for power, and they’ve banded together to take on a difficult challenge. SAMPLE CORE FOUNDATIONS: The Dead God’s Hand; A Ritual Went Wrong; There’s an Angel tied up in our Basement; A Family of Witches; Backwoods swamp cultists; Arsenic and Oldlace, Demonic Attorneys; Soul-bound to The Anima Corporation; Implanted with Alien Technology; Echoes of a Time-Sultan; Deluded Pre-teens bound to an Environmental Protector Spirit. SAMPLE CHARACTER FOUNDATIONS: Silver-tongued Voice of the Void; Bound to the Ship’s AI, sworn to defend it; Infernal Realtor; Smart-mouthed Cat of a Teenaged Witch; Kissed by a Fae Usurper; the blood transfusion came with Demonic Obligations; Lady Luck’s 53rd husband; Part-Time Gangster, Part-Time Guardian Angel; 23,000-year-old Identity Thief.

The GM and each player should answer one of the following questions about the world:

What is the greatest source of pacts in the world? What’s the other big one? What happens if we break our pacts? Who stands against us? What did we lose to make our pacts?

LIFE-STEALING HEX: [Recharge: End of scene] When you make a RECOVER action, instead of normal stamina recovery, heal 15 and use your RECOVER card to make an immediate attack action. If you hit, heal equal to the suit damage of the card.

EVERY PLAYER MUST ANSWER:

What have I made a pact with? (You can answer the same as another player, if you’d like; this is encouraged but not required.)

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Cores

WARRIOR WARRIOR adventures are about war; armies are marching against each other, and our player characters - soldiers, city guard, mercenaries, heavily-armed explorers, commandos - are instrumental in winning or losing the fight. SAMPLE CORE FOUNDATIONS: The Screamin’ 33rd; First Assault Recon, Dodayavin Rift; Queen’s Eternal Guard; Dishonourable Discharges All Round; The Eighth Street Razors; The Half-Elf Liberation Front; Hellguard; Last Defenders of Titan; Nordic Bearmen on Leave; Occult Task Force; Itinerant Fey Knights. SAMPLE CHARACTER FOUNDATIONS: Wide-eyed farm girl; 2nd-best sniper in the Emperor’s Guard; Sole Survivor of the battle of Dodoyavin Rift; Wealthiest (and only) Mercenary in all of Nova Despera; Chief Scale-Borer of the 33rd Dragon Hunters; Suspiciously Easy-Going Drill Sergeant; The Biggest Woman, carrying the Biggest Gun; Demo-man with half a face remaining; 3rd-generation Army Brat with a cocky smile. EVERY PLAYER MUST ANSWER:

The GM and each player should answer the following questions about the world:

Who are we fighting? Who are our allies? Where is most of the combat taking place? What’s the name of our commander? What do we stand to lose if we’re defeated?

NEVER BACK DOWN: [Recharge: End of scene] When you make a RECOVER action, instead of normal stamina recovery, heal 15 and either: make an immediate attack action, or heal an ally in your area 6.

What is the name of our group? (Or regiment, unit, squad, gang, etc.) All characters should be part of the same, or allied, groups.

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Cores

WILD WILD adventures are about something unnatural encroaching into the wilderness. Characters - wild folk, faerie emissaries, shapeshifters, rangers, barbarians, awakened animals, and more besides - fight on the side of nature against the invaders, whether they’re an invading army, an expanding city state, interdimensional invaders, or meddling pilgrims. SAMPLE CORE FOUNDATIONS: The Summer Court Bailiffs; The roving tribe of Hellvast Peak; Last of the Wise Women; Poseidon’s Chosen; The Parliament of Bears; Children of the Earth-Mother; Werewolf Motorcycle Gang; Half-ghost Guardians of the Deadlands; Lost Swamp Coven; 1920’s Bridgeless Troll Drifters. SAMPLE CHARACTER FOUNDATIONS: A Wolf, avenging her fallen Ranger; Librarbarian, Screamer of the Tomes; I spent my Gap Year as a Tree, darling; Emissary of the Nightmarish Autumn Court; Guardian of the Last Seed; Water-Scryer in the Bleached Wastes; The Prince of Bees; Wind-kin exiled for loving an Earthblood; Fae-bound, mind-warped Knight of the Flowers; Recently Uncalcified Troll Soothsayer, a thousand years out of date.

The GM and each player should answer one of the following questions about the world:

What is powerful about the wild? Why are we the ones to protect it? What is the most unnatural thing near here? What’s the biggest city near here? Who would love to see our home destroyed?

FORCE OF NATURE: [Recharge: End of scene] When you make a RECOVER action, instead of normal stamina recovery, heal 15. Until the end of your next turn, either: deal +1 damage with all attacks, or take -1 damage from all attacks.

EVERY PLAYER MUST ANSWER:

What part of the wild am I most closely bound to?

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Roles ROLES Your role is what you do in battle - think of it like a character class from a traditional RPG. When you pick your role, choose one ability from the list at the bottom of each to represent your particular style.

THE BRAWLER You’re tough, and you excel at close-range combat. You’re good at giving out punishment and absorbing attacks that would take down weaker members of your team. Answer the following questions:

What do you use to take out your adversaries? How do you avoid damage? Where did you learn to fight like this?

SAMPLE CONCEPTS: WARRIOR

Bravura Battle Captain; Regimental Boxing Champion; Armoured Assault Drone

OUTLAW

Moustachioed Swashbuckler; Champion Dog-fighter; Drugged-up Cyber-Ronin

DEVOUT

Idealistic Private Investigator; Sanctified Murderer; Bound Penitent

WILD

Chosen of the Storm; Six Wolves; Gorilla Guerrilla

MAGI

Oily Muscle-mage; Shapeshifting Alchemist; Requisitioned Lab Experiment

PACTBOUND Fire-breathing Dragonblood; Blood-Spirit Channeler; Avatar of Carnage

PROFICIENCIES: STRIKE: 2 DEFENCE: 2 STAMINA: 6 BOOSTS MOVE

Tear it up: All adversaries in your starting and target area take 1 damage.

SHOOT

Get in there: Make an immediate escape move towards your target.

STRIKE

Make it hurt: You inflict +2 damage.

RECOVER

Keep going: If you inflict damage before the end of your next turn, gain 2 temporary Stamina.

DEFENCE

Surprise attack: If the attacker misses with their attack, inflict damage against them as dictated by the card’s suit.

In addition, choose one:

I LIKE THOSE ODDS: [Always on] When you are surrounded - when there are more adversaries than allies in your area - your STRIKE proficiency is 3. Advanced: If there are three or more adversaries in your area, inflict +1 damage.

SHOCK AND AWE: [Always on] Once per turn, when you inflict a wound, all other adversaries in the same area take 2 damage. If there are no adversaries in your area, PULL 1 adversary within 1 area into your area. Advanced: When you use Shock and Awe, you gain 2 temporary stamina.

BRING IT ON: [Always on] When you use a RED card to make a STRIKE action, inflict +1 damage. When you use a RED FACE card to make a STRIKE action, inflict +2 damage in addition to the effects of the boost. Advanced: [Always on] When you have 0 stamina, you no longer take damage from using RED cards to make STRIKE actions, and RED FACE cards inflict +3 damage instead of +2.

BLOOD IN THE EYES: [Limited 2] When you inflict damage on an adversary, declare you are using this power. That adversary takes BLEED 2, and until they remove the BLEED, their PROFICIENCY is 0. Advanced: Until the target of this power removes the BLEED, they inflict -1 damage to a minimum of 0.

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Roles

THE DEADEYE You’re a master of ranged combat; accurate and deadly, with a focus on speed and mobility. Answer the following questions:

What do you use to take out your adversaries? How do you avoid damage? Where did you learn to fight like this?

SAMPLE CONCEPTS: WARRIOR

Peasant Crossbowman; Zero-G Railgunner; Mounted Zen Archer

OUTLAW

3 Times City Darts Champion; Avatar of the .45; Duke Smashing, Space Pirate at Law

DEVOUT

Wandering Executioner; Guardian Angel with a beanbag shotgun; Voodoo Priestess

WILD

Elven Hawkmistress; A Vengeful King of Wasps; Postapocalyptic Bullet-Farmer

MAGI

Inventor of the Hex-Cannon; Magic Missile Enthusiast; Portal-hacking Arcanotechnician

PACTBOUND My Gun Speaks To Me; Bearer of the Bow of Heaven; Hex-tongued Witch

PROFICIENCIES: SHOOT: 3, MOVE: 3 STAMINA: 4 BOOSTS: MOVE

Dive for cover: Regain 2 stamina.

SHOOT

Make it count: If your attack is successful, it inflicts a wound.

STRIKE

Slip away: Make an immediate escape move after this action is triggered.

RECOVER

Reload: Your SHOOT proficiency is 4 until the end of your next turn.

DEFENCE

Go to ground: You cannot be targeted with SHOOT actions until the start of your next turn.

In addition, choose one:

RUNNING BATTLE: [Limited 4] During your turn, make an escape MOVE or RECOVER as a free action. Advanced: As above, but you may escape MOVE or RECOVER at the start of any character’s turn as an interrupt, not just your own.

BOOM: [Limited 3] When you SHOOT, you also attack all other adversaries in your target’s area - if you hit these secondary targets, you inflict half damage. Advanced: When you use BOOM, all adversaries in the target area may not make MOVE actions until the end of your next turn. Escape moves function as normal.

OVERWATCH: [Limited 2] [Interrupt] When an adversary hits an ally in an area you can reach with a SHOOT action, make an immediate SHOOT action against that adversary. If you hit, your ally takes half damage from the attack. If you wound, your ally takes no damage from the attack. If you miss, your ally gains 1 temporary stamina. Advanced: As above, but your ally takes no damage from the attack if you hit. If you miss, your ally takes half damage but gains no temporary stamina.

EXTREME RANGE: [Limited special] When you SHOOT, you may attack a target up to 4 areas away. This power recharges when you make a MOVE or RECOVER action, and you may recharge it on the turn you use it. Advanced: When you attack a character that is 3 or more areas away from you, inflict +1 damage.

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Roles

THE PROTECTOR You support your allies in combat, keeping them safe from harm. Answer the following questions:

What do you use to take out your adversaries? How do you avoid damage? How do you help your allies? Where did you learn to fight like this?

SAMPLE CONCEPTS: WARRIOR

Blood-soaked Medic; Tough-love Staff Sergeant; A Swarm of Adaptive Nanomachines

OUTLAW

Back-alley Sawbones; Washed-up Monk; Opportunistic Stim Dealer

DEVOUT

Bearer of the Grail; Frontier Preacher; Psychic Surgeon

WILD

Horizon-walking Spirit Shaman; Broodmother; Guardian of the Spring of Eternal Life

MAGI

Headstrong Expedition Leader; Divine Magic Hijacker; Angel Summoner

PACTBOUND Touched by the Spring Fey; Moon-blood Martial Artist; Morrígan Medic

PROFICIENCIES: DEFENCE: 2, and

STRIKE: 2 or SHOOT:2, choose at character creation

STAMINA: 5 BOOSTS: MOVE

Keep your head down: Gain +2 temporary stamina.

SHOOT

Covering fire: An ally in the target area gains +2 temporary stamina.

STRIKE

Get back: You or an ally in your area gains +2 temporary stamina.

RECOVER

Inspire: All allies in your area heal 2.

DEFENCE

Distract: Attacks against the adversary until the start of your next turn inflict +1 damage.

In addition, choose one of the following:

ON YOUR FEET: [Always on] You may nominate a target other than yourself for RECOVER actions. When you do so, the target heals the damage from their discard pile, rather than replenishing it from their character deck. Advanced: When you use this power, black cards restore +1 stamina.

MARTYR: [Always on] When an ally in your area takes a wound, you may take half the damage (rounding up) yourself. Any other effects are still applied to the original target. Advanced: If the attacking adversary is within 2 areas, they take damage equal to half of their initial wound value.

WE STAND TOGETHER: [Limited 2] As a USE action, deal a stack of 4 cards in the centre of the table; when you or an ally in your or an adjacent area takes damage, treat this stack as though it was temporary stamina. Advanced: As a USE action, add 1 card to the WE STAND TOGETHER stack.

COMBAT MEDIC: [Limited 2] Make a USE action to heal 10 on an ally in your area. Advanced: You may heal yourself or an additional ally 5 when you use COMBAT MEDIC.

GUARDIAN ANGEL: [Limited 3] When you make a SHOOT or STRIKE action, an ally in the target area gains 2 temporary stamina. Unlike other sources of temporary stamina, this stacks with any existing temporary stamina that the target possesses. Once per round, if an ally within 2 areas of you has no temporary stamina at the end of their turn, make an immediate SHOOT or STRIKE action against an adversary in their area.

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Roles

THE STRIKER You hit hard and fast. You’re not the toughest around, but you make up for it with with unparalleled mobility and the fact that dead enemies can’t fight back. Answer the following questions:

What do you use to take out your adversaries? How do you avoid damage? Where did you learn to fight like this?

SAMPLE CONCEPTS:

In addition, choose one:

MOBILE ASSAULT: [Limited 3] At any point during your turn, make an immediate escape MOVE and gain 2 temporary stamina. Advanced: When you use this power, all adversaries in your starting area take 2 damage.

WARRIOR

Cut-throat Scout; Jetpacked Bounty Hunter; Wiry Shotgunner

OUTLAW

Seditionist Assassin; The Terror of Space Station X-63; Thief Without A Heart of Gold

DEVOUT

Chief of the Assault Exorcism Brigade; God’s Left Hand; Kung-Fu Cop

[Limited 2] When you inflict a wound, declare you are using this power. The adversary you wounded makes 1 fewer action on its next turn. Troop-level adversaries under the effect of this power may not act on their next turn.

WILD

Bloodthirsty Fey Hedonist; Druid Legbreaker; A Swarm of Intelligent Snakes

Advanced: Adversaries affected by the power lose 2 actions on their next turn.

MAGI

Swashbuckling Exchange Student; Competitive Wizardball Captain; Master of Curses

MOMENTUM:

PACTBOUND Our Lady of Ravens; Shadow-bound Terrorist; Dead-eyed Company Cyborg

STAY DOWN:

[Always on] At the end of your turn, gain temporary stamina equal to the number of wounds you inflicted that turn.

PROFICIENCIES: STRIKE: 3 MOVE: 3

Advanced: [Always on] When you inflict damage, inflict extra damage equal to your temporary stamina.

STAMINA: 4

DUEL:

BOOSTS:

[Limited 3] When you STRIKE a target, and you and the target are the only characters in your area, if your attack is successful, it inflicts a wound.

MOVE

Dash: Move an additional area at the end of your turn.

SHOOT

Suppressing fire: PUSH or PULL the target 1 area.

STRIKE

Hit the weak point: If your attack is successful, it inflicts a wound.

RECOVER

Go to ground: If there is another friendly character in your area, adversary attacks must include them until the start of your next turn.

DEFENCE

Counter: Your STRIKE proficiency against your attacker is 4 until the end of your next turn.

Advanced: When you use DUEL, gain 2 temporary stamina.

SMOKE BOMB: [Limited A] At the end of your turn, declare you’re using this power on the area you are occupying. Until the end of your next turn: That area is Challenging Adversaries may not SHOOT into or through the area Adversaries cannot use their proficiencies while in the area Advanced: SMOKE BOMB now affects the area you are occupying and one connected area.

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Roles

THE WARDEN You specialise in taking hits and walking away from dangerous situations intact. Answer the following questions:

What do you use to take out your adversaries? How do you avoid damage? Where did you learn to fight like this?

SAMPLE CONCEPTS: WARRIOR

Shield Maiden; Masochistic Captain; AEGIS Operator, Bulwark Division

OUTLAW

Stone-jawed Boxer; Disgraced City Guard; Spaceport Mafia Enforcer

DEVOUT

Temple Guardian; Sin-eating Flagellant; The Mother of Lost Children

WILD

Mountain-born Stonespeaker; Environmental Martyr; A Bear

MAGI

Necromancer, Followed by a Skeleton Legion; Headmaster on a Field Trip; Unflappable Swordmage

PACTBOUND Served my tour of duty in Hell; Fleshcrafting Witch; Demonic Golem

PROFICIENCIES: DEFENCE: 3, and

STRIKE 2 or SHOOT 2, choose at character creation

DEFENCE: 3 STAMINA: 7 BOOSTS:

In addition, choose one:

IRON CONSTITUTION: [Always on] When you take a wound, you may gain up to 3 temporary stamina. Advanced: As above, and all allies in your area gain 1 temporary stamina.

CENTRE OF ATTENTION: [Limited 3] After you make a MOVE or RECOVER action, pull every target within 1 area 1 area towards you and inflict 1 damage to each target. Advanced: As above, but you may choose to PUSH or PULL the targets.

GET DOWN!: [Limited 4] When an ally in your or an adjacent area takes damage, you take the damage instead. If the ally is in an adjacent area, MOVE to their area as an immediate action before taking the damage. Advanced: As above, but the damage is halved.

MARKED: [Limited Special] When you hit with a STRIKE or SHOOT action, use this power. The target deals half basic damage when it makes STRIKE or SHOOT actions that do not include you as a target until you take a wound. When you take a wound, this power recharges.

MOVE

Get moving: One ally within 2 areas may make an immediate escape move.

Advanced: When you use MARKED, gain 2 temporary stamina.

SHOOT

Come here: Pull the target one area towards you.

LINE IN THE SAND:

STRIKE

Face me: Until the start of your next turn, your target’s attacks must include you.

RECOVER

You’re trapped in here with me: All adversaries in your area take 1 damage.

DEFENCE

Call that a hit?: Until the start of your next turn, when you take damage, take 1 less damage to a minimum of 1.

[Limited A] When you make a RECOVER action, mark the area you are occupying. In that area, you and your allies gain +1 stamina on RECOVER actions and inflict +1 damage on STRIKE or SHOOT attacks. When you are no longer in this area or take a wound, this power ends. Advanced: The area you occupy during LINE IN THE SAND becomes DAMAGING: 2 to adversaries.

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Traits TRAITS Your trait is your character’s personal style. Traits are what separate you from anyone else who fills your role. Do you throw fireballs or have a colossal greataxe? Do you have an alien entity living in your head?

Fire trait when you use your Fireburst power, maybe all of your attacks are wreathed in flame, or maybe you attack with a perpetually red-hot fireplace poker you stole from the Devil.

When you pick your trait, choose one ability from the list beneath it.

Maybe your SHOOT actions are, instead of a shortbow, your trusty wolf Companion slipping through cover and biting your adversaries. Maybe your Heavy Weapon is actually your mighty fists, scarred and calloused from years of martial training. The fiction is up to you.

Don’t feel like you only need to use your trait when you’re activating the power - it can inform everything you do, if you want it to. So though you really let rip with your

AURA You project an aura of some kind from your body, either figuratively (using your commanding presence, advanced tactics, or bravura) or in real terms (using magic, psionics or technology). Auras are activated as a free action at the start of your turn. Auras have end conditions: if these are met, the effects of the aura immediately end. You can also choose to voluntarily end an aura at the start of your turn, if you wish. If you are taken out of action, the effects of your aura immediately cease. Answer one of the following:

What allows you to project this aura? Who is scared of what you can do?

AURA OF THE BULWARK: [Limited 3] You protect your friends from incoming fire. SHOOT actions that enter your area inflict half damage. End: You use a MOVE action, or are PUSHED or PULLED out of your area. Advanced: Choose one connection attached to your current area. Until this power ends, adversaries may not make SHOOT actions using this connection.

You protected someone not too long ago and earned an unexpected ally - who?

AURA OF HEALING: [Limited 3] Your very presence binds wounds. When a player character starts their turn in your area, they regain 1 stamina. End: You, or an ally in your area, do not lose stamina before the start of your next turn.

Advanced: Once per round, after an ally in your area takes a wound, they may restore their stamina from their discard pile.

Who’s the one person you wish you hadn’t helped with this power?

AURA OF PAIN: [Limited 3] Around you, people get hurt. Take 2 damage from your character deck at the end of each turn. The area you occupy becomes Damaging 1. End: You choose not to take the damage AURA OF PAIN deals to you. Advanced: You may extend the effects of AURA OF PAIN to all areas connected to your current area, but must discard 4 cards per turn to do so.

Your aura has some weird side-effects. What are they? AURA OF WRATH: [Limited 3] You inspire your allies in battle. All allies in your area inflict +1 damage with their SHOOT and STRIKE actions. End: You take a wound. Advanced: When AURA OF WRATH ends, you or one ally in your area may make an immediate SHOOT or STRIKE action.

When you use your aura, situations can get out of hand. What’s the most recent example of this happening?

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Traits

COMPANION You go into battle with a powerful ally. Who, or what, is your ally? Are they a savage beast, a bound demon, a devoted ward, a scrappy sidekick, a mechanical construct, a curiously well-trained swarm of bees - or something else entirely? Where did you learn to fight so closely with a companion? Deal 6 cards to make a COMPANION deck at the start of a battle. Answer one of the following questions:

Is it common to have a companion such as yours, and why? Who would rather you didn’t have a relationship with your ally?

COMBINED ASSAULT: [Always on] You and your companion team up when the going gets tough. When you hit with a SHOOT or STRIKE action, you may draw a card from your COMPANION deck and add damage, derived from its suit, to your attack. In addition, if the card is BLACK, you may use it face-up as temporary stamina. : +1, : +2,

: +3, : +4 damage.

Advanced: No matter the colour of the card, gain it as temporary stamina.

Who has your ally attacked that you didn’t want them to?

LOOK OUT, SIR!: [Always on] Your ally stands between you and your enemies. When you take damage, you may discard cards from your COMPANION deck as though it was your stamina. Advanced: Your companion deck is now 9 cards.

Why does your ally protect you with such zeal?

WE FIGHT AS ONE: [Limited 4] You and your companion move with perfect synchronicity. When you make a SHOOT or STRIKE action, and your target successfully defends, you may make an additional SHOOT or STRIKE action against the same target using a card drawn from your COMPANION deck. Advanced: The SHOOT or STRIKE action from your COMPANION deck now affects the original target and an additional adversary within range.

Who else has your companion helped in the past?

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Traits

CAPTAIN You lead from the front. You might lead a military unit, a research expedition, a cabal of witches and summoners, or a very active thieves’ guild: the organisation doesn’t matter, but the fact that you’re taking point does. Answer one:

Where did you learn to command people like this? When did your commands get you into trouble?

NOT ON MY WATCH: [Limited A] You shut down adversary tactics before they become a problem. When an adversary within 2 areas uses a boost or makes a special action when they receive a wound, cancel that boost or action as an immediate interrupt - it simply doesn’t happen. The adversary may not use the ability again until they inflict a wound. Advanced: The power becomes [Limited 2].

Who is the most important person you’ve infuriated with this ability?

STAY THERE: [Limited 4] You keep your enemy right where you want them. When an adversary attempts to move out of your area, use this power. They take 4 damage and may not move until the start of their next turn.

KEEP MOVING: [Limited 3] You lead the charge. Or, some days, the tactical withdrawal. When you make a MOVE or RECOVER action, all allies within two areas may make an immediate escape MOVE or RECOVER action. Advanced: When you use KEEP MOVING, all allies on the battlefield are affected, not just those within 2 areas.

You retreated, once, and you lost something. What was it?

STAND FAST: [Boost] You maneuver your ally into a strong defensive position. Gain the following BOOST on SHOOT or STRIKE actions: one ally in the target area gains 2 temporary stamina. Advanced: You gain the following BOOST on MOVE and RECOVER actions: one ally in your area gains 2 temporary stamina.

Who do you hope you’ll never have to protect like this?

Advanced: You may use this power when an adversary enters or leaves your area.

What enemy got away, and still have a vendetta?

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Traits

DIRTY FIGHTER Fighting fair is for chumps. You’re a master of the hidden razor, the backstab, the kick to the balls, the salt-in-the-eyes, the twelve-mates-hiding-with-clubsdown-an-alley. You’ve been kicked out of more bars than most people have had hot dinners. Answer one:

Who carries the most impressive scar that you’ve inflicted? What’s the one situation you can’t fight your way out of?

DANGEROUS GROUND: [Limited 3] You make things difficult for your adversaries - traps, caltrops, fire, poison gas, all the old standards. At the beginning of your turn, use this power on the area you are currently occupying to make it Damaging 1 for your adversaries. If you use this power more than once on the same area, it stacks, to a maximum of Damaging 4. Advanced: The first time you use this power on an area, it becomes Damaging 2. This power stacks with LET IT BURN.

What’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever destroyed?

You’ll note that DANGEROUS GROUND is the only power that explicitly stacks with another power, namely LET IT BURN, which is in the next trait. We chose to make it explicit because to do otherwise seemed petty.

GANG UP: [Always on] You hold him, I’ll work the body. When you make a STRIKE action when another ally is in your area, gain +1 damage. Advanced: Once per round, when you miss with a STRIKE action, an ally in your area may make an immediate STRIKE action.

What was the name of your old gang, and where are they now?

FEIGN INNOCENCE: [Limited 2] You make yourself appear harmless, luring your adversaries into a false sense of security. Make a contested USE action against an adversary in your or an adjacent area. They may not attack you until the end of your next turn, though effects directed against all targets in an area may still hurt you. Advanced: You may make the USE action as an interrupt.

Who never believed you were harmless, and never will?

TAKE ADVANTAGE: [Always on] Put them on the back foot, and keep up the pressure. When you inflict a wound on a target, attacks against that target inflict +1 damage until the end of your next turn. Advanced:Until the end of your next turn, if the target misses with a SHOOT or STRIKE action, they take 2 damage.

What’s your signature move, the one that people mutter fearfully about when someone spills your drink?

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Traits

FIRE You control and command fire. Do you use innate ability, magical items, weird science, cunning alchemy, or have you made a pact with some unearthly creature? What attracted you to fire? What’s your favourite thing to burn? Do you enjoy using your power, or is it more of a curse? Answer one of the following:

Where did you learn to control fire like this? Who is scared of what you can do?

FIREBURST: [Limited 2] You hurl an explosive blast at your enemies. When you SHOOT or STRIKE an adversary, declare you’re using this power. If you hit, all other adversaries in the target’s area take damage according to the suit. Advanced: When you inflict damage with FIREBURST, inflict a minimum of 3 damage.

Who have you harmed with your explosive powers?

BLAZING BLADE: [Boost] Your weapons smoulder and burn with fiery power. Gain the following boost on SHOOT or STRIKE actions: inflict BLEED 3. Advanced: [Always on] If an adversary makes a SHOOT or STRIKE action against you with a RED card, they take 1 damage.

Who taught you how to fight like this?

LET IT BURN: [Always On] Taking advantage of your success in battle, you immediately set the building on fire. Once per turn, when you inflict a wound, the area you are occupying, or your target’s area, becomes Damaging 1 for your adversaries. If you use this power more than once on the same area, it stacks, to a maximum of Damaging 4. Advanced: When you make an area Damaging, all connections to that area are Challenging for your adversaries. This power stacks with DANGEROUS GROUND.

What’s the place you regret burning down the most?

PHOENIX: [Always on] You summon fiery power when things look to be at their worst. When you take a wound, inflict 2 damage to all adversaries in your area and regain 2 stamina. Advanced: When you use PHOENIX, you may make an immediate escape move to any area within 2 areas of your current position.

How are you bound so closely with fire?

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Traits

MIGHTY You are the bearer of a mighty weapon - it might be specially-crafted, it could be magical, it could be legendary, or it might just be enormous. It could even be your fists, if you’re trained in the right martial arts, or just big enough and mean enough to do what it takes. What kind of weapon and fighting style do you use, and why? Answer one of the following:

Who taught you how to fight like this? Who thinks that you’re all power and no control?

SMASHING BLOW: [Always on] Your attacks throw adversaries off-balance and tear shields asunder. When you wound an adversary, the next time they would use a BOOST, treat it as a normal attack. Advanced: When you wound an adversary, choose either the power above or: your target may not use their proficiency value until the end of your next turn.

You’ve hurt someone superior to you with this ability - who?

COLLATERAL DAMAGE: [Boost] You have a reputation for causing more than your fair share of havoc. Gain the following boost on SHOOT or STRIKE actions: your attack targets another adversary in the same area. All allies in the target area take 1 damage. Advanced: You may target an additional adversary when you use COLLATERAL DAMAGE, for three targets total.

You’ve hurt someone you didn’t mean to with this ability - who?

WALL OF STEEL: [Limited 4] Your fighting style focuses on self-preservation, but you’re not above defending others. Either: gain 2 temporary stamina at the beginning of your turn, or reduce the damage of an attack on an ally in your area by 2 as an immediate interrupt.

Advanced: Once per battle scene, ignore all the effects of a wound inflicted on you or an ally in your area.

One time, you protected someone with this and you wish you hadn’t. Who was it?

KICK IN THE DOOR: [Boost] You have mastered the element of surprise, and also the element of kicking. Gain the following boost on MOVE actions: the next STRIKE you make before the end of your next turn does double damage. Advanced: Gain the following power: [Limited 2] You create a connection between two areas; you can use this to replace a Challenging or Dangerous connection with an Open one. (Depending on how far away the areas are, you’d better come up with a good reason as to how you find a suitable door to kick in.)

Which is the bar you most regret getting kicked out of?

KNOCKBACK: [Always on] You really send ‘em flying. When you inflict a wound, you may PUSH the target 1 area. If you inflict a wound with a STRIKE action, you may also move into the target’s new area as a free action. Advanced: If your target enters an area occupied by another adversary after the PUSH, inflict 2 damage to each adversary and, if you wish, PUSH the other adversary 1 area.

What’s the biggest opponent you’ve taken down?

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Traits

RAGE When you fight, you fight angry, and you channel that rage into devastating attacks and displays of martial power. What powers your rage - is it martial skill, revolutionary zeal, bestial power, a bond to an animal spirit, experimental drugs, or a cocktail of black magic and nightmare science? Answer one:

What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done? Who is most scared of you?

CORNERED BEAST: [Always on] Stabbing you in the chest was their first mistake. Once per turn, when you take a wound, inflict 4 damage on an adversary in your area. Advanced: The first time you are taken out of action in a battle, heal 10 and make an immediate SHOOT or STRIKE action.

When was the first time you realised that you could strike back?

DRINK THEIR FEAR: [Boost] Sometimes, the best defence is cracking a man’s head off a table. Gain the following boost on STRIKE actions: restore stamina as though you used the card to RECOVER. Advanced: When you use DRINK THEIR FEAR, refill your stamina.

What’ the one kill you can’t shake from your mind?

BERZERKER: [Limited A] You are the embodiment of fury. At the start of your turn, you may activate this power. Until you next take a wound, you: ĐĐ May not use RECOVER or USE actions

RECKLESS: [Limited 3] You take risks that others are too smart to even consider. When you make a SHOOT or STRIKE action, before the GM draws to defend, take a face-down card from your stamina (or temporary stamina) and use either card to resolve the action then discard both. Advanced: Once per round, when you gain temporary stamina, immediately flip the card(s). If any of them are BLACK, make an immediate SHOOT or STRIKE action. Discard the cards.

ĐĐ Suffer BLEED 2 (that you may not shake off; when the power ends, it ends) ĐĐ You inflict +1 basic damage with STRIKE actions ĐĐ Your STRIKE proficiency is 5 Advanced: The first time you take a wound while using BERZERKER, you may choose not to end the power but suffer BLEED 4 instead of BLEED 2 every round. Subsequent wounds will end the power as normal.

What lets you enter this volatile state?

What’s the most trouble you’ve ever been in?

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Traits

SHADOWS You use darkness and misdirection to your advantage, hiding from your adversaries and striking at them from corners they thought safe. Maybe you use magical means; maybe you’re just well-trained in the art of stealth. Answer one of the following:

Where did you learn to fight like this? Why do you fear the light?

AMBUSH: [Limited 2] You’re waiting for them. As a USE action, disappear from the battlefield until the start of your next turn. At the start of your next turn, return to the area you left; the first time you make a SHOOT or STRIKE attack in your turn, you inflict a wound if your attack is successful. Advanced: If you miss with the SHOOT or STRIKE action, inflict damage as dictated by the card’s suit.

What’s the most interesting thing you’ve seen while in hiding?

CLOAK OF SHADOWS: [Limited 3] You duck into the shadows, using stealth and misdirection to defend yourself. As a USE action, gain 3 temporary stamina. Advanced: You start each battle with 3 temporary stamina.

Who have you humiliated with this ability?

IN THE DARK: [Limited A] You grab your target and pull them into the shadows. When you hit an adversary with a STRIKE attack, you and your target are removed from the battlefield and into your own separate area - The Shadows. Neither you nor your target may leave this area until the power ends. You may only attack each other using STRIKE actions during this time, and your adversary may not use their proficiencies. Your target can remove this effect in the same way as a BLEED, and you can choose to end it at the start of any of your turns. Advanced: The Shadows is now Damaging 2 to adversaries.

What’s the longest you’ve spent in the shadows, and why?

Narrative note: Your target should be small enough to manhandle into a separate space. We’re not saying that you can’t use this power on a giant, but that you better have a really good explanation of how you pull it off.

EXTRACTION: [Limited 2] You step into the shadows and sneak away. When you MOVE, escape MOVE to any area on the battlefield. Advanced: At the end of a turn when you use EXTRACTION, use it again as an immediate action.

What’s the most dangerous place you’ve ever snuck into?

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Traits

SPIRIT You’re connected to the spirit world. You know the rituals and rites to contact the dead and have them do your bidding; and you know the costs, too. Powers from this trait have two modes: standard and augmented. When you augment a power, draw a card and consult the table below to see what supernatural fallout occurs. If you get a result you have already had in a battle, draw again. Once all results have been used, reset the count. All Spirit powers have a special recharge condition - you regain access to them when you take a wound. If you suffer a wound as part of using a Spirit power (for example, you trigger Hungry Ghosts and can’t soak the damage with your stamina), this counts as a wound for recharge purposes.

Augment: As above, plus the first time you hit with a SHOOT or STRIKE action before the end of your turn, you cause a wound instead of inflicting normal damage. Advanced: Until the end of your next turn, any damage to your stamina is halved (rounding up).

What does it feel like when you become ethereal?

SPIRIT STORM:

Hungry Ghosts. You and all creatures in your area take 2 damage.

[Recharge: You take a wound] You rip open the wall between worlds to let hungry entities claw at your adversaries’ minds. Trigger this power as a USE action on your turn.

Pox. You suffer BLEED 3.

Standard: All adversaries in your area take 2 damage.

Chill Wind. You and creatures in your area cannot make a MOVE action before the start of your next turn.

Augmented: All adversaries in your and adjacent areas take 2 damage.

Spectral Barrier. The area you are in is now Challenging 2 to all creatures until the end of the battle. Answer one:

Who’s the one spirit you wish would leave you alone? Who keeps pestering you to contact the other world?

SPECTRAL FORM: [Recharge: You take a wound] You shift your body into a semicorporeal state to avoid harm or slip past adversary defences.

Advanced: When you take a wound to recharge the power, you may immediately activate it as a free action. You may not use this power more than once in a single turn.

Why are your spirits so hungry?

WISDOM OF THE ELDERS: [Recharge: You take a wound] Ancient spirits whisper advice, encouragement and guidance to you. Standard: Use at the start of your turn. Draw three cards, play two on your actions, and discard all of them. Augment: As Standard, but draw five cards. Advanced: When you use WISDOM OF THE ELDERS, make an immediate RECOVER action.

Who is the wisest spirit that accompanies you?

Standard: Activate this power at the start of your turn. When you STRIKE or SHOOT a target, or are attacked by an adversary, they lose their proficiency until the end of your next turn.

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Traits

TRANSFORM You have the ability to transform into something other than your standard form. This could be a natural creature, like a wolf or bear; a supernatural entity, like an angel or ghoul; a mechanical construct, like a mech suit or a golem; or whatever else you can imagine - a legendary ancestor, a swarm of spiders, your own ghost, and so on. When you transform, you become unpredictable, and you can’t sustain it for very long, but the rewards are great. Answer one of the following:

Who hates what you can do, and how are they going to try and stop you? Is your form of shifting common in the world, or rare? Why? You can enter your alternate form as a USE action as you focus yourself. When you take a wound for the first time in a battle, though, you immediately transform into your alternate form. While in your alternate form, you gain access to all the powers you have chosen as part of this trait. You can return to your original form on your turn with a USE action. When you go out of action, you return to your original form. DRAWBACKS Being in a transformed state makes you hard to predict. At the end of each turn while you are transformed, draw a card and consult the table below. Out of control: Suffer BLEED 1. Lash out: All allies in your area take 1 damage. If you are bleeding, they take 2 damage. Enervate: Take 2 damage. If you are bleeding, take 4 damage. Chaos: GM chooses: PUSH an ally in your area 1, or PULL an adversary 1. If you are bleeding, GM may choose twice.

POWERS

ARMOUR: Your alternate form has strong armour and countermeasures. When transformed, increase your stamina by 3. On the turn you transform, regain 3 stamina. When you transform back into your normal form, shuffle any excess stamina into your character deck. Advanced: For the purposes of surrounding adversaries, you count as 3 player characters.

What’s the one thing your armour can’t protect you from?

COMBAT: Your alternate form boasts impressive close-range weapons and agility. When transformed, your STRIKE actions inflict +2 damage. Advanced: While in COMBAT form, you may make a free MOVE action at the start of your turn.

Who helped you to gain control over your alternate form?

SUPERWEAPON: Your alternate form brings with it a mighty long-range weapon. When transformed, your SHOOT actions inflict +2 damage. Advanced: When transformed, your area becomes Challenging 2 to adversaries.

What’s the most dangerous prey you’ve taken down with your weapon?

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THE UNNATURAL There is something inside you; something grim and monstrous and other, something hideous and alien, something that guides your hand and whispers in your ear when you sleep. Maybe you asked it inside, maybe you didn’t, but it’s here now, and you’ll never be the same again. Answer one:

What other realm is your power from? Who wants to see you killed and burned for harbouring it?

WRITHING TENTACLES: [Limited A] Under your skin, a knot of tentacles squirm and writhe, begging for an escape. Make a USE action to activate this power. All adversaries in areas connected to yours must defend as though you attacked them; if they fail, they take 3 damage. In addition, draw a card and consult the following table: RED

Pay the price: Discard X from your character deck where X is the number of adversaries you attacked.

BLACK Feed: Heal X, where X is the number of adversaries you attacked. BOOST Die, here, with me: All adversaries hit are PULLED into your area. Advanced: Adversaries in your area, as well as in connected areas, are targeted by the power. In addition, when you die (you take a scar and draw an Ace or an already scarred card), any character in your area, friendly or adversary, is immediately taken out of action as you devolve into a mess of grasping limbs.

You can hide your tentacles, but not all of the time. What’s the most trouble they’ve gotten you into, before now?

THROUGH HELL AND BACK: [Always On] Your blood smokes like brimstone and your skin cracks as you open a door to Somewhere Else. When you make a MOVE action, take 2 damage and enter any area on the battlefield.

Advanced: Any allies in your starting area may join you on your trip through hell, moving to the same area you do, at cost to you of 1 damage per additional character moved. In addition, the first time you die (you take a scar and draw an Ace or an already scarred card), you do not die. You escape to Somewhere Else at the last second (any port in a storm) and spend the rest of the scene desperately clinging to life. You emerge at the end of the scene, although how long you spent down there in relative terms - and what happened - is between you and GM.

One time, you didn’t come back for weeks. What did you see?

THE PARASITIC: [Always on] There is something strange and alien curled around your heart. Once per round, when you take a wound, look at the last card discarded. RED

Your caustic blood sprays out: Make an immediate STRIKE action.

BLACK Void shift: Push the adversary that wounded you back 1 area. BOOST Something holds your wound shut from the inside: Regain 4 stamina. Advanced: When you discard cards from taking a wound, discard 2 fewer cards than the amount stated, to a minimum of 1. In addition, the first time you die (you take a scar and draw an Ace or an already scarred card), you do not die. Whatever great and terrible thing lived inside you takes over your body; you pupate, forming a horrendous cocoon, at the end of the scene a new, taller, better you steps out from a hole in your distended chest cavity. Get ready to do some explaining.

Who convinced you that taking this thing inside yourself was a good idea?

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CHARACTER DETAILS In this chapter you’ll flesh out your characters and cement their place in the world. Foundations will help you work out where your character comes from; fates will determine where they’re going; stories act as a record of your achievements and allow you to advance your character as they grow in power.

FOUNDATIONS Every character has to come from somewhere. Foundations tell us what the character has done in the past, and how it informs their abilities in play - specifically, in dramatic scenes. You can only use foundations in dramatic scenes - and only use proficiencies in battle scenes. Players create their own foundations at character creation. The group creates a core foundation that every player shares when they pick the core. Every player creates one foundation for their own character, and the group as a whole creates them a second. A foundation can be a job, an exploit, an event, a profession or an achievement that helped shape the character. A good foundation has a broad variety of applications in play and helps define the world around the character. For example, “Archer” doesn’t give the player a lot of options, nor does it say much about the setting. “Champion Archer in the Duchess’ Hunting Retinue” has a much broader array of actions that it could help with (hunting, tracking, talking to nobles, survival, knowledge of the natural world, shooting a bow) and also throws

in a couple of facts about the world (there is - or was - a Duchess, and she used to go hunting, or still does).

Alex is playing in a sci-fi adventure - their character is Gelt Dimespinner, a devilishly pretty gunslinger for hire with a pair of dubiously legal laser pistols. Alex says that Gelt’s first background is “Sexiest Pistolero in the New West,” which covers all sort of seduction, shooting, and knowledge of grimy bars on the wrong side of spaceports. The other players want to give Gelt an unusual past, though, so together they brainstorm a second foundation: “Excommunicated from the Temple of the Endless Sun.” (What is the Endless Sun? No-one knows. We’ll find out in play.) When you use a foundation in a dramatic scene, you treat any cards of 2 or lower as though they had a value of 10.

Later, the players are in a dramatic scene. Gelt is pinned down in a corridor under heavy adversary fire during an exfiltration. Alex says that the corridor has heavy blackout shutters on either side, and priests of the Endless Sun know how to disable those to let the light of Creation into the dark places of the universe by chanting activation mantras. Alex draws a card - 2 - but because this is one of Gelt’s foundations, it counts as 10 . Alex describes Gelt slipping on a pair of ultradark goggles as the shutters come down and blinding, unfiltered sunlight floods the corridor, giving everyone a chance to flee.

NOTHING IS SET IN STONE If your core foundation doesn’t fit the group so well any more, change it so it does fit. Character and world creation is going to throw up some surprises, so try to roll with them and adapt rather than rigidly sticking to your original concept.

ALTERNATIVE METHOD FOR FOUNDATIONS Skills: Players define skills that will solve problems in the world - words like Cut, Run, Heal, Evade, Scare, and so on. Each player (and the GM) creates 2 skills and adds them to a central list. Players then choose 3 skills from this list for their character. As above, actions in dramatic scenes that use a skill treat cards of a value of 2 or lower as though they had a value of 10.

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FATES, STORIES AND EXPERIENCE Characters gain experience and new abilities by playing through directed scenes - called fates - that players have created before the session starts.

WHY DIRECTED SCENES? We wanted to reward people for two things - firstly, for pushing the story forward, which they do by playing out scenes that they’ve created themselves, and secondly, for performing for the other players, which they do when they play out scenes that the group has created for them.

You can control any part of the world with fates aside from other player characters - and even then, if you want to involve them, you can do so with their approval. For example: “Salamander Rex [another player character] hauls me out of danger” is fine, so long as you get the approval of Salamander’s player. But even without other player characters, you have control over the environment, of NPCs, over surprise illnesses and random events. Don’t just think in terms of your character’s goals - think what would be exciting to see happen to them within the context of the world. Every player at the table has veto over everyone else if the fate doesn’t fit with the tone of the game or if it makes them uncomfortable. The gamesmaster is the ultimate arbitrator of this. Once you’ve created your own fates, the group creates fates for each other. Working together, go around the table and work out a fate that you’d like to see each character go through. Maybe there’s a bit of their backstory you’d like to explore, or a twist you want to put on their character, or an NPC you’d like them to meet, or a particularly sticky situation you’d like to see them struggle through.

AT CHARACTER GENERATION When you make a character, you get to pick a fate for your character. Here are some sample fates: ĐĐ I get into trouble with my ex-husband ĐĐ The arch-deacon approaches me with a difficult mission ĐĐ I am captured, and must try to escape ĐĐ I uncover a hidden door ĐĐ I talk my way out of trouble ĐĐ I briefly travel faster than the speed of light ĐĐ I secure the team some alien guns for the raid Every fate revolves around something that’s going to happen to the character in the near future. When you make fates, make them as a group, so you can try to make sure that it fits the tone of your adventure and the scale of the rest of the players. Don’t try to work in your long-term goals, otherwise you’ll never advance your character. Choose a fate you’re excited about. It doesn’t have to be positive, and indeed most of the ones above aren’t - it’s interesting when bad things happen, after all. You’re free to pick a positive one, but the GM is responsible for finding the adventure in what you do, and placing challenges and drama in your path.

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I DON’T LIKE THE FATE THE OTHER PLAYERS GAVE ME! On one hand, the other players might have given you a scene that you feel especially uncomfortable with - maybe they’re asking you to roleplay out something that you don’t want to do. In this case, explain that you’d rather not do that, and work out an alternative. On the other hand, you might feel like a scene just doesn’t fit the character that you’ve been trying to build, or that they wouldn’t do such a thing because it goes against their best interests. Even though these things might be true, the other players have chosen the scene because they’re interested in seeing your character develop in a certain way, and that’s great. If you can’t think of a reason why your character would take part in a particular scene, ask the other players for input in framing. Your character could be duped into taking part, convinced by an ally, make a mistake, or choose poorly under stress. Characters don’t grow by only doing what they want, and what’s best, all the time.

RESOLVING FATES AND CREATING STORY CARDS At the end of a scene where a fate plays out, that fate is resolved. When you resolve a fate, draw a card and write a phrase on it that represents how you changed and what you learned - this is now a story card. When you play a story card as part of an action, you gain a BOOST as though it were a FACE card. If the story card is a FACE card, you may pick any boost you like from your list and work it into a suitable explanation using the GM’s guidance. When you resolve two fates, your character advances. Choose a new power from your role or trait, choose a power from a new trait entirely, or advance one of your existing powers. A character can only have three individual powers at any one time, but when they advance, they can swap out an existing power for a new one. Advanced powers that are swapped out stay advanced if the character later picks them up again - you don’t need to “buy” the advanced version a second time. When a character advances, they gain two new fates as before, their player comes up with one, and the group comes up with a second.

GAMESMASTER FATES AND ECHO CARDS

When an echo card is played in combat, the GM should devote some description to the element on the card - if it relates to the scene at hand, that’s great, but if not, they can quickly cut away to show the current state of the element, then cut back to the current scene. If the GM adds some description with regards to the element, after they do so, the adversary they’re currently controlling (whether in attack or defence) may make an immediate additional action. When an echo card is played in a dramatic scene, the element on the card comes into play. Add a success to the required number of successes to resolve the scene, and continue. DURING PLAY At the start of each session, remind other players of your fates. During play, if there’s a pause in proceedings, push play towards one of your fates, or ask other players to play out their fates if you’re excited to see what happens when they do. DURING DEBRIEF At the end of each game, every player discusses with the others what happened and what their new story cards are. Players who have resolved all of their fates should get new ones, as discussed above.

The GM should create a single fate during character creation; they and the players should work together to come up with an interesting fate for the adventure. This can feature an NPC, a particular location or event, or any challenging scenario you can dream up - think of it like a preview of the coming adventure for everyone at the table. Every time the GM resolves a fate, one of their factions does something. After the scene in which the fate is resolved takes place, the GM describes the what the faction does that changes the world in some way - they make a move against the player characters, hire a new member, advance their plans, recover from previous damage, or herald the arrival of some new and terrible threat. (GM: your factions can do something at any time, but when you resolve a scene, they have to.) At the end of each session, if the GM has resolved their fate, they write down a phrase on one of their own cards, drawn at random from their deck - this becomes an echo card. When writing on an echo card, try to sum up the events surrounding the fate that played out and the aftereffects of the scene.

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PLAYING THE GAME When playing Unbound, play progresses in scenes. Each scene is roughly equivalent to its counterpart in a film or book, but there’s no set length. At the start of each scene, characters have access to all their Limited powers and their character deck is restored to full. THERE ARE THREE TYPES OF SCENES: Freeform scenes, where there is no particular challenge or threat to overcome, and nothing is at stake. Typical freeform scenes are: chatting at a bar, planning an assault, travelling through safe territory, or passing the time when waiting in hiding. Battle scenes, where there is a fight between two parties of roughly equal ability and something is at stake. Battle scenes use a tactical map, a rigid turn structure, and every character can take two actions on each of their turns. Dramatic scenes, where the player characters must overcome a challenge of some kind other than a fair (-ish) fight, and there is something at stake.

STAKES When you begin a battle or a dramatic scene, establish the stakes before you start. This is important! When you determine the stakes of a scene, you work out what happens when one side wins and the other side loses. Here are some examples:

If the player characters win, they claw their crummy bar back from the bandits who have taken it over. If their adversaries win, the bandits drive them off and change the bar into a hideout for stagecoach robberies. If the player characters win, they gain access to the vault. If their adversaries win, the player characters are driven out of the arcology and forced to the surface world. If the player characters win, they save the foppish Prince from his captors. If their adversaries win, the Prince dies and the player characters lose significant favour at court.

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If the player characters win, they talk their way through the deal without anything going wrong. If their adversaries win, one of the parties involved double-crosses the players. If the player characters win, they show their opponents that they’re a force to be reckoned with and will be treated with respect. If their adversaries win, the player characters will be the laughing stock of the town. If the player characters win, they lay the violent ghost of this place to rest. If their adversaries win, the ghost leaves the area but haunts them instead. In a battle scene, once one side is taken out of action, the fight is over and the stakes are resolved. In a dramatic scene, once the players have succeeded or failed, the scene is over and the stakes are resolved. At any point during a conflict, either side can back down. When the player characters back down from a combat, they lose and their adversaries get what they want - but they aren’t killed, or injured, unless that was what was at stake, or unless they suffered scars during the scene. When their adversaries back down, the player characters get what they want. You’ll find player characters will back down when a fight looks to have gotten the better of them and they want to survive in the long-term in exchange for a defeat in the here and now, or if they are spectacularly failing a dramatic scene. Their adversaries will back down, more commonly, when the fight has become a formality; when there’s one or two injured goons scuffling around the battlefield and carrying it on any longer is an exercise in maths, rather than narrative. GMs - lead the fight like a director, not like a warlord. Don’t be afraid to cut if the scene is running on too long.

When you’re setting stakes for a conflict, be wary of including death or serious injury as part of them; very few fights are just brawls to the death with no reason other than violence, and - whisper it - they’re not very interesting, anyway. Instead, think of what all characters involved have to lose, and work around that. Here are some examples of things to lose: ĐĐ Property ĐĐ Items ĐĐ Access to an area ĐĐ Respect ĐĐ A love interest (or love interests)

Work out whether the loss is temporary or permanent. Temporary losses can be negated in time; the characters will need to take a different approach, or wait until the damage done has healed, or source additional materials to achieve their goals. Permanent losses are just that; there’s no way around them, not unless the situation significantly changes. You might mix them up, too. If the characters have a long-term goal of Gain Respect from the King and their current goal is Rescue the Prince from Murderous Cultists, and they fail in their quest, then while the Prince is permanently dead they might still gain respect from the King - they’ll just have to find some other way of doing so.

ĐĐ An ally (because they die, or because they now distrust them) ĐĐ Control over a situation

DRAMATIC SCENES There are two kinds of structured scene in Unbound. Battle scenes (detailed later) use a tactical map and lots of extra rules to simulate pulp action. Dramatic scenes cover every other kind of challenge - as a rough guide, if you’re not using a tactical map, it’s a dramatic scene. Some examples of dramatic scenes: talking your way past a guard, smuggling contraband from a tightlycontrolled city state, navigating a dangerous meteor field, bargaining with a recalcitrant AI, bartering for a superior hat selection, fleeing an oncoming army, taking out a handful of sentries, researching a magical spell, and negotiating a tense drug deal. The focus of dramatic scenes is much broader than battle scenes, but they work in largely the same way. The core is the same - make an action, play a card, and the GM opposes by drawing a card from their own deck.

CAN DRAMATIC SCENES HAVE FIGHTING IN THEM? Yes! Dramatic scenes can cover whatever the GM and the players want them to. If you want to have a big centrepiece fight with challenges, tactics and teamwork, make it a battle scene. If you want to spend five or ten minutes on a fight - if one side is massively outnumbered or outclassed, say, or the momentum of the game dictates that keeping scenes moving would be better than slowing down - then use a dramatic scene.

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SYSTEM

“Tread. Tread… Nitrous?”

“I love it,” says the GM. “Okay, you know that Tread is the only guy around here who can sort you out, but STAKES are what’s going to happen, broadly, after the he’s really upset about what happened between the scene is over depending on which side comes out on top. For example: “If we win, I develop a new invisibility potion. pair of you, so he’s going to take some convincing. This If we fail, I develop a new invisibility poison, but have scene will require 5 successes to complete. We’ll start no way of telling that until it’s too late.” There are more off outside Tread’s fortress-garage in the badlands details on stakes in the section above. as a couple of his guards - big guys, not many teeth SUCCESSES is the number of successful actions (i.e. the between them, even fewer eyebrows thanks to the player draws higher than the GM) needed to get what heat-wash off the grav-engines, poke you in the chest you want out of a scene. The precise nature of the actions and tell you you’ve got some nerve showing your face themselves doesn’t matter, so long as they make narrative sense. (i.e. If the scene is “sneak into the castle” then the around here.” Dramatic scenes have two elements:

characters could: sneak past patrols, steal uniforms, bluff past guards, eliminate sentries and drug the guard dog’s dinner - all with the same mechanics.)

A scene of average difficulty (with regards to the setting - see the boxout below for more details) requires 3 successes to complete. An easy scene requires 1 success; a challenging scene requires 5. A truly epic scene requires anything from 7 to 10 successes to resolve. When a player makes an action in a dramatic scene, they describe what their character does to tip the situation in their favour and then draw a card and the GM draws to oppose them. (If their action relates to one of their character’s foundations, a player treats any card of 2 or lower as though it had a value of 10.) If player’s card is equal to or higher than the GM’s card, they succeed - mark off one of the successes on the scene. If their card is lower than the GM’s card, they fail. If the players fail 3 times in a dramatic scene, they have lost.

“What did I do?” asks Frumious’ player. “I dunno. Let’s find out.”

FICTION AND DIFFICULTY We can’t give examples of scenes of various difficulties because everything is relative depending on the scale and impact of the adventure. For example, if the adventure focuses around war-crazed cyberbarbarians with massive robotic legs and arms, opening the front door to a house won’t be a problem; you might not even describe it happening. But if the adventure focuses around a group of wise-cracking rats, then opening that same door presents a monumental challenge.

Players can act in any order in a dramatic scene, but it’s considered good manners to let everyone have a go before acting again.

The GM is building a dramatic scene; Frumious Peake is looking to get transport and supplies for a bank raid on the dark side of the planet. While this could be a freeform scene, the GM is interested in seeing how Frumious can tackle a challenge, so instead they make it a dramatic scene. Looking at their notes, the GM sees that Frumious’ player invented a grav-racing syndicate (and he’s not on good terms with them any more), so of course it makes sense to have them as the only people who can supply the goods at short notice. “What’s the name of the boss at your old racing syndicate?” The GM asks Frumious’ player.

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STORY AND ECHO CARDS If a player draws a story card during a dramatic scene and the GM’s card is higher, they can describe how the story helps them overcome the challenge at hand and draw a second card to replace it, effectively giving them a second chance at success. If the GM draws an echo card during a dramatic scene and the opposing player’s card is higher, the GM describes how the echo has made it difficult to succeed, and the player must draw a second card to replace it, effectively giving them a second chance at failure. If an echo and a story card are played on the same action, the story card trumps the echo.

JOKERS In dramatic scenes, Jokers introduce new elements. When a player uses a Joker on their action, they should work with the GM to bring a new character, location, opportunity or item into the scene, and then draw another card as normal. If the action succeeds, it counts as two successes; if it fails, it counts as two failures.

Gelt Dimespinner, Roxario Blast and Frumious Peake are trying to break into a bank vault on the dark side of the planet as security drones patrol the area with laser sensor arrays. The players need three successes to win this scene. Roxario’s player, Gareth, says that Roxario is using her foundation of “Grew up on the streets of the Arcology Carcosa” to sneak past the patrols by using thick concrete pillars - like the ones in Carcosa - to conceal her bodyheat signature. Gareth draws a card - a Joker! He draws again on top of it, but the GM’s is higher. The GM marks two failures (because of the Joker - normally they’d mark one) and says that, while the pillars mask her heat signature, the ruins are rigged with arcanelooking scrying windows that relay her location to the drones. Alex says their character, Gelt, is using the foundation of “Sexiest gunslinger in the New West” to shoot down the drone - and all of the scrying windows! Alex draws against the GM and wins; the GM marks a success and describes the drone crashing into a bulkhead. Others will come to investigate it soon. Meanwhile, Frumious is attempting to crack open the door. His foundations don’t really apply (he’s a missionary and a grav-racer) so he doesn’t get to treat any cards as higher than usual. However, his player - Lucy - lucks out and wins the draw. The GM marks a success and Lucy describes Frumious artlessly spraying plastic explosive into what he reckons the weak point of the vault door is. Gareth takes his turn, and describes Roxario running forward to rip the auto-laser off the drone to defend herself as a fresh wave of adversaries comes in. The GM asks what foundation he’s using to do so, and Gareth explains how the Arcology Roxario grew up in was a nightmare of twisted, repurposed machinery from a forgotten age. The GM buys it, and lets him

use the foundation. He draws, and beats the GM, and describes how Roxario lives up to her name and blows away an incoming drone with a stolen weapon. The GM marks a success, and the scene is resolved - the players win! Frumious and the GM describe the vault door smashing off its hinges and clanging to the ground, and the characters dashing in through the smoke amid fire from the drones.

OUTCOME If you achieve the required number of successes with no failures, you get what you want and an unexpected bonus. (“Yes, and.”) If you achieve the required number of successes with some failures, you get what you want with a slight complication related to what happened in the scene. (“Yes, but.”) If you suffer 3 failures but achieve some successes, you don’t get what you want, but you get a little benefit regardless. (“No, but.”) If you suffer 3 failures and achieve no successes, you don’t get what you want and some unexpected complication is added on top. (“No, and.”)

In the example above, the players had three successes and one failure - “Yes, but.” The GM says that they get the vault door open, but the chaos of the fight against the drones has attracted even heavier security, so getting out won’t be easy.

ALTERNATE OPTIONS Modify failures: You can tweak the number of failures needed to make the player characters lose a scene up or down to make a situation safer or more dangerous. You can also reduce a scene to one success before one failure if you want to represent a knife-edge, all-or-nothing moment. Apply difficulty: You can treat certain actions as more difficult than others. When a player makes a difficult action, if the card you draw to oppose them is 2 or lower, treat it as though it had a value of 10.

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BATTLE SCENES Every good Saga involves combat in some way. Here’s how to make that happen.

THE BATTLEFIELD A battlefield is made up of areas and connections. What an area is depends on the scale of the fight you’re taking part in - there’s no hard-and-fast rule for the size of ground an area represents. In a fight that takes place in a building, each room might be an area; in a battle with a wider scope, that focuses on an entire street, each building might be an area; in a combat operation to take a city, each district might be an area. The GM might even have different scales present in the same fight - if a character was defending her family home, say, the home itself might be made up of six areas while the street and buildings outside, despite being larger in square footage, might only get one or two devoted to them. Think of an area as a location where it is interesting to have a fight, distinct from other nearby areas. There is a guide to making a battle map in the GM advice section, page 103. When your character occupies an area, they’re not standing still - they’re moving around inside it to respond to threats, taking cover, and generally acting like a person in combat would rather than standing still on a battle map. Some areas are Challenging X to enter - they’re locked off, hard to climb up, or dangerous terrain. When a character enters a Challenging area, the card they assign to their movement must beat one drawn by the GM, for them to get through unharmed. If their card doesn’t beat the GM’s, they can choose to either not make the move and stay in their area, or take damage equal to the Challenging rating of the area. Some areas are Damaging X. When a player or adversary starts their turn in a Damaging area, they take damage equal to the Damaging rating of the area. Connections are more conceptual; they don’t exist in real terms, and it’s not possible for a character to occupy one during their turn - they’re simply used to move from one area to another. Connections are either Open (so they can be freely used with a MOVE action) or Challenging in

the same way as areas, above. A route from a living room to a kitchen would be Open, for example, but the route to that same kitchen from the street outside would be Challenging - there are no easy methods of access, and characters would have to jump through a window to get in. If both an area and the connection to it are Challenging, use the higher of the two to determine the damage inflicted if a character fails.

CROWDSOURCE YOUR TERRAIN Feeling especially lazy, GM? One of our playtesters, Ant Stiller, gave us an excellent idea: get your players to write down two or three ideas for areas on sticky notes, then collect them and arrange them on a wet-erase mat (or another piece of paper), then join them together with connections as usual.

ADVERSARIES AND DIFFICULT TERRAIN Some adversaries ignore unusual terrain. A fire golem isn’t going to be bothered by wading through a pool of lava, and a giant bat isn’t going to stumble on loose rocks as it flies overhead. The GM is encouraged to use their best judgement on this. Generally, if a player character creates a Challenging or Dangerous terrain effect, it will affect the adversaries they’re fighting. Sometimes, though, adversaries aren’t suited to the terrain they’re in. In Damaging terrain, they take damage in the same way as a player. When they attempt to enter Challenging terrain, the GM draws a card - if it’s RED, they can enter unharmed. If it’s BLACK, they either take the damage as they enter, or they can choose to cancel their move action and stay where they are.

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INITIATIVE The GM chooses which character (or adversary) goes first in a scene, according to what makes the most narrative sense. After that, the player who has just acted chooses the next character (or a group of mooks of the same type) to act, and so on, until all characters in the battle have acted - this is a round. When the round ends all players and adversaries have acted - the last player to act gets to choose the character who goes first in the new round.

If a character has acted, they can’t act again immediately afterwards, even if they were last to act in the previous round. We recommend using action tokens to help remember who’s acted in a round; each character has a token, or chit, that they throw into a cup when they’ve acted. When noone has any action tokens left, it’s time for a new round. You could also experiment with an action card that you flip over when you’ve taken your turn, or some system of jolly little flags.

LAYING OUT YOUR CARDS Each player should lay out their cards as shown above at the start of a battle scene. On the top row, going from left to right, is the discard pile, the character’s current stamina, and their temporary stamina aligned horizontally on the far right. Below that is the character deck.

PLAYER TURN SEQUENCE Declare two actions - STRIKE, SHOOT, MOVE, RECOVER or USE. Players can declare the same action twice during their turn if they wish. Draw two cards - Taken from the character deck. Assign cards - Choose which card to use for which action. Remember that the suit of the card will have different effects during different actions. Resolve actions - Play out the actions in any order. If the action requires the GM to draw against the player, GM draws and cards are compared - highest card wins. Play out the entirety of one action, and any after-effects, before beginning the second. Choose the next character to act - the player chooses the next character to act, whether an ally or an adversary.

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GMs DURING PLAYER TURNS Actions the GM may have to perform during player turns are as follows, in no particular order as they are usually responses. Make DEFEND actions - if the players attacked an adversary the GM must draw a card for the adversary’s defence, remembering to factor the adversary’s proficiency into the result. Resolve powers activated from players wounding an adversary - some adversaries have reactions that happen when they are wounded. These take effect at the end of the current action. Mark off damage - the players will damage the adversaries, sometimes causing wounds. Be sure to alert the players when a wound is dealt. Some player powers activate when this happens and it should also be an important part of your description during a battle.

GM TURN SEQUENCE Declare actions - Most adversaries can make two actions during their turn. Legendaries can make three actions, and mooks are limited to one MOVE action and one SHOOT or STRIKE action. Draw cards - Taken from the GM’s deck. Resolve actions - Play out the actions in any order. If the action requires a player to draw against the GM, both draw and cards are compared - highest wins. Play out the entirety of one action, and any after-effects, before beginning the second. Choose the next person to act - the GM chooses the next character or adversary to act. PLAYER ACTIONS DURING GM TURNS Actions the player may have to perform during player turns are as follows: Draw defense cards - if an adversary attacked the players, the targeted player must draw a card for their defence, remembering to factor proficiency into the value if applicable. Resolve powers - Some player character powers trigger during the turns of other characters. If the action is an interrupt, it happens immediately and can affect the current action. If not, it happens when the current action has been resolved. Discard damage - If stamina damage is inflicted, discard stamina starting with temporary stamina. If wound or BLEED damage is inflicted, discard directly from the character deck.

TURNS When you act, it’s your turn. On your turn you can make two actions, chosen from the list of five on the following page. You can make the same action twice, if you’d like. Special abilities from your role and trait will change the way that some of these actions work. Declare your action types, draw two cards, then assign them to the actions however you want. Your card’s colour and whether or not it is a FACE card will have an effect on the outcome.

When you play a FACE card, you gain a boost. Boosts are determined by your role (and your chosen powers, maybe) but they all function in the same way - they give you a small reward for accomplishing a particular task with skill. Can players modify their actions if the situation changes? They can’t. If a character makes two STRIKE actions, for example, and the first one kills the target, they can’t retroactively change that second STRIKE to a different kind of action. Players are free to simply not perform actions, if they wish, but they cannot replace them with a different action altogether.

EVENT ORDER Sometimes, the precise timing of actions can matter quite a lot; if an adversary explodes when a character’s player takes it out of action, and the character can PUSH it when they inflict a wound with a STRIKE action, if they take it out of action does it explode before or after they push it? GMs should err on the ruling that whatever’s more interesting, most exciting, or most beneficial to the player, happens. So in the example above, it moves before it explodes, and not after, so the player character escapes harm.

SURROUNDING When one side has a greater number of characters in an area than the other, they are surrounding the other force. Characters who are surrounded double any damage they take when they use a SHOOT or MOVE action. Some abilities allow characters to make escape moves. When you make an escape move, treat it as a normal MOVE action, but the user cannot take any damage as a result just ignore it. You still draw a card to resolve the move. When an adversary leaves an area in which they are surrounded, they take damage equal to twice the number of player characters in the area they are leaving.

All you need to declare is your action types, not the specifics of those actions. You don’t need to say: “I’m going to MOVE to this area and then SHOOT at the orc holding the auto-crossbow,” but instead “I’m going to MOVE and SHOOT.” You can move in any direction and shoot at any target in range. You can even change the order in which the actions take place, if you’d like.

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PUSHES, PULLS AND FORCED MOVEMENT When you PUSH an adversary, it makes an immediate move action away from you (usually one area). When you PULL an adversary, it makes an immediate move action towards you. If this takes them through Challenging terrain, they test to avoid damage as normal, but they can’t choose to avoid the damage by not entering the area. Unless otherwise stated, the target is moved one area. Longer pushes (which are rare) are denoted by a number after the word push or pull - a PUSH 2 effect moves the target twice.

ATTACKING MORE THAN ONE TARGET Some powers specify that you may target more than one adversary with a single attack. When you do so, only draw one card to attack as normal - all adversaries targeted draw a card in defence.

STRIKE DOESN’T HAVE TO BE HAND-TO-HAND When you attack an adversary in your area, you’re making a STRIKE action, but that doesn’t have to represent your character going toe to toe with the adversaries and putting up their dukes for a rumble. You can describe the attack in any way you like; if you’re a gunfighter, you can do room-to-room clearing with your pistols. If you’re a battle mage, you can sling hexes and short-range magic missiles. Anything goes.

ACTION TYPES MOVE. You move from one area of the battlefield

RECOVER. You steel yourself, raise your defences,

BLACK: Lose 1 stamina.

BLACK: Recover stamina equal to the value of your suit.

RED: Lose no stamina.

RED: Recover stamina equal to the value of your suit.

FACE: As colour, plus you gain a boost.

FACE: Recover stamina equal to the value of your suit, plus you gain a boost.

into another.

If a move is Challenging, your card must be higher than the GM’s card to proceed without taking damage.

STRIKE. You attack an adversary in your area. BLACK: Lose no stamina. RED: Lose 1 stamina. FACE: As colour, plus you gain a boost. If your card is higher than the GM’s card, you hit and inflict damage.

SHOOT. You attack an adversary up to two areas away from you.

BLACK: Lose no stamina. RED: Lose 1 stamina. FACE: As colour, plus you gain a boost. If your card is higher than the GM’s card, you hit and inflict damage.

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or take cover.

A Challenging recover action is used to stop a BLEED effect on a player character.

USE. You interact with the environment in a way not

covered by the other actions (defuse a bomb, intimidate an adversary, block off a doorway, put out a fire, maintain position in a gale etc). BLACK: Lose 1 stamina. RED: Lose no stamina. FACE: As colour, plus you gain a boost (seeing as USE is such a rare action, the boost will be determined by the GM - there aren’t specifics like the other actions). If your card is higher than the GM’s, you achieve your aims.

ATTACKS ON MULTIPLE TARGETS

DAMAGE

When a power allows you to target multiple adversaries, only one card is drawn for the action and then applied to each target.

Not every hit is going to take you down. Player characters are smart, determined, tough, and experienced individuals, and they know how to roll with the punches. Their adversaries are pretty serious operators, too, who won’t give up without a fight.

Boosts from attacks may only apply to one affected target unless a boost says otherwise.

Example turn: Alex is playing Gelt Dimespinner, Maverick Sci-Fi Gunfighter. Gelt is storming an adversary spellship as it attempts to drop off a load of assassins to the royal palace on the Prince’s half-birthday. Dimespinner’s role is Deadeye. Alex describes Gelt’s actions in-character. “I’m going to draw my hekatomb arcanopistol and scramble up to a firing position on the crow’s nest, then fire down at the lead assassin on deck, all the while shouting encouragement to my team and looking fantastic. That’s a MOVE and a SHOOT action.” Alex draws two cards - a J and a 7 , and they can assign either of them to either action. Taking the stamina loss to get a better chance of inflicting damage, they assign the J to the SHOOT action and the 7 to the MOVE action. They discard 2 stamina - the GM describes assassins’ laser-shuriken smashing into the solar mast, tearing off chunks of mythsteel and the haematite binding sigils, causing Gelt to roll into cover as they reach the crow’s nest. The move up to the crow’s nest is Challenging, so the GM draws a card against Alex’s - they get a 5 , which is lower, so Gelt doesn’t take any additional damage. The GM then draws to defend against the SHOOT action and gets 8 , which isn’t enough to defend. Gelt’s shot hits home. Because Alex played a FACE card, Alex gets a boost on the SHOOT action because Gelt is a Deadeye, the boost is that the adversary takes a wound rather than normal damage from the attack. “Your pistol rains bolts of fire down on the lead assassin, and their shimmering chameleon robes ignite!” says the GM. “Alex, who’s up next?”

Unbound uses slightly different rules for damage and injury for player characters and adversaries; although they use the same terms (damage, wounds, stamina) they interact with them a little differently. Adversaries are easy to run and manage for the GM, but players must make round-to-round choices about offensive and defensive actions, otherwise they’ll go down in pretty short order.

INFLICTING DAMAGE Adversaries inflict variable damage depending on whether or not they used a BLACK or RED card to make their attack, as detailed in their specific rules. Player characters inflict variable damage depending on the suit of the card used to make the attack: ’s inflict 1 damage ’s inflict 2 ’s inflict 3 ’s inflict 4 Some powers cause damage to be halved. When halving damage, always round up. Damage can only be halved once; you can’t half a half to make a quarter.

AN EASY WAY TO REMEMBER HOW MUCH DAMAGE EACH SUIT DOES If you need to remember how much damage a suit does: have a single point at the tip (1) have two curves on the top (2) have three circles on them (3) have four points (4)

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TAKING DAMAGE Player characters and adversaries alike have a stamina rating - how many attacks they can endure before one breaks through their defences and does some serious damage. When a battle scene starts, a player lays out cards equal to their stamina as shown on page 68. When one character inflicts damage on another, it’s subtracted from their stamina. If the target has enough stamina to equal the damage taken, they manage to negate the worst of the damage. Each hit taken reduces the character’s stamina, so multiple small attacks can wear them down as easily as a single large one.

WOUNDS If the character doesn’t have enough stamina to equal incoming damage, they discard the remainder from their character deck, and then they take a wound. Wounds are big, serious hits that often come with special effects attached to them - adversaries each have their own wound descriptions, detailed in their entry in the Adversaries chapter, pages 113-137. When a character takes a wound,

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it’s time to get descriptive, as their adversary has finally broken through their defences and landed a decent blow. When a player character takes a wound, they discard a number of cards equal to the wound value from their character deck. If a character takes a wound from a source without a specific description of wound damage, they discard 6 cards. When an adversary takes a wound - as they don’t have a character deck - they subtract 1 from their wounds total. Some powers - generally those used by player characters - inflict a wound, rather than damage. If a player character is the target of such a power, bypass their stamina and discard the damage directly from their character deck. If an adversary is the target of such a power, reduce their wounds by 1 and restore their stamina to its full value. When a player character runs out of cards in their character deck, they can play face-down cards from their stamina as though it was their character deck. If, at the start of their turn, their character deck and stamina both hit 0 cards, they’re out of action. An adversary is taken out of action when they lose their last wound.

Sally Nines, career criminal and current escapee, is under fire from a SWAT trooper with an submachine gun in the offices of a shady insurance company. Sally has 4 stamina currently out of a maximum of 5 stamina. Her player, Michael, draws to defend against the GM’s two attacks. Both of his cards are lower than the GM’s cards, so Sally takes damage from both attacks. Cross-referencing their card colour against the adversary’s entry (the SWAT trooper, page 135) the GM determines that the first attack inflicts 3 damage, and the second attack inflicts 2. The GM describes the first attack: “Your cover is torn apart by incoming fire, sending wood and plaster chips spraying everywhere,” says the GM. “Damnit! I scramble out, dashing towards fresh cover, but…” “There’s that second hit.” Sally takes 2 damage, but only has 1 stamina remaining. Her 1 stamina is removed and the additional 1 damage is taken directly from her character deck. The adversary’s wound result is: Wound: Discard 5, and Flush Out. Until target leaves their area, they may not make RECOVER actions. “What happens?” asks the GM. “Hm,” says Michael. “I’ve got armour on, so I reckon that it hits me, but I’m not bleeding or anything.” “Sure! You’ll have a hell of a bruise, and maybe a couple of broken ribs, but your armour holds out. Your momentum carries you forward - discard five cards from your character deck for the wound. Also, the special effect on this adversary’s wounds is that you can’t make RECOVER actions until you leave the area, so: as you dive into cover and check your torso for holes, the thin dividing wall is smashed to bits by heavy incoming fire. You can see the exit door, just across from you, but right now this place is a killzone.”

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TEMPORARY STAMINA Temporary stamina represents tactical advantage, combat tricks, canny positioning, magical defences or emergency measures. When a player character gains temporary stamina, they deal cards equal to the amount of temporary stamina gained next to their normal stamina (we recommend you deal the cards sideways to show that they represent something different). Temporary stamina doesn’t stack. If a character who has temporary stamina receives additional temporary stamina, and the new stamina received is lower than or equal to their current value, it has no effect. If the new value is higher, they may choose to discard their current temporary stamina and replace it with the new value from their character deck.

Itinerant Elven Knight Feynault has 3 temporary stamina. An infusion of life-giving chemicals from Feynault’s Protector friend, the Alchemist, gives her 2 temporary stamina. Unfortunately, as this is lower than Feynault’s current total, the temporary stamina has no effect and the effect is ignored. Later on in the battle, Feynault has 1 temporary stamina after taking a hit. The Alchemist offers help again, in the form of 2 temporary stamina. Feynault accepts it; her player discards his current temporary stamina and deals 2 temporary stamina from her character deck.

HEALING AND RECOVERING STAMINA Player characters can (and should, if they want to stay alive) restore their stamina up to their maximum by making RECOVER actions or receiving healing. Adversaries can’t restore their stamina in this way, and instead each time they take a wound, they restore their stamina to full. When a player makes a RECOVER action, they restore stamina from their character deck equal to the value of the suit used: 1 for , 2 for , 3 for and 4 for . When a player character regains stamina, they draw cards from their character deck and deal into their stamina. When a character is healed or heals themselves, they shuffle their discard pile and remove cards equal to the amount healed. These cards should first be used to refill stamina, and any remainder should be shuffled into the character deck.

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WHAT HAPPENS WHEN MY CHARACTER LOSES STAMINA? It depends on your character, and how they react to danger. But here’s some ideas - they parry the blow, and shock runs down their arm; several shots punch through their cover, forcing them to relocate; they roll out of the way of the attack, ending up on their hands and knees; they turn and run to evade incoming fire; they twist their body so the blow impacts their shoulder, not their jaw; they blind-fire round a wall and curse as they frantically reload. What stamina and wounds mean narratively is up to each player and the GM; in one adventure, regenerating superheroes might be able to take bullets to the chest with few problems, but in another, streetwise urchins might get knocked out by a backhanded swipe from a guard. There are more details on this in the GM section, page 90.

BLEED BLEED damage is an ongoing effect applied to characters that represents damage over time - bleeding, fire, poison, acid, bugs crawling over their skin, and so on. A character suffering a BLEED takes damage equal to the value of the BLEED at the start of each of their turns. Player characters suffering a BLEED discard the damage directly from their character deck, bypassing stamina. Adversaries take it as normal damage, subtracting from their stamina as usual. BLEED damage doesn’t stack. If a character under the effect of a BLEED is the target of a new BLEED, and it’s of a higher value than the BLEED they are currently suffering, it replaces the old BLEED. If the new BLEED is of a lower value, they subtract the value of the BLEED from their character deck immediately but do not apply the new BLEED to their character as an ongoing effect. A player character can remove a BLEED by making a RECOVER action on their turn and describing what they’re doing to mitigate the damage. In addition to recovering stamina, the GM draws against the character’s RECOVER card - if the player’s card is higher, they can remove the BLEED effect. Alternatively, an ally in their area may make a USE action to remove the BLEED.

An adversary can remove a BLEED in the same way, but they don’t draw against the player who inflicted the BLEED - instead, they just draw a single card in exchange for giving up an action on their turn. If it’s RED, they remove the bleed. Mook-level adversaries - low level chumps who are mainly there to make the player characters look good don’t take BLEED damage; instead, they take the additional damage once when the effect is applied and then immediately remove the BLEED.

RUNNING OUT OF CARDS AND GOING OUT OF ACTION When a player goes out of action, they and the GM work together to describe how their character is taken out of the fight - if they’re knocked out, incapacitated due to pain, restrained or arrested, scared off, intimidated into backing down, etc. The player shuffles their deck and draws a card which they will then scar as they sustain a permanent reminder of this failure - or they might be permanently removed from the adventure. There are more details on scars on page 76. When an adversary goes out of action, it’s up to the GM what fate befell them. Depending on the actions of the players and the tone of the campaign, adversaries taken out of action might be rendered unconscious, or driven off, or flat-out killed, or captured and arrested, or anything your mind can devise.

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SCARS, AND GOING OUT OF ACTION You’ll receive a scar during character generation; no-one leads a perfect life, and Unbound characters certainly don’t. You’ll also receive a scar when you go out of action in combat.

GAINING A SCAR Shuffle your discard pile, then draw a card from it. This is your scar - something has gone wrong and it’ll leave a lasting impression. What precisely went wrong is up to you and the GM, but here are some ideas based on the suit of the card you drew.

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Physical injury such as a broken bone, lacerated skin, permanent limp, a missing limb



Jealousy, a new adversary, hatred, a trademark scar



Fear, humiliation, social loss, mental scars, embarrassment, curses



Loss of an important item, sensory loss, memory loss, skill loss

Write the injury on the card you drew and adjust the value to represent your scar. For non-FACE cards, half the numerical value of the card. For FACE cards, Jacks become 5, Queens become 6, and Kings become 7. Even if you half the value of a FACE card, it still counts as a FACE card for the purposes of triggering boosts and powers. Scars function as normal cards with two exceptions: they cannot be used to trigger proficiencies or foundations, and they do not allow you to recharge Limited powers. If the card is a King, your character drags themselves to their feet and carries on fighting. The value of the card is still adjusted, but your character re-enters the fight - deal 27 cards from your discard into your character deck and take a normal turn. If the card is an Ace, you take a mortal wound, or are permanently disabled, or suffer such a massive change of heart, that you can no longer continue. Deal 27 cards from your discard into your hand, as though you had drawn a King, and take another turn, but your character will be removed from the game at the end of this battle. If an Ace is drawn during the scar phase of character creation, redraw. It’s no fun to die straight out of the gate. Draw a scar each time your character goes out of action in a battle. If the card already has a scar on it, your character is removed from the story at the end of the scene as though you drew an Ace. If the card is a story card, scar it anyway. The value is halved, but it still has all the normal effects of a story card. If the card is a Joker, the next time you play it on an action and fail, you are removed from the game at the end of the scene as though you scarred an Ace after going out of action. If this happens in a dramatic scene, we’re really sorry. Even if you’re out of action, you can be healed by others if you need to get back in the fight. As recovered and temporary stamina is taken from the character deck, you can’t gain any if your character deck is zero: you need to receive healing to re-enter the fight - a few powers, mainly those of the Protector, offer healing.

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GAMESMASTER While this chapter is intended for gamesmasters, players can - and should - read it too. Inside are the rules for factions and twists (the GM’s characters and powers) but it also has a lot of guidance on how to run, and play the game.

FACTIONS Factions are the movers and shakers of your adventure world - they get stuff done, and generally the player characters get in their way (or help them out, if they’re smart). When you’re creating the world, create one faction. Each faction has five parts:

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NAME:

The name of the faction, and brief description of what they’re like.

STRENGTH: What the faction is skilled at or devoted to. WEAKNESS: A fatal flaw that might prove the faction’s downfall. WANT:

What the faction wants right now. This can and should - change from session to session.

FACE:

An NPC that represents the organisation - a leader, a contact, a specialist. Create a face that the player characters will meet and interact with.

During world creation, create two factions. For example:

NAME:

Stryx Orbital Mining Company

STRENGTH: Acquisition of resources though staggering force WEAKNESS: A greed that strips star systems WANT:

Those protesters to get off that moon; it is NOT a site of “astounding natural beauty,” it is a big pile of money floating in space

FACE:

“Col.” Drak Hacksmash, cigar aficionado and the only person to destroy a sun and replace it with a multi-storey car park

NAME:

The Onrushing Dark, a malevolent intelligence at the heart of the moon

STRENGTHS: Viral possession of humanity through memetic shadows WEAKNESS: Sunlight and overclocked antibiotics WANT:

To infect Earth’s vat-grown flesh farms

FACE:

Senator Naismith, currently possessed, with access to high levels of government

TWISTS Twists are one-shot powers that wrong-foot the player characters - starvation, traps, injuries, ambushes, weird terrain and other things that make battle scenes harder for our heroes to handle. Immediately before every battle scene, choose a twist to apply. Once you’ve used a twist once in an adventure, you can’t use it again.

PREPARING FOR A GAME If you’re the sort of GM who loves spending time preparing for a session, you can lavish loads of detail on your factions - they are, after all, the closest thing you get to a player character of your own. Pick out, or create, art to represent the face of the organisation and where they hang out. Have a think about what their plans are in the near future and sketch out some options. We aren’t the sort of GMs who like preparing, though. So we tend to create our factions at the table, and ask the players for input during the process.

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TWISTS, BY CORE We’ve arranged these twists by core for ease of use and to help spark ideas, but there’s no need to stick to the adventure core when you choose them. For example, if you’re playing a Magi adventure in a crumbling ancient ruin, then The Earth Cracks from the Wild list could simulate a temple coming apart at the seams rather than an earthquake - or, say, if you’re playing a Warrior adventure in a contested mine, then Demonic Incursion

from the Devout list could represent an entrance from which adversary warriors enter the fight. As ever, use what you like, and reskin it to fit your game. Also; we can’t recommend that you use twists when the players are fighting Legendary adversaries. They’re hard enough already!

DEVOUT NO SUCCOUR - The characters are hexed, poisoned

or otherwise suffering the effects of wicked magick, and they will find no real respite until the fight is over. When a player character regains stamina or gains temporary stamina, they regain -1 stamina to a minimum of 1.

WEAKENED - The evil miasmas and thrice-bound curses of

this place are starting to take their toll, and the characters feel weak - their arms are limp, their hands are shaking, and their attacks are exhausting. SHOOT and STRIKE actions made with a inflict 1 damage, not 4.

HUNTED - Dark figures circle like vultures, looking for an

opening to exploit. If a character is in an area with no other player characters and they take a wound, they take +5 damage as something malevolent strikes them and retreats into the shadows.

SWARM OF FILTH - Shadowy insects, crawling locusts or clumps of great bloated flies bite and sting the characters, making it hard to focus. When a character makes a SHOOT or STRIKE action with a red card, they take 2 damage.

DESECRATED TEMPLE - A once-holy place has been desecrated, and brings these vile creatures strength. Sanctify it. Designate an area on the battlefield to hold the Desecrated Temple - this area is Challenging 4 to enter. A player character in the area can attempt to consecrate it with a use action. If they fail they receive BLEED 6. Until it’s been consecrated, all adversaries on the battlefield inflict +3 damage on a wound.

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INSIDIOUS WHISPERS - “You’re useless,” say the

dark voices in your head. “You should just lay down and die.” Whenever a character fails a Challenging action, they take 1 damage.

ON DARK WINGS - These creatures have received

the dark blessing of flight, or unnatural speed, and are hard to control. Adversaries take half damage from Dangerous and Challenging areas. When they take a wound, they may make an immediate escape move.

DEMONIC INCURSION - The land here twists as

creatures from The Other break through, all teeth and claws and brimstone. Designate an area on the battlefield to hold the Demonic Incursion - this area is Challenging 4 to enter. At the beginning of each round, draw a card: on a black card, a mook-level adversary emerges from the rift in this area. On a red card, two mooks emerge. The rift can be closed with two successful USE actions in the area, which will stop the flow of adversaries.

CURSED - The characters are under the influence of

insidious magicks that turn events against them. When a player plays a Scarred card, treat it as though it was played on top of a Joker.

MAGI TELEPORT - These creatures move unlike others that

you’ve seen - blinking in and out of existence, appearing just where you don’t want them to. Once per round, a single adversary may make an escape move to any area on the battlefield at the start of their turn. At your discretion, a player may remove the TELEPORT ability from a single adversary with an appropriate USE action.

SHIELD GENERATOR - One of these creatures is

casting a spell or powering a device that protects the others. Pick an adversary; until they are taken out of action, all player attacks inflict half basic damage.

A LONG WAY FROM HOME - You’ve been cut

off from supplies for so long that you’ve started to forget what a proper meal and a good night’s sleep look like. At the beginning of combat, each player must go through their deck and discard until they find a diamond. Describe where they find the strength to continue, discard the diamond, and start the battle.

WIRED TO BLOW - Whether your enemies know it or

not, this place is going to explode unless someone does something fast. Designate an area on the battlefield which contains the bomb. At the start of each round, draw a card; if it’s red, progress to stage 2. During stage 2, draw a card at the start of each round. If it’s a FACE card, the bomb explodes and the fight is over, with the player characters (and maybe the adversaries) counting it as a loss. The bomb can be defused with a USE action.

HYPNOTIC SECRETS - There is power, here, and you grit your teeth to avoid being tempted to draw on the unearthly energies. Every time a player character uses a BOOST, they take 2 damage from magical feedback.

ANCIENT GUARDIANS - The guardians here

are deathless and implacable. At the start of each round, restore every adversary character to full stamina. At your discretion, players may remove this ability from an adversary with a successful Challenging USE action drawn against the adversary’s proficiency.

“THE RITUAL IS ALMOST COMPLETE!”

- They’re summoning something great and powerful. Choose an adversary, or a group of mook-level adversaries, to be the ritualist(s). Every round, draw a card - if it’s a red card, the ritual moves closer to completion. Once you’ve drawn three red cards, the ritual is complete, and one mook or troop level adversary becomes an elite-level adversary with full stamina and wounds. If the players take the ritualist(s) out of action, they cannot complete the ritual. At your discretion, player characters may counterspell with USE actions to reduce the number of red cards in your stack.

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Twists by Core

OUTLAW SCATTERED - Thanks to bad tactics or bad luck, the

POLICE ATTENTION - The authorities have got wind

BEATEN UP - The characters have taken a beating in

PRECARIOUS BATTLEFIELD - The characters

characters are split up from each other. At the start of the battle, each character discards 3. The GM places their forces, then places the player characters wherever they like on the battlefield. recent memory, and they’re still hurting. At the start of the battle, each character discards 7.

DARKNESS - The battlefield is shrouded in darkness,

smog, smoke or steam, which makes ranged attacks difficult. All SHOOT actions are limited to a range of 1 area, unless the player characters come up with some way of circumventing the situation (turning on the lights, setting a target on fire before they shoot, etc).

THEY TOOK OUR WEAPONS - The characters

have been disarmed - robbed, imprisoned, caught unawares, or bundled unarmed into some kind of fighting arena. All SHOOT and STRIKE actions are at half damage until player characters reclaim their weapons, which are in an area of the battlefield that you specify. At your discretion, characters may not SHOOT until they reclaim their weapons.

SEVERE HANGOVER - The characters went at it

pretty hard last night, and they’re paying for it this morning. Every time a character makes a MOVE action, they take 1 damage from their stunning headache and overpowering nausea.

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of the characters’ plans, and show up at precisely the worst time. Whenever the GM deems it appropriate, 4 mook-level adversaries arrive on the scene - a squad of police officers, looking to apprehend the characters. find themselves fighting on wet rooftops, in slippery waste channels, or through unstable catacombs. Add the following option on a critical failure: the character is reduced to 0 stamina and can only make one action next round (as they scramble back up).

ASSASSINS - The characters are ambushed by a gang

of hired killers, vigilantes or zealots. Before the battle, every character should draw against the GM using a foundation of their choice and describe how they attempt to defend themselves against the unexpected attack; those who fail discard 10. The assassins flee as the battle starts, but the characters can try to track them down later.

BAD PART OF TOWN - The characters are not well-

loved in this part of the city; anyone could be a threat. Mark three areas as Challenging 3. In addition, when a character takes a wound they discard 2 additional cards as locals pile on and take advantage of the situation before dispersing.

PACTBOUND BAN - This place is anathema to your patrons. 4 contiguous areas on the battlefield are Challenging 2, Damaging 2.

THE STARS ARE RIGHT - The connection between

you and your patrons is stronger here, and you can exploit it if you’re brave enough. A player may make an additional action of any type on their turn, but take BLEED 5 after the action is complete if they do so.

HUNGER - Your patrons cry out for sustenance. If a player doesn’t inflict damage on their turn, they discard 2 cards from their character deck.

PORTAL TO THE UNKNOWN - One of your allies

has abused their connection to their patron, and weird creatures emerge from the darkness around them. Each player draws a card at the start of the battle. The player with the lowest card (scars break ties) has abused their powers. At the end of each of their turns, a mook-level adversary appears in their area. They (or an ally) can suppress this effect for one round with a successful USE action.

MEMORY HOLE - Ever since you let a cosmic intelligence occupy your brain, your memory has started to fail you. At the start of the battle, discard 5 and give the top card from your deck to the player on your left. They write a story on the card that has recently affected your character, but that they have no memory of. Shuffle the Memory Hole card into your deck without looking at it. When you play the Memory Hole card, it functions as a story card, and: immediately gain an additional fate relating to the story. This fate must be resolved to advance, as though it was one of your normal fates.

ENCROACHING WEIRDNESS - The walls

between worlds are thin, and the Other is seeping through. Pick two areas at the edges of the battlefield - these areas are damaging 2. At the start of each round, every adjacent area also becomes damaging 2 until the battlefield is completely taken over by fae thorns, grasping tentacles, withered hands, chattering doll heads, choking brimstone etc. Making a successful SHOOT or STRIKE action against an encroached area will remove this effect from the attacked area.

INFESTATION - Your adversaries are filled with

supernatural weirdness - alien insects, demonic wisps, or other swarms of horrors. When an non-mook adversary is taken out of action and at least one other non-mook adversary remains standing, it is replaced with two of the following adversary: Swarm of Chittering Horrors (mook) S:1 W:1 Proficiency: None Range: 0 Damage:

Burning stings. R:1 B:1

BOOST:

None

Wound:

Discard 3

ENERVATED - Your patrons suck the life out of you, and

you need to claw it back out of your adversaries. At the start of the battle, discard 20. When you inflict a wound, heal 7.

INVERSION - The laws of space and time start to bend

under the weight of your patrons’ influence. GM: at the start of round 4, tell the players the full details of this twist. At the start of round 5, all players swap their discard pile and their character deck.

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Twists by Core

WARRIOR SNIPERS - Unseen snipers lay down covering fire on the

battlefield and punish any character who breaks cover. Pick three areas of the battlefield that the snipers are covering these areas are Challenging 4. The snipers are out of range and well-hidden, so the characters will just have to endure them until the fight is over.

CUT OFF THE HEAD - An important enemy is in this

group, and reinforcements fill the area until they’re taken care of. Pick an adversary character; they’re the captain, the leader, battle-chanter, or whatever. Until they’re taken out of action, a mook-level adversary will enter the battlefield at the start of each of their turns.

BOMBARDMENT - This area is under heavy artillery

fire, and massive projectiles smash down at random into the earth, but you’ll have to try and fight your way through. At the start of each round, the GM designates an area that’s under fire, and draws a card face-down. One player in that area should try to guess what suit the card is. If they guess the right colour, they can move the bombardment to a connected area. If they guess the correct suit, they can place the bombardment anywhere they please. If they’re wrong on both suit and colour, the bombardment stays where it is. All characters (player and adversary) in an area under bombardment take 3 damage.

TERRIFIED - Days of fighting have broken the spirit of

the characters, and every engagement could be their last. Fear fills them. Any area occupied by an adversary becomes Challenging 2, unless it’s already higher.

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WALKING WOUNDED - This war has been going

on too long, and injuries are commonplace. At the start of the battle, each player must choose - scar a card, or discard 15 cards. If the scar would kill them, re-draw.

RUNNING DRY - The characters are running low on

ammunition. Every shot might be their last. When a player plays a FACE card on a SHOOT action, they are out of ammunition. Until they find some more (with a USE action on a stockpile or dead adversary), they may not make SHOOT actions. Even once they resupply, the effect of RUNNING DRY persists.

ELITES - These are the big guys; the top dogs. Best be

careful. Every adversary in this encounter increases their proficiency value by 1.

AMBUSH - The characters are caught unawares, and find it hard to defend themselves. Every player character fills their stamina up to half their maximum (instead of up to full), rounding down, at the start of the battle.

WILD BITTER COLD - The cold saps your strength, and your

limbs feel leaden. At the start of the battle, discard 6. At the end of a round when you make a STRIKE or MOVE action, take 1 damage. Fighting in an area with a source of heat, such as a fire, can negate this penalty - stick in a few areas with heat sources.

SCORCHING HEAT - The land shimmers ahead of

you, and you feel the sting of heat on your skin. Pick 3 areas of the battlefield that offer shade. Every other area of the battlefield is Damaging 1.

HUNTERS HUNTED - Wild animals and stranger

things besides crawl out of the undergrowth, looking for prey. At the start of each turn, draw a card. If it’s black, nothing happens. If it’s red, deploy a mook-level adversary on the battlefield as a ravenous beast emerges. If it’s a FACE card, deploy a troop-level adversary on the battlefield as a dangerous creature enters the fray, and draw no further cards for this twist.

WILDFIRE - Something has set the trees ablaze, and the fire

is already out of control. At the start of the 3rd round, pick an area at the edge of the battlefield - this area is now On Fire and is Damaging 1. At the start of each round, the following things happen to areas that are On Fire: they increase their Damaging rating by 1 to a maximum of 4, and all adjacent areas gain the On Fire quality at Damaging 1. A USE action puts out the fire in an area (we recommend using stacks of tokens to represent the fire).

INSECTS - Insects swarm over the battlefield, stinging and

biting, making it impossible to focus. Pick an area that contains the swarm; this area is Damaging 3. At the start of each round, move the swarm one area in any direction.

THE EARTH CRACKS - The soil and rocks beneath

your feet quake and crumble. During this battle, the GM picks an area every turn - this area becomes Challenging. If the GM picks the same area a second time, it collapses. When an area collapses, all characters in the area take a wound and are moved to a connected area. The area remains Challenging, but characters may not end their turn in a collapsed area.

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RUNNING THE GAME Every player in Unbound has a character; for the players on the other side of the table, taking control of the heroes of the story, they’re brave knights, cunning mages, down-on-their-luck vampires or a band of dashing and charismatic space pirates. (Or whatever this adventure happens to be about.) Your character is a bit different - your character is everything else in the world, and the world itself. You’re in charge of every non-player character - the allies, the adversaries, love interests, rivals, recurring foils and beloved companions. You direct the action, cutting between and establishing scenes as you go. You fill the world with threats, adventure and challenges for the player characters to run headlong into and, maybe, overcome. But here’s where things change from most other roleplaying games we’ve read - when we say you’re playing a character, we mean it. When the players leave the table between games, do they do any work? Do they prep adventures? They don’t! They just rock up, week after week, and improvise their way into, and out of, trouble. That’s what you’re going to do, too. We’ve written Unbound so the players have as much of a stake in the world as you do, and almost as much control. You can turn up and run a game without any prep, without trying to box the players into pre-ordained situations, and without getting frustrated that your players aren’t following your plot. In other words: this is going to be easy. And when running a game is easy, you can focus on the fun.

LOOK BEHIND THE CURTAIN In this section, we’re going to talk about how the game works, how to squeeze the most out of the system and why we made the design choices we made. If you’re not planning on being a gamesmaster, feel free to read through anyway - Unbound is a game with shared narrative responsibility, and you’ll only benefit from learning these tips and tricks. Hell, even if you never run a game of Unbound (though you should) we’ve got the combined weight of twenty-five

years spent GMing pretty much every week, and we’re going to distill that experience down into some useful advice, so if you’re interested in becoming a better GM no matter what your system is - then odds are you’ll find something of use to you in this chapter.

THE CORE MECHANIC The core mechanic of Unbound - each party drawing a card, and the party with the higher card winning the stakes of the conflict - is pretty straightforward. Your main job as a GM is to make it exciting, and allow the players to make it exciting too. Every time a player draws a card, the world is changing as they exert their will on it, so - don’t draw a card if nothing significant will change from the outcome, and when you do draw a card, make it mean something. Change the world around the players and let them feel their impact. The other job you’ve got is controlling what’s possible in your current adventure, and how difficult things are. There are no set difficulty values in Unbound because each adventure is different, and while in one adventure about deviant cyberpolice in overclocked power armour, kicking down a front door might be of no consequence (and, no doubt, happen several times as part of every scene), in another adventure about - say - tiny mice trapped in a normal-sized human house, such a monumental challenge could form the basis of an entire session. All difficulty is relative. You’re in charge of the tone of the game, so if a player attempts an action that their character simply cannot perform, its up to you to maintain that tone by asking them to switch out their action for a different one.

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ADVENTURE CREATION ASK QUESTIONS The questions outlined in the cores and traits are designed to make the players flesh out the world and design it as they build their characters. But they’re not in charge of the world - that’s your job. They just get to make the thing. You drive and steer it when they’re done, and as they describe it, it’s your job to direct them to make a rich and exciting world that everyone’s eager to explore. Any time a player says something, that’s your chance to steer the creation process by asking them a question. So let’s say that a player establishes a Thieves’ Guild in the adventure; you could ask the some of the following questions:

“Are these guys with or against you?”

This doesn’t have to stay in adventure creation alone you’ll be doing this all throughout every game as you and the players build the world together as you go.

DON’T TAKE NO FOR AN ANSWER Some players are scared of putting forward ideas for fear of looking foolish - and that’s okay, because we’re trained by society to never put our neck out unless we’re absolutely sure of something. But this is a safe place to play around with ideas, so if a player gives you a weak answer or tries to dodge a question, keep asking questions until you get something exciting out of them. There’s a story inside every character, and it’s your job to track it down and make it happen. So for example:

“Are these the sort of thieves who have a heart of gold, or the sort of thieves who steal metaphorical hearts of gold from poor orphans and flog them on the black market?”

“What have you stolen from the thieves’ guild?”

“What’s their biggest recent score?”

“Great - how have they managed to scare you into that?”

“What’s their calling card?” “What have you stolen from them?” Even better, load your question with a statement beforehand. This lets you cut past wooly answers, and get the chance to tell stories that you’re excited about.

“This Thieves’ Guild wants you dead - why?” “There are loads of Thieves’ Guilds in this city - what makes this one special?” “The Guild recently stole the Eye of Kamoor, a valuable diamond. Did you help them?” “The police have started a campaign against the guild. Why’s that?” If you can’t think of a useful question to ask, or a statement to preface it with, try the following template: “Most [whatever the player came up with] round here are [some vague descriptor] - what makes this particular one special?”

“Most bodyguards in this part of the hive are bioaugmented - what makes this one special?” “Most of the trees in this forest are filled with all kinds of life - what makes this one special?” “Most of the rooms in this house are heavily defended what makes this one special?”

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“Nothing.” That’s not going to make any stories happen on its own. So follow it up:

“Great - what’s the name of the person you respect in the guild enough not to mess with them?” “Great - everyone else has, so what marks you out as special?” Note that we’ve put “Great” at the start of each sentence, up there. This is because it’s a thing we actually say when we do this (or “cool,” or “awesome,” or “I like it,” etc) but also because it’s a good way to give what a player says weight. Of course, you might just be hitting against something that the player isn’t at all interested in, in which case you shouldn’t push them for an answer, and work out something else. Which brings us to…

SET LIMITS You’re in charge of the game, so if you have a particular vision for it, you can discuss limits with the other players (and they can suggest them, too). If you want a gritty, low-magic fantasy campaign, you could say - “No high magic, no comedy characters.” If you want a sci-fi crime caper, you could say - “Everyone’s an alien aside from one character who’s a confused human, and everyone’s just got out of space prison.” Maybe you want to set a saga in your favourite fictional universe, or maybe you just want to see what the players can do if they all play bears. Go for it!

(The players can do this, too; but you have ultimate authority over adventure decisions.) You can also use this to set limits around things which make people uncomfortable, such as “No animal cruelty” or “No drug use in game.” Remember, you’re all there to have fun, and if someone’s not having fun, you need to address that. Or maybe you’re tired of seeing certain backgrounds, so you could say that there’s “No lone wolves,” “no they wiped out my village,” and “no-one without at least one personal connection a crime lord could use as leverage.” Like asking questions, this continues beyond the adventure creation section - you’re in charge of the tone of the game, as we said, and that encompasses all this. (And tones can shift, too, as you play, and as members of a group get to know one another.) Here’s a useful phrase to say when you want someone to change their input: “I don’t want to tell a story about that.” Remember - nothing is sacred, and you’re all people having fun at a gaming session, and the story itself is something that doesn’t really exist. Everything can be undone, retconned and redone until the group is happy character motivations and actions are not the be-all and end-all of roleplaying.

One player decides that their character, a dangerous bounty hunter, is frustrated at an informant’s insincerity and abuse, so they kill them. Another player says: “I don’t want to tell a story about killing largely innocent people. Can we change that?” “Okay,” says the bounty hunter’s player, “but I still want to let this guy know I mean business.” The point of this narrative control is to allow redefinition of details, not to pull out whole story threads. The group takes a step back and examines what’s happening - the bounty hunter wants to get mean on this guy and exert dominance over him. That’s absolutely fine. “How about you take something from him?” says the other player. “Like his car?” chips in a third player. “Yeah, sure, I like that. I need a new car.” They retcon the previous description, and instead the bounty hunter screeches off in the guy’s souped up ‘76 Impala as the informant chases uselessly after him on foot. Every group is different, so it’s up to you to establish a space where you ride the balance between telling a story that everyone’s interested in that doesn’t upset, irritate, or bore other people in the telling.

HIT THE GROUND RUNNING When the game starts proper, don’t wait around for the fun to begin. It’s tempting to spend a session establishing events, showing the characters going about their ordinary, day-to-day business, before inverting the status quo with the actual exciting part of the game. So skip to it; you don’t need to establish what “normal” is, because you just spent a session talking it through. Find the most exciting thing that can happen and have it happen as an opening scene. What tensions are at work? What villains do you need to introduce? What fates can you fulfill in the very first hour of play? Start with momentum.

YOU’RE GOING TO LEAVE THINGS BEHIND, AND THAT’S OKAY One of the things we’ve done entirely on purpose with the world and character creation is set it up so you’ll end up with too much stuff - even if you’ve got loads of pages of A3 covered in notes and ideas for adventure, by the end of session three (generally) the group will have worked out what the story’s about and where the focus lies. You’ll have to leave stuff by the wayside - plotlines, unexplored story threads, characters, and maybe even entire factions. And that’s fine. Having too much is better than not having enough. If the group is really enthusiastic about part of the world, odds are they’ll plug it into their fates, so they’ll steer the group towards playing through it. Also, if you end up having to sideline something cool, you can always come back and explore it with new characters for your next adventure. ABUSING TRUST “I don’t want to tell a story about that” is a powerful phrase. It’s a safe-word, give or take, that establishes that the game has taken a turn that you, or one of the players, isn’t interested in exploring. Generally, when it happens, it’s due to a lack of communication between players, and if we assume that all people are basically decent and want their gaming companions to have fun, it’s all pretty easily smoothed out. However, this trust brings with it some responsibility. If you find a player exerting control over the narrative to favour their character’s motivations or further their own agendas, that’s not what it’s for; talk to them after the game and try to get things sorted. And if people are continually asking for the narrative to change, maybe it’s time to reframe the narrative entirely, or maybe they need to find a group that they gel with.

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CHARACTER CREATION READ THE RULES As the GM, you have the job of teaching the other players how to play the game. Unfortunately, you’ll have to do this while they’re all arguing over who gets to use the book to make their character first, and explain some fairly complicated concepts to several people at once who are all interested in different parts of those concepts. Take a read through the character creation section to get an idea of what the different cores, roles and traits do - and also what keywords and powers mean, so when a player asks “What does [Limited 3] mean?” or “What’s an escape move?” you can answer them without having to flick through the book to do so. Also, if you know the rules, you can make people aware of what sort of tactical impact their decisions might have when it comes to battle scenes. If a player envisages their character as a tank but picks ranged damage powers, they might have a hard time playing them as they imagined.

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Don’t say “oh, you have to pick this power because it’s the best one for your character,” but make suggestions for stuff you might think is useful. (And, as ever, get descriptive! Sell the powers, the roles, the twists to the players as though they were investors and you’ve just run out of money. Get the players excited to play. Which brings us to…)

HELP THE PLAYERS MAKE UNIQUE CHARACTERS Unbound demands a lot from the players during creation - for one, there’s no setting other than what they establish, and for two, the character options are deliberately bare-bones when it comes to fluff. It’s up to you to help players fully realise their characters - to make exciting decisions about who their character is and how they do what they do. For example: Unbound has no rules for weapon damage, because we

didn’t want to limit players when they describe what they get up to in combat. So using improvised weapons is just as valid as using a specially-crafted sword, in mechanical terms, and a thrown rock does as much damage as a gunshot.

SCENES, STORIES AND EXPERIENCE

Which means, depending on your adventure - the Deadeye could use a gun, for sure. That’s fun, and there’s a lot to be done there. But maybe they’re a hunter character, and they have a hawk that they’ve trained to make attacks at range. Maybe they throw their soul forward out of their body and attack with ghostly copies of themselves. Maybe they spit hexes and curses that wither their foes. Maybe they have a swarm of attack drones; maybe they summon genies, or undead abominations.

Fates are how characters grow, change and gain experience in Unbound - they’re the closest thing we have to experience points. We like them, because they not only give players a measure of control over the game’s plot (as they’ll steer towards pre-defined scenes, which takes some pressure off the GM) but that they allow players to perform for each other. When the group says “I want to see your character do X,” the player can give it their all during the scene and not worry so much about hogging the spotlight, because the other players have asked for the scene to happen ahead of time.

Ask a player about their character’s weapons, their fighting style, their armour, and how they do their job. Is the Warden psychically shielded? Is the Brawler a shirtless muscle mage? Is the Striker using a shotgun, rather than a melee weapon, for her STRIKE actions? Is the Protector actually five different nuns, working in concert around their leader the Sister Superior? And, of course, this extends past combat. When you ask questions of players, weave their characters’ pasts together, and cement them into the world. Never stop asking questions, and never stop using the answers to make a stronger world.

THEY KILLED MY FAMILY! Players love it when their characters have dead parents, siblings, children, nephews, goldfish, etc. It’s a really easy way to establish a dangerous, revenge-filled on-the-edge loner renegade, but it’s also a bit rubbish when it comes to trying to introduce NPCs because they’re all dead. So: if a player refuses to have living family members, adversaries, allies, or goldfish, try to talk them out of it. And if you can’t talk them out of it, work out who isn’t dead, and connect them back to the character. Or resurrect their dead nephew as a shambling atrocity! That’ll teach ‘em.

This section is more for players than the GM, but we stuck it in here because that’s where it made sense for it to be.

THINK LIKE A DIRECTOR, NOT A PLAYER: ENCOURAGE CHANGE It’s hard, sometimes, to separate out your own motivations from your characters, and when given the chance to frame a scene, some players look to this as an opportunity to let their character excel at something they’re already good at. We’re going to be honest: that’s kind of boring. So when you make scenes, both for yourself and others, think about what sort of scrapes you’d like to see the character get into. Take a look over their backstory, as it’s been mentioned so far, and pick out strands that interest you. Are there conflicts that you want to see explored, or resolved? Is there something the character is definitely terrible at, but you want to see them try? Is there a direction, a change, for a character, that you’re interested in exploring? Pitch it as a scene. Don’t be afraid to take characters out of their comfort zone - in fact, really, you should always look to push characters outside of their comfort zones, because that’s what makes for a good improvised story. When people are forced into uncomfortable situations, they change, and change is pretty much always more interesting than no change. (If a character hasn’t developed in some way by the end of the scene, either through some kind of change or the group learning more about their backstory, then it’s probably not a very interesting scene.)

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LINK TO EACH OTHER, AND THE WORLD Internal conflicts are great, but you can help paint the world by getting scenes that link to it. Has a character mentioned an old mentor, a bitter rival, an adversary, a lover, a romantic connection? Have they said that they own a building, or run a gang, or manage a business? Re-use as much as what’s already been said as possible, and fold things back in. Work out how characters relate to the existing structure by throwing them into scenes that explore it.

BE OPEN-ENDED, OR NOT There are lots of ways to frame a scene, and none of them are the right or wrong way. You can set up the start, such as “Your boyfriend arrives and confronts you about your lies,” which gives us a good idea of how the scene starts, but not how it ends. You can set up the outcome, such as “Your bar is destroyed,” which shows us how the scene ends, but not how it begins.

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But, be aware: if you define both ends of a scene, you lose out on the joy of improvisation. So “Your boyfriend arrives, confronts you about your lies, and then destroys your bar” is maybe less interesting to play out than the two alternatives because the arc of the scene is already sketched out. LATE PLAYERS Sometimes it’s fun - or necessary - to add in new players to a game midway through a adventure. With Unbound, this can be challenging, because those players who were present from the start have a massive investment in the setting - they made it! It can be difficult for new players to break into that structure. By using their fates, you can help cement them into the game as quickly as possible - how did they meet the other characters, and what sort of trouble have they all got into in the past? What’s their motivation for taking part in the overarching story? How do they prove their loyalty to the cause, or not?

MOVING ON We’re not all perfect, and one of the problems with writing down scenes ahead of time and then improvising your way through them is that situations can change fairly rapidly. Maybe you’re keen to have a scene where your character is confronted by their fear of drowning, but the adventure ends up taking place in the desert, or space, or on an airship. Maybe you want to explore the tensions in your home town, but the party leaves your home town behind halfway through the session. You’ve got two options, here: Make it fit. Relocate, reframe, adjust and mess with the scene until it makes sense. If a player wants a scene where they defend their family, but they end up miles away from their family home on an adventure, get in touch with their character via messenger or phone or letter, explaining that their family’s under threat and see how they deal with that. Or bring the family to them, as the villain kidnaps them and uses them as leverage. Or have their two daughters arrive on the scene, eager to help on

the adventure, and then get in serious trouble. The aim of the scene is intact, even if the way that it was initially imagined has changed. Lose it, get a new one. We’re not perfect, and sometimes things just don’t fit with the tone and aims of a game and the characters within it as it develops. If a player really isn’t excited about exploring a scene, and the rest of the table can’t think of a fun way to frame it in the game, there’s no shame in ditching it and replacing it with one that makes more sense. But - use this sparingly! There’s a lot of fun to be had in working out why something’s happening rather than getting rid of it and trying to find something fits perfectly.

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TWISTS AND FACTIONS TWISTS AND FACTIONS ARE YOUR CHARACTER You know how excited some players get when they make a character? This is an attempt to give you, GM, that same kind of excitement when a game is happening. Try not to think about what fits the campaign best, or to stay limited to the core that the players have chosen; go with the powers that put that trademark “GM glint” in your eye when you read them. There’s no reason why your characters can’t be just as cool as the player characters; go wild, and get enthusiastic with it.

character thrown to the ground, and winded? Are they stabbed in the shoulder, or knocked about and dazed? Is there bleeding, lost teeth, broken ribs? Get descriptive, but remember what stamina and wounds mean in practice - rather than in theory - differs with every adventure, and indeed every character. Maybe one character is a regenerating super-soldier and another is a plucky street kid - that super-soldier can take bullets to the chest and shrug them off, but the street kid might get taken down with a backhand from the villain.

GET THE PLAYERS INVOLVED To briefly flash back to the Asking Questions bit above: that’s the time when you’ll be making your bad guys, your antagonists, your big bad evil guys and girls, your cosmic horrors, your tensions that pull at the loyalties of the players. When a player mentions someone that you’re keen to have as an antagonist, start asking questions of everyone at the table so you sketch out the villains together. Which means, ultimately, when the lunatic barbarian space reavers and their packs of rabid hunting cyberpitbulls smash into the side of the player characters’ elegant spaceship, not only are the players excited to see things that they’ve invented come into play, it’s also kind of their fault.

HOW DO I HANDLE DIFFERENT POWER LEVELS IN THE SAME SCENE? In a word? Narratively. There’s no weapon damage in Unbound, and all characters have the same amount of “hit points” (their character deck), so when the adversaries attack the super soldier, it’s all bullets and regenerating limbs and buckets of gore, but when they attack the street kid it’s nearmisses, grabs and holds, lucky escapes and bloody noses. How you choose to describe damage is up to you.

SCARS, DAMAGE AND DEATH THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN STAMINA AND WOUNDS We wanted to move away from normal “hit point” systems, and do something a bit more cinematic and interesting. So, to re-iterate: When a character loses stamina, that’s not a serious hit. Stamina represents a character’s skill at evasion, defence, protection and battlefield control, so if an attack only knocks off stamina, they’ve probably parried it, or dodged it, or rolled with it to such a degree that it isn’t a major concern. Their cover gets torn up, and dust flies into the air, but they’re okay for the time being. When a character takes a wound, on the other hand - in that they suffer damage when they have no stamina remaining, or through the effects of a special adversary power they take a wound automatically - then it is a serious hit. Describe in detail what happens - is the

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DEATH DOESN’T HAVE TO BE DEATH Or, in other words - when you draw an Ace after losing all your cards, it doesn’t mean that your character is automatically going to die. What it means is that they’re going to be written out of the narrative as it continues, and that affords you a lot of room to manoeuvre. Instead of dying, a character could:

Feel disheartened enough to quit, retire into NPChood, get intimidated into giving up, lose their faith, get permanently lost or captured, sustain a career-ending injury, find love and give up adventuring, defect to the adversary, fall off a massive cliff and out of shot, suffer a moment of horrendous guilt and break down in

tears, go utterly insane, become controlled by a demon parasite, be transported to an alternate dimension, permanently transform into their druidic beast form and never be able to return to civilised society, etc. In fact, it’s possible to completely remove death from your game, if that’s not a story you’re interested in telling. Plus, characters who are out of the plot but not dead can return in a future adventure, which is always fun. (Unless you’re playing a superhero adventure, in which case, you can come back from the dead as many times as you want assuming you’re still shifting copies.)

DEALING WITH BEREAVEMENT Death is unlikely in Unbound, but it’s always going to come as a surprise - there’s a one-in-thirteen chance every time a character is taken out of action that it’s going to happen, give or take, and the more scars that a character takes, the more likely it is that they’re going to have to retire next time they run out of cards. Is death permanent in your adventure? We prefer it to be permanent in ours, otherwise “killing the villain” doesn’t have quite the impact it often needs. But maybe you’re playing a transhumanist adventure where the characters are consciousnesses uploaded to cybernetic meat-puppets; maybe everyone’s a zombie or a vampire already, so revivification is par for the course; or maybe it’s as simple a matter as finding 5,000gp and a suitably high-level cleric. Or maybe, as outlined above, you’ve just decided that death isn’t going to be a thing in your adventure. Generally, if you want to bring a character back from the dead, it seems like an exciting enough thing to warrant several dramatic scenes to do it (and maybe a battle, too). We’ll leave it up to you to decide. But, in most games, death will be the end. And that’s okay; what’s important is to die well. If a death feels arbitrary, if a character had unfinished business, if their passing is something of a frustration rather than completion, give them a break. Let their death mean something; let them stay behind to hold off the horde while the other characters escape; let them bring down the villain; let them reveal a secret that changes the game world. And, of course, because this is Unbound, you can always

make the next adventure you play take place before the current one, exploring the early lives of all the characters.

MAKING A NEW CHARACTER THAT FITS WITH THE ADVENTURE When a character’s written out of the story, their player will have to make a new one; work with them to determine who the character is and what they do. Unlike making an adventure, though, they should try to stick as closely to the existing background as possible to help them gel with the ongoing storyline. While the start of an adventure might be the perfect time to create, say, a group of shadowy kick-ass monks with the power to enslave and control evil ghosts, it’s a bit much to drop it in the middle of the story - maybe even if it’s the kind of story where, with proper planning, ghostwrangling kung fu masters might sit comfortably alongside the existing narrative. Instead, try to explore and expand upon the content that’s already been created - you can even use existing characters, if you’d like, by taking an NPC and giving them player character stats. By re-incorporating stuff that’s already been established, you lend weight to the story.

KEEP SCARS INTERESTING AND RELEVANT Don’t let players come up with scars that are boring, bland or ineffectual. Every time that card comes up, you want them to be wincing and describing how their injury, fear, loss or shame is hampering their performance - or how they power through and succeed. For example, the scar “Goblins ate my leg and now I have a wooden one which goblins will hopefully not eat” - if a player uses it to succeed against the odds on a STRIKE action, they (or you) can describe how they falter on their damaged leg but just so happen to come in under their opponent’s guard. If they fail on the STRIKE action, then they have a good excuse as to why that oversized bugbear is now about to crush their companion into paste. Make scars nasty. “Mild cough” is pretty dull, but “gasravaged lungs” sounds awful, and helps cement the setting and the actions of the characters in their decks. Similarly, “in trouble” is boring, but “Sergeant Steele has it in for me” gives the GM a recurring villain.

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STAKES MAKE FAILURE AS INTERESTING AS VICTORY The first few times you run scenes in Unbound, you’ll forget to establish stakes. That’s fine - we did it too. But they’re so, so crucial to having a fun time with the system that we can’t stress enough how important they are. When you set up the stakes, you step back from the cut-and-thrust of the game for a second and talk to each other as players. No longer bound up in trying to further your characters’ agendas, you can look at the game as a narrative exploration rather than a challenge. So let’s say, for example, the player characters are venturing into an ancient cave complex to uncover a lost civilisation. They’re being raced by another team of explorers, equally keen to uncover the secrets of the caverns, and they come upon a mob of screeching, bat-like automatons made from what seems to be living crystal. It’s time for a battle. The standard stakes for a battle are: “If we win, we kick the snot out of our opponents. If we lose, they kick the snot out of us.” Which is - let’s be honest - boring. The players get nothing for winning other than the mechanical satisfaction of doing so, and failing doesn’t advance the story at all. Here are a few alternative suggestions: “If we win, we’ll overtake the other team of explorers. If we lose, they’ll get to the important find first.” “If we win, we can make camp here and establish a base. If we lose, we’ll get driven off and have to evade the guardians for days.” “If we win, we’ll find out something exciting about the history of the underground network. If we lose, we’ll trigger an ancient curse.” “If we win, we’ll be able to repurpose the bodies of the guardians into dangerous weapons and explosives to give us an edge. If we lose, our rivals will ambush us and take us captive.” When you establish stakes, you and the players talk about the way that the story could go - one way that’s good for the characters, and one way that’s bad for them, but crucially both ways are interesting for the players to explore.

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IS DEATH A GOOD STAKE? Yes and no. It’s a great stake if you’ve built up to it - if this is a grand battle, an epic clash, or your characters are fighting for something that’s so incredibly dear to them that they’re willing to give their lives to defend it. But it shouldn’t be your go-to stake, because if every character dies, that’s probably the end of your adventure. (But, then again, that depends on your world.)

NO BATTLE OR DRAMATIC SCENE TAKES PLACE FOR ITS OWN SAKE Every time a card is drawn to start a scene, stakes need to be established. If you can’t think of good stakes for both winning and losing, skip the scene. Make it freeform; talk through it, tell the players what happens, and move on. This isn’t a failure on your part; there’s a whole imaginary world to explore, and sometimes you can’t come up with exciting contingencies for a randomly selected part of it.

The characters are sneaking into a governmentcontrolled base. This is the sort of thing that normally calls for a dramatic scene… but when it comes to stakes, you can’t come up with anything that doesn’t sound arbitrary (“you fall down a hole!”), uninteresting (“you spend four hours crouching in a vent waiting for the guards to move on!”), or tedious (“you have another battle before the proper battle you came here for, extending this section of the game by two hours!”), or likely to end the narrative thread there and then (“you all get imprisoned on federal charges and thrown in jail!”).

(Not that there’s anything wrong with those stakes, if you can sell them, and if you can help the players make them interesting. But for this example, let’s say you’re not feeling any of them right now.) You’ve got a couple of options, now: you can discuss it with the players and see what they think might happen if they’re found out. Maybe one of them has an excellent idea you never even considered. Or you can just say that it happens, throwing in colour and detail as normal, describing them sneaking through the base, asking the players questions about how their characters are doing it, setting the stage for later challenges, and so on.

immediately” and your losing stake is “we get driven off and have to find another way in.” Which means: you’re getting inside the temple, win or lose. There’s almost no reason to have the fight; if you win, that just skips the description of finding an alternative route. There’s no teeth to the stakes, nothing really at threat. So, instead, if you’ve made up your mind that the heroes are going to get inside that temple no matter what, change what’s going on inside: if they lose the fight, they still power through, but the villagers are sacrificed. If they lose the fight, they still get inside, but the head of the cult escapes justice. If they lose the fight, they gain access, but word of their failure spreads and someone accuses them of being allied to the cult.

WHAT IF THE STAKES CHANGE? GET MEAN Work out what’s important to the player characters and try to take it from them in the challenges they face. Does one player spend ages describing her character’s bar, all the patrons, the kinds of elven honeywine she serves, etc? Put it down as a stake in a conflict.

It’s possible that, halfway through a scene, the stakes change - for whatever reason, the established ones just don’t make sense. It’s okay to change stakes, but be careful, and discuss the situation with your players to get a handle on the situation as it develops.

Pride, professional reputation, the safety of friends/ family/allies, possessions, sanity - there’s a lot you can take from the characters. The fun part, too, is that the players want you to. Think of it this way: when you watch a film, do you want the characters to have an easy time of it, never get challenged, and never face hardships? No! You want to see them messed up - humiliated, beaten, bruised, wrongfooted and outsmarted, because then you can cheer them on through adversity; you can root for them. Your players should feel the same way about their characters. So get nasty, get creative, burn bridges. Unless you try to destroy the world you’ve built together, the heroes are never going to get a chance to save it. Sometimes, it’s easy to come up with stakes for one side of the battle, but not the other. Maybe your winning stake is “we get access to the evil cult’s secret temple

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PLANNING THE ADVENTURE ...DON’T Ever read a horror story on the internet about a group of players “breaking” the campaign because they act in a way that the GM couldn’t predict, and the game goes on hiatus, or ends completely, while the GM frantically works out what’s going to happen? You don’t want that to occur. There are two ways you can counteract this. On one hand, you can plan for every eventuality, expect every move the players are going to make, and be prepared to shuffle things behind the scenes once in a while when the players outfox you. On the other hand, you can refuse to plan at all - you can have ideas, sure, you can have enthusiasms, you can be excited for things, but if you never plan for something in particular to happen, you’ll never be thrown off when it doesn’t. To get all Ancient GM wisdom on you - be like a reed in the wind: bending, unbroken. We’ve set up Unbound so that the overarching plot of the game is determined at the start of the adventure, and players will frame their own scenes in an attempt to level up their characters, so you barely have to plan at all. In fact, if you do precisely as much prep as your players do every week - who just turn up with smiles on their faces and look to you for adventure - then you should be fine.

FREEFORM SCENES LET THEM HAPPEN Not every scene has to have drama in it, or mechanics, to make it interesting. Sometimes you need a scene to set up the next one, to wrap up loose ends, or to offer players a breather after an intense dramatic or battle scene. Good stories have high points and low points - sometimes they rattle along at breakneck speed, and sometimes they slow down and examine things in detail. Freeform scenes are a great way to establish character, too; when we step back from dramatic scenes, we lose the sensation that there’s a way to win and lose the stakes, and characters can often relax and be themselves - and even admit to foibles, play to their weaknesses, and learn something about the way they act, too. You’re in charge of the imaginary camera that’s filming your imaginary story, so you need to know where to point it. When you feel like a freeform scene has run out of steam, move on to the next interesting thing that happens in the world. You can skip forward in time, if you’d like, or just interrupt the scene with a dramatic one or a battle.

FRAMING IS IMPORTANT BUT IF YOU REALLY WANT TO… Here are some things you can do, if you’ve got an itch to create stuff when you’re not at the gaming table:

Source images to represent areas for battle scenes or as inspiration in dramatic or freeform scenes, or to represent NPCs and adversaries; write up the setting as it is, and create updates detailing the actions of the characters and factions at play; pick out some collections of interesting adversaries for the players to fight; work out your faction motivations, and how NPCs will react to player actions.

The scenes that players have made up for themselves, and each other, are a great way to play into freeform scenes because they provide structure. A freeform scene can waver a little if there’s no end-point in sight, but if one player has asked that their character’s scene is played out during it, there’s something to work around. For example: a scene where we meet a character’s family might drag on unless you can find a way to say what you want quickly, establish characters and move on. But if that same series of events precedes the scene “My beloved family is threatened,” then the whole thing becomes charged with potential. At some point, the family is going to come under threat, and you can lead towards it and hint at it throughout - and cut to a new scene when the time is right.

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CUT TO THE CHASE Sometimes you, or one of the players, just has a great idea for a scene, and everyone’s really excited about watching it play out - so skip to it! If something feels like preamble, or a formality, then reframe it as a freeform scene and talk it through quickly. Dramatic and battle scenes are there to lend some uncertainty to proceedings and take the story in some exciting directions, but if you already know what that exciting direction is, take it and keep moving.

BUSINESS AS USUAL Dramatic and battle scenes should represent a challenge for the player characters, so if something wouldn’t necessarily be a challenge for them - if it’s part of their established skill set - there’s often no point breaking out the cards. If you’re playing a clan of ninja, for example, sneaking into a building wouldn’t pose a problem - it can easily be a freeform scene. If you’re playing a clan of raging barbarians, however, that same scene would present a massive challenge, and failure would be interesting.

DRAMATIC SCENES FIND THE ADVENTURE More philosophy, here: when it comes to roleplaying games, there isn’t an adventure to find, but rather: whatever the players do contains adventure. Don’t plan for a certain set of events to transpire. Ask the players what they want to do, and work out what will keep them from doing it easily by looking at your factions, their adversaries and allies, things that are already in motion in the world, and work from there. That’s not to say that you pad out the story with redundant peril; don’t slap challenges into every scene otherwise the players will end up exhausted. FAIL FORWARD When a player character fails to achieve an action your card is higher than theirs - think of it like a story branch, rather than a block in the way of the narrative. If a character tries to pick a lock and fails, don’t just have them unable to open it, staring at a locked door - have them discovered by a sentry, or trip an alarm, or open the door to find a guard dog waiting for them, or trigger a trap that

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leaves them stunned and confused, or have someone open it from inside, etc. These are competent characters - when something goes wrong, it’s usually the result of outside interference or unexpected problems rather than a flat inability to perform the task at hand. If it helps, think in cinematic terms; the focus of the game is like a film camera, so we should strive to have everything that it “sees” either establish character or advance the narrative. If we can gain something from seeing a character struggle and fail to climb a wall simply because they’re not good enough at climbing, that’s a fine resolution to a challenge, but if it doesn’t seem interesting, it’s not useful to us.

HANG ON, THERE AREN’T ANY RULES FOR NPCS ACTING That’s right! You don’t need any. When an NPC acts in a dramatic scene, they don’t draw cards - they just do what you want them to do, as suggested by the tone of the game and the scene as it progresses. If you’re interested in seeing what happens if an NPC succeeds or fails, roll their action into the mechanics of the dramatic scene. For example: the players are standing up to some bullies in their school. You describe one of the bullies stomping forward and swinging at a player character’s chin, and then: “What are you going to do about that? Draw a card.”

DRAMATIC SCENES CAN HAVE FIGHTS IN, TOO Battle scenes are the centrepiece of a game of Unbound; dramatic scenes are everything else. But they’re designed to show a stand-up fight that’s fairly equal on both sides in a static locale; they can’t easily model chase scenes, for example, or eliminating sentries, or escaping a furious dragon, or leaping out of a building and into an attack helicopter to kill everyone inside. Don’t be afraid to put violence in dramatic scenes, and indeed to stick whole fights in them; they’re a quicker, less detailed method of storytelling than battle scenes, and far more flexible for it. If it’s not a fair fight, or you’re not hugely interested in running a full battle to determine the stakes, run it as a dramatic scene.

OPTIONAL RULE: USING BATTLE ABILITIES IN DRAMATIC SCENES Most of our rules focus around the nittygritty of combat, so that’s what a character’s powers and abilities focus on. We’re okay with keeping dramatic scenes narrativefocused with abilities happening as colour, not mechanics. If you want to give the players a chance to use their powers, you can use the following rule: A player can use every power their character has (limited, boost or always on) once per dramatic scene. When they do, they should describe how that power helps their character achieve their aims, draw two cards, and play either then discard both. If a player uses a power in a dramatic scene and that power is limited, they start their next battle with the power exhausted and must recharge it by playing a card of a low enough value. Obviously, using this rule will shift the balance in dramatic scenes towards the players, so feel free to amp up the difficulty level of scenes, or allow for fewer failures before the scene is over, to balance it out. When do I draw? It’s hard to say precisely at what point to draw in a dramatic scene; during battle, it’s pretty cut-and-dried, as everything is tied to actions. Dramatic scenes are a bit woolier, but it depends on the pace of the scene, and on the players in your group. Quick dashes past adversary guards could be resolved in a single exchange of sentences followed by a draw, or long, tense conversations could warrant a draw every three or four minutes.

Involve multiple people and multiple approaches It’s much more fun to take part in a scene than it is to watch, so find a way for lots of players to be involved. Maybe they’re all threatened by the same situation, or maybe they can all help to solve it. Cut back and forth between locations, too - maybe two characters are trying to hold off waves of adversaries, and a third is racing to help them. You could make it two simultaneous scenes, if you like, but if you’re smart with the stakes you can roll a lot of different actions into resolving the same conflict. Similarly, encourage players to find a way to contribute to scenes rather than finding reasons why their characters wouldn’t take part - there can be physical, mental and social solutions to most problems. Which brings us to our next point...

Keep the situation fluid Describing the same problem over and over is boring, especially if you’ve set yourself up for a long scene, so keep changing the problems the characters face. If they’re in a chase and they’re simply running as fast as they can down open streets, give them a locked door to overcome, or an armed guard to outwit, or a busy marketplace to navigate. If they’re struggling to keep a ship afloat by bailing out water, have some cowardly crew attempt to flee and leave them to a watery grave, or describe sharks swimming in through the breach in the hull. Not only is this more interesting, but it gives different players a chance to chip in and take part in the scene.

In general, draw in one of two situations: ONE. Something happens during the scene, and you’re not sure of the outcome and want to see how success or failure would impact the narrative of the scene. TWO. When the scene starts to drag, make a draw to see what happens next - and who gets the upper hand.

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BATTLE SCENES COMBAT AS CENTREPIECE, NOT A PUNISHMENT We think you should have one battle per session. We think that battle scenes are loads of fun, and shouldn’t be rushed through. We think that players and GM alike should be excited to throw down, and no-one should ever groan when the subject of combat comes up. When it comes to a battle, make it a great one. Put important stuff at stake. Throw dangerous adversaries at the characters and dare them to come out intact. Remember: if it’s not a fair fight, it’s a dramatic scene (or maybe even a freeform scene). If it’s a fair fight, it’s a battle.

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DRAWING A BATTLE MAP, MAKING AREAS INTERESTING “Map” is the wrong word, really, because it implies scale, but it’s the one we’re using. Here’s how we do it:

The above picture shows a battle map of an underground fighting ring. The solid lines represent normal connections, and the dashed lines are Challenging. First, think about the scale of the conflict; is this a down-and-dirty brawl in a bar? Does it take place over miles and miles of ruined cityscape? Your scale is limited only by your adventure - and even then, only by the nature of the fight itself. When your warrior adventure moves up from clandestine operations to leading an army into an occupied orc fort, the mechanics are the same - it’s just the set-dressing that changes. Then, get a big piece of paper and write down all the places you’re interested in seeing the characters fight over. If you want to make a list first so you can arrange them in spatial terms later on, that’s fine, but we just lay them out as areas straight away. Not all areas have to be equal in relative size. If you’re

interested in fighting over a particular house, then that house could be broken up into six areas (front door, kitchen, living room, bedroom, bathroom, stairs, garden), and the areas outside, while larger in square footage, don’t interest you as much so there are only three (street, corner shop, the house next door). Think in terms of set-dressing and props. What can you use to add weight to descriptions? What’s in the background of the shot? What can you throw the player characters through? If there’s nothing interesting in your area, get rid of it, or put something interesting in it. Don’t worry about “filler” areas that bridge the gap between two other areas - like a corridor between two offices, for example. That’s what connections are for.

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One important piece of advice: don’t call two areas the same thing. If you have four areas with “warehouse” written on them to represent the fact that the warehouse is the biggest thing in the area, all those areas are going to blur into one. Break it down into “warehouse floor” and “gantries” and “maze of crates” and “forklift truck.” There’s no mechanical change, but it makes the scene a lot more evocative and engaging. Next, once you’ve got your areas written down, it’s time to think about connections. What areas can you reach from each area? Is the route between them open, or Challenging? It’s better to have too many areas than too few, in our experience.

DEPLOYMENT Put the player characters and any adversaries on the map wherever you feel they’d be in accordance with the fiction, and get playing.

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BE HONEST, BE TRANSPARENT It’s not worth keeping secrets from your players. Make it clear how much stamina and how many wounds the adversaries have remaining, and explain clearly what’s happening as the fight progresses. Having everyone on the same page means the players trust you more, and when the players trust you, they can relax and enjoy the challenge rather than trying to second-guess you.

WOUNDS AS DRAMA Unbound doesn’t do mid-range damage. We have low damage (which is soaked by stamina) and we have high damage (which are wounds), because we figured those are more interesting than mid-range damage, but it requires a bit of work on your part. When a wound happens - on a player character or adversary - then something changes in the scene. It doesn’t have to be huge, or have any mechanical impact past the normal rules for the wound, but the scene has to react.

Maybe the wounded character falls to the floor, winded; maybe they’re forced to change cover, driven back by overwhelming fire; maybe they cough up some blood and spit out a threat; maybe they take on a cowardly demeanour; maybe you’ve just upset them, and now they’re getting ready to do some harm; maybe they run out of ammo for a weapon and draw another one, or are forced to reload; maybe they yell for reinforcements; etc. Think of wounds as beats in the scene, where something interesting happens. “WHAT DOES THAT LOOK LIKE?” When your players make actions in combat, ask them what their attacks look like. When they take an adversary out of action, ask what they’ve done to remove them from a fight. When they take a wound, ask them what’s put them down. Especially if you have some weird characters knocking around, asking players what the “camera” would see in combat can keep the description flowing nicely. KNOW WHEN TO THROW IN THE TOWEL Odds are, GM, you’re going to lose most of the battles you fight, and that’s fine. But where players are generally fine with fighting until they’re all bloody pulp on the pavement, you don’t have quite as much riding on each fight (because, you see, you have infinite power). Because of that, most every fight in Unbound - aside from those against Legendary adversaries, probably - will end not when every adversary is out of action, as is traditional in most games, but when you decide the fight is only really going to go one way. When there are only one or two adversaries left on the battlefield, or you feel like the fight has served its purpose and is no longer dramatic or entertaining, throw in the towel. The players win, and no-one’s sat staring at a slowly dwindling fight waiting to get to the exciting part of the game. Work with the players to throw together a quick freeform scene describing how the battle ends, and move on. Importantly, the more you do this, the more you remind the players that battle scenes (and dramatic ones, too) are about stakes, not the mechanics of winning and losing for their own sake.

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ADVERSARIES SELECTING THE ADVERSARIES Here’s a rough guide to selecting your adversaries for a battle scene. Take the number of sessions that you’ve played in this adventure so far, and add 5 per player character in the battle - this is your points total. Spend your points on adversaries as follows: ĐĐ 1 Legendary 24pts ĐĐ 1 Elite

7pts

ĐĐ 1 Troop

3pts

ĐĐ 1 Mook

2pts

If you’re after a more dangerous, deadly campaign with the constant threat of failure and death, reduce these costs by 1 or 2. If you want a more forgiving campaign where player characters win pretty much every fight they’re in, increase these costs by 1 or 2. If you want to fight a Legendary adversary, they’re already statted so they’re a fight all on their own - they don’t need anything alongside them to be a threat. With three players, you will find that Legendary fights are almost insurmountably difficult; we’ve put a suggestion in each Legendary’s entry which modifies them for taking on 3 characters.

RESKIN, RESKIN, RESKIN We named the adversaries in this book, and gave them character traits and powers that match their titles, because honestly it’s really boring to stat up fifty unique but utterly generic adversaries for the players to duff up. So our orcs are proud and warlike and tough and nasty and straightforward, and our gangers are tricky and sneaky, and our undead kick out horrendous amounts of damage with some clever ways around it, and so on. We did this to keep ourselves sane and to make the chapter interesting to read. However, do not use the descriptions that we have given you. Make your own. We can’t predict what your world is going to look like, and honestly if our characters fitted perfectly into them, we’d be very surprised.

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Take a look at the adversaries and their powers and change the descriptions; change their weapons, their attacks, their implied mannerisms. For example, if a ganger-themed adversary summons thugs to the field, then with a quick reskin they could be:

A druid, summoning beasts or shambling mounds of ambulant vegetation; a military leader, pulling in reinforcements; a death mage, gathering enslaved ghosts; a mad scientist, animating robots in her secret lair; a time-traveller, dropping in versions of herself from other timelines; a mind-control supervillain, dominating bystanders; an engineer, deploying automated defences; etc.

DEFINE YOUR OWN POWER LEVEL When you reskin a monster, you determine the “power level” for the game. We’ve written the adversaries to match a “standard” roleplaying game, where powerful, human-sized player characters take on an adversary force of equal, or slightly greater, number. But if your adventure is about over-zealous police in mech units carrying weaponry that can level a small building, a single human adversary with normal weapons isn’t going to - in the fiction, in the world of the game scare them all that much. So you reskin the “guy with a gun” mook to be “a car full of armed men,” and you reskin the “sniper” troop to be “power-armoured criminal with a anti-tank rocket launcher,” and things start to make sense. If you’re not sure what kind of threats the characters can engage, ask the players.

GIVE EVERYTHING A DEFINING FEATURE Generic adversaries are boring. Describing an adversary as “an orc” is about as exciting as asking your players to go and duff up a training dummy; although there’s some shared experience to draw on there (in that most everyone playing a roleplaying game knows probably what an orc looks like), multiple adversaries run together into a single, undefined mass.

Therefore: give every single adversary, and every group of mook-level adversaries, a defining feature. It doesn’t have to be a full backstory, and it won’t change their rules at all, but by sticking a short phrase next to each adversary you can easily liven up a fight. That orc from before? Maybe he’s got clumps of matted red hair. Maybe she’s a trainee fire mage, and lights her axes aflame when battle is joined. Maybe they’re obsessed with death and have armour made of tied-together bones. Maybe he’s got blood around his mouth, or she’s wearing a grey cloak, or they’re carrying a bag of loot from the building they’ve just sacked. When you affix a detail to an adversary, you build the world around them. Oh, and give them names, too, if they’d have them that way they can yell orders to each other and ask for help. And relationships to each other, if you’d like! But that’s quite a lot of work. But to go from “orc” to “Fenrik, wears slate armour, has a crush on the half-blood sergeant” isn’t a lot of work, and can make for some fun encounters.

MAKE EVERY ELITE SOMEONE THE PLAYERS WOULDN’T MIND SEEING AGAIN It’s fun to hate people, especially reprehensible jerks, and as a GM, it’s your job to play the heel and make villains the players are going to be excited to meet over and over. Think of your favourite film or TV show - which bad guys make you jeer and boo (internally or externally) and which are you bored of, and just can’t wait for the heroes to defeat so they can get on to the next part of the plot? “Play the heel” is a phrase taken from professional wrestling, by the way - in every match, there’s a bad guy called a “heel.” Their job is to get the audience riled up and spoiling for a fight, and they generally do it by being over-the-top, ostentatiously evil. They’ll take the time to say how awful the place the match is taking place is, and how all the fans who came to watch them are idiots. They’ll badmouth their opponent, saying how terrible they are at fighting. They’ll do their best to state the opposite of everything the audience is thinking with as much conviction as possible. Be that wrestler. Speak from a position of power - from a throne, from behind a wall of armed guards, from the head table at a banquet - and say how great you are, how you’re going to win, and how futile the efforts of the player characters will be.

At this point, invariably, some player will interrupt you and start combat. If you feel you’ve had a chance to ham up the villain enough, let it slide. But if you want to say a few more things, don’t be afraid to say something like “I’m just establishing this scene, you can launch into a brawl in a second.” Of course, when adversaries run out of wounds, they don’t automatically die; instead, they’re taken out of action. So if you want to have a long-running, recurring adversary (and they’re fun, you should) then feel free to have them escape at the last minute. In fact, say up-front to the players that you’re planning on having them survive the fight, so it doesn’t come as a nasty surprise.

LEGENDARIES AND DIFFICULTY Certain adversaries, and especially legendaries, are far more complicated to run as a GM than others. Be aware that the Giant of Moorfell peaks is a very damaging adversary but is very simple to run and for players to fight against; the Twice-born queen, however, is challenging and requires some forethought as to the layout of the battlefield before the combat. Where the Giant is a big stompy monster that has to be surrounded to fight effectively, the Queen does all sorts of nonsense with summoning monsters, healing, transporting player characters to nightmare otherworlds, and the whole “coming back to life after you kill her” thing. As ever, knowledge is power. When preparing to use a legendary, foreshadow its abilities or minions that crop up during a fight - throw them into scenes beforehand to give the players an idea how to counter them, or have NPCs or research warn the characters of the threat. Knowing that, for example, locking down the Dragon to a single location and that removing its capability for flight will change the battle is crucial - it’s not necessarily for the better, but it certainly changes things, and turns the Dragon from a mobile ranged skirmisher into a cross between a meat grinder and a blowtorch. Many of the adversaries in the same hierarchy as a legendary share minor versions of the abilities possessed by adversaries further up the ranks. Use this to your advantage and make it look like you did a lot more planning than you actually did by teaching your players how to defeat a legendary before they ever meet them.

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ADVERSARIES The world you create in Unbound is not a safe one. Lurking behind every corner, behind every wicked scheme and twisted plot, massing on the horizon and undermining the defences of the heroes, the adversaries provide challenge and danger to the player characters. When in battle, each adversary uses the rules presented for them below. There are four tiers of adversary: Mooks. The lowest of the low; chumps, disposable rank and file, who only fight well as a group. Mooks only get one MOVE and one attack - SHOOT or STRIKE - action per turn. Mooks don’t take BLEED damage, because they’re too unimportant to worry about tracking it - instead, they simply take the damage once when the BLEED is inflicted. Mooks of the same type all act on the same turn in battle, taking two actions each.

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Troops. Seasoned operatives who can hold their own in combat, or lead a group of lesser warriors into battle. Two actions of their choice per turn. Elite. Adversaries so powerful that they probably have a name and history whispered in taverns for miles around. Two actions of their choice per turn. Legendaries. The movers and shakers of the world; big, dangerous, powerful adversaries. Three actions of their choice per turn.

HOW ADVERSARIES DIFFER FROM PLAYER CHARACTERS Here’s a quick run-down of the rules for adversaries that differ from player characters: Because adversaries don’t have a character deck, they have a set number of wounds. When they run out of wounds, they’re out of action. Adversaries can take more than one wound on a turn player characters max out at one. Some adversaries can summon or “spawn” other adversaries onto the battlefield. When this happens, a summoned adversary is placed on the battlefield when created, but is not able to make actions until the start of the following round. Adversaries can’t recover their stamina the way that players characters can, but whenever an adversary loses a wound, they recharge their stamina to its full value. This recharge happens as the damage is subtracted, so a big enough attack on a weak enough adversary could inflict as many as 2 or 3 wounds in a single action - their stamina is recharged and eroded multiple times over the course of an attack.

REMEMBER - RESKIN! We’ve said it before in the GM section, but it bears repeating here - reskin your bad guys! We’ve used the fiction around the following entries to act as shorthand for you to get a handle on what they can do, and also for the sake of our own sanities (as fifty adversaries without any kind of fluff around them would be as dull to write as it is to read). When you read over the adversaries here, make sure you do so with a mind to your adventure - and your saga - and how you can rewrite their descriptions to fit in.

Adversaries don’t take damage as part of making actions like player characters do, such as when a character takes 1 damage for playing a RED card on a SHOOT action (the player characters are enough of a threat already). As such, adversaries don’t need to play cards on MOVE actions.

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BUILDING A FIGHT (We’ve reprinted the points values for building a fight from the GM chapter here for ease of reference.) Take the number of sessions that you’ve played in this adventure so far, and add 5 per player character in the battle - this is your points total. Spend your points on adversaries as follows: ĐĐ 1 Legendary 24pts ĐĐ 1 Elite

7pts

ĐĐ 1 Troop

3pts

ĐĐ 1 Mook

2pts

SAMPLE COMBATS: To give you an idea of what makes an interesting fight, we’ve put together a couple of groups of adversaries. These assume that the game has four players and is in its first session. We’ve re-skinned the monsters for three different genres, too - sci-fi, wild west, and modern urban horror to show you how it’s done.

ĐĐ 2x elite (2 Giants, page 113 ĐĐ 3 x mook (3 Wildman Ogre-Kin, page 113)

The Giants are big, lumbering guys with lots of damage up close, and the Ogre-Kin are weak but long-ranged. Sci-fi: 2 Stryx Orbital Mining Corporation Mech suits and 3 hovering DrillDrones™ Wild West: The Pigswiller Brothers, Biggest Brawlers in Town, and 3 of their drunk hangers-on from the bar Modern Horror: Two drugged-up werewolves from a rival estate and their devoted harem of girlfriends, spoiling for a fight

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ĐĐ Elite (Reaper, page 129) ĐĐ 2 x troop (2 Potshots, page 121) ĐĐ 4 mooks (4 Angry Mobs, page 134)

The Reaper deals horrendous amounts of damage on a wound and teleports away when hurt; the potshots are unreliable ranged characters; the angry mobs are groups of unskilled combatants pressed into service. Sci-fi: A twisted binding of shadows and meat with a dark intelligence, 2 mind-controlled peacekeeper snipers, 4 groups of shambling, half-born vat-grown abominations Wild West: Preacher Forsyth Who Lost Himself Praying To Inverted Crosses, 2 guns-for-hire paid for out of church coffers, the mad-eyed congregation Modern Horror: The Grim Reaper (in a sharp suit, with a pocket razor), The Lovers (recently escaped from separate prisons, and hearing the same voices) and the Victims of the Lovers who follow them around as ghosts The tactics for these two fights are quite different, and depend on the powers and roles that your players have chosen, but as a rough guide: in the first fight, the mooks can operate at range in relative safety if the players focus on the elites, so it might be a good idea to send someone along to deal with them while someone else focuses on the big guys. In the second fight, the Reaper turns out such heinous amounts of damage on a wound that it’s too risky to leave it alive for any longer than is strictly necessary, so deal with it first.

ENEMY STATS PROFICIENCY is a catch-all for how good an adversary is at what they do. Whenever a player character would use a specific proficiency (such as MOVE or SHOOT), an adversary uses their singular proficiency value to resolve the action. DAMAGE is how much damage the adversary inflicts on a successful hit, determined by the colour of the card used to make the attack. When an adversary inflicts more damage than a character has stamina remaining, they inflict a wound, and the character discards directly from their character deck. The amount discarded and any special effects are listed after the Wound entry under Damage. BOOST is the BOOST that the adversary gets when they play a FACE card on an attack action. Adversaries don’t get DEFENCE, MOVE or RECOVER boosts like player characters do. RANGE is the range of the adversary in areas. An adversary with a range of 1 can affect players 1 area away, an adversary with a range of 0 can only affect players in their own area, etc. STAMINA (S) is the amount of starting stamina the adversary possesses. When they take damage, subtract it from their stamina. If they can’t absorb the damage with their stamina, they take a wound. WOUNDS (W) is the number of times an adversary can be wounded before it’s taken out of action and removed from the battle. Some adversaries have special effects that trigger when they lose a wound. When an adversary loses their last wound, it doesn’t trigger any special effects unless stated in the description. Instead, they’re taken out of action. SPECIAL RULES are unusual rules that the adversary follows - maybe it can’t be surrounded, or it inflicts extra damage against lone targets. For example, many adversaries respond violently to taking a wound by making a player discard some cards or by triggering a special effect.

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THE GIANT OF MOORFELL PEAKS - LEGENDARY ĐĐ S:5 W:8 ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: 4 ĐĐ RANGE: 1

Damage: Mighty fists. RED (R):3 Black (B):4 BOOST: Thrown. Giant PUSHES target 3 areas and inflicts a wound. Wound: Discard 12, and the Giant deals 4 damage to all other characters in your area.

Hurl rocks: When the giant is not surrounded, it makes a free SHOOT action at the end of its turn against two foes within range 2. Massive feet: When the giant MOVES, it deals 2 damage to all adversaries in its target area. Rockfall: When the giant takes a wound, pick an area on the battlefield; that area is Challenging 2. Quake: the third, fifth and seventh time the giant takes a wound, choose a random direction. All adversaries are pushed 2 in that direction.

GIANT - ELITE ĐĐ S:5 W:5 ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: 3 ĐĐ RANGE: 1

Hurl rocks: When the giant is not surrounded, it makes a free SHOOT action at the end of its turn against a foe within range 2.

Damage: Ripped-up trees and boulders. R:2 B:3

Smash: When you lose your 2nd and 4th wound, pick an area adjacent to the Giant; all targets in that area take 3 damage.

BOOST: Thrown: Giant PUSHES target 1 area and inflicts a wound. Wound: Discard 9, and the Giant deals 3 damage to all other characters in your area.

MOUNTAIN OGRE - TROOP ĐĐ S:5 W:2 ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: 2 ĐĐ RANGE: 0

Grab and run: When the ogre takes a wound, PUSH an adversary 2 areas and follow.

Damage: Stolen greatclub. R:2 B:3 BOOST: Thrown: Giant PUSHES target 1 area. Wound: Discard 7, the ogre deals 2 damage to all other characters in your area.

WILDMAN OGRE-KIN - MOOK ĐĐ S:5 W:1 ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: NONE ĐĐ RANGE: 3 Damage: Hurled stones, heavy spears. R:1 B:2 BOOST: Ancestral rage: All adversaries in the Ogre-Kin’s area take 2 damage. Wound: Discard 5.

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THE DEMON PRINCE AND HIS HAREM - LEGENDARY ĐĐ S:3 W:12 ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: 4 ĐĐ RANGE: 2

When the Prince takes a wound, choose from one of the list below. These powers are Limited Special, and they (all) recharge when each power has been used once.

Damage: Hellish whip. Basic: R:3 B:4,

Teleport to any area on the battlefield.

BOOST: on SHOOT, he pulls you into his area. On STRIKE, half damage to all other player characters in target’s area.

Summon an Incubus in any area on the battlefield.

Wound: Discard 1, BLEED 7

Summon a Hellknight in his area. Summon 4 Pyroclast Whelps on the edge of the battlefield. Everyone within 2 areas of the Prince takes BLEED 2.

INCUBUS - MOOK ĐĐ S:6 W:2 ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: 2 ĐĐ RANGE: 3

When the Incubus takes a wound, his glamour drops and he becomes hideously ugly and bestial. He may not SHOOT, but all damage he inflicts is doubled.

Damage: Maddening visions. R:2 B:3 BOOST: SHOOT: Come.Target is pulled 2 towards Incubus STRIKE: Drained. Target takes BLEED 2 Wound: Discard 5, and target may not make attacks against the Incubus until Incubus is at 1 wound.

HELLKNIGHT - MOOK ĐĐ S:15 W:1 ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: 2 ĐĐ RANGE: 0 Damage: Ornate but sturdy sword and shield. R:1 B:2

Demonic Sentinel: When the Prince takes basic damage, if a Hellknight is in his area, the Hellknight may take half of it. When the Prince takes a wound, if a Hellknight is in his area, the Hellknight may take the wound instead.

BOOST: Guardian: Make an immediate escape move towards the Prince. If you are already in the Prince’s area, make an immediate free STRIKE action. Wound: Discard 4, and push target one area.

PYROCLAST WHELP - MOOK ĐĐ S:3 W:1 ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: NONE ĐĐ RANGE: 0

Living Bomb: When the whelp enters an area occupied by a player character, it explodes. All characters (friend or foe) in the area suffer a wound.

Damage: N/A

When the whelp is killed, it explodes at the end of the current turn.

Wound: Discard 5

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MARQUIS OF HELL - ELITE ĐĐ S:3 W:9 ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: 2 ĐĐ RANGE: 2

When the Marquis takes a wound, choose from one of the list below. These powers are Limited Special, and they (all) recharge when each power has been used once.

Damage: Demonic sword-cane. R:2 B:3

Teleport to any area on the battlefield.

BOOST: He runs you through, and another player character in the same area takes equal damage.

Summon 1 Needle Terror in an adjacent area.

Wound: BLEED 4, activate a power below:

Summon 2 Pyroclast Whelps (see Demon Prince) on the edge of the battlefield. Everyone within 1 area takes BLEED 2.

NEEDLE TERROR ĐĐ S:4 W:1 ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: ACE ĐĐ RANGE: 3 Damage: Coughs up a hail of rusted spikes. R:1 B:2 BOOST: Torrent of nails: Target is pushed 2. Wound: BLEED 2 and target may not move until they lose the bleed.

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INFERNAL SIGNIFER - TROOP ĐĐ S:4 W:3 ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: 2 ĐĐ RANGE: 2 Damage: Banner of Hell. R:1 B:2 BOOST: Summon a Fallen Legionnaire in the target’s area. Wound: Discard 5

When the Infernal Signifier takes a wound, choose from one of the list below. These powers are Limited Special, and they (all) recharge when each power has been used once. Make an escape move and summon a Fallen Legionnaire in the area you occupied. Summon a Fallen Legionnaire in your or an adjacent area. When the last Infernal Signifer dies, so do all Fallen Legionnaires.

FALLEN LEGIONNAIRE ĐĐ S:2 W:1 ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: NONE ĐĐ RANGE: 0 Damage: Archaic military gear. R:1 B:1

Phalanx: When you attempt to leave an area occupied by Fallen Legionnaires, the area you enter counts as Challenging X, where X is equal to the number of Fallen Legionnaires in your current area.

BOOST: The Banner Flares: All attacks from Fallen Legionnaires inflict +1 damage until the end of your next turn. This effect is cumulative. Wound: Discard 4

COURTIER OF THE NINTH CIRCLE - MOOK ĐĐ S:5 W:1 ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: ACE ĐĐ RANGE: 2

The Deadly Dance: When a Courtier dies, all other Courtiers within 2 areas may make an immediate move.

Damage: Over-designed pistols and swords R:1 B:1 BOOST: Weak spot. +2 damage. Wound: Discard 6, PUSH target 1 and make an immediate move action.

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THE THIN STREET ARSONIST, GANG LEADER - LEGENDARY THE ARSONIST AND THEIR CREW ĐĐ S:4 W:7 ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: 3 ĐĐ RANGE: 2

Damage: Firebombs, black-market guns, hit squads of masked goons. R:2 B:3 BOOST: Burn it up!: BLEED 5 Wound: Discard 10, and target is PUSHED 1.

Pound the alarm: When the arsonist takes a wound, summon 2 Firebombers to an area on the edge of the battlefield. Go to ground: When the arsonist loses their 2nd and 4th wounds, they may move to any area on the battlefield. Fire follows close: When the arsonist leaves an area it becomes Damaging 1 to adversaries; this stacks every time they leave the area and with the Firebomber boost Molotovs.

FIREBOMBER - MOOK ĐĐ S:3 W:1 ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: NONE ĐĐ RANGE: 1 Damage: Burning brands and flaming bottles. R:1 B:2 BOOST: Molotovs - Area is now on fire, and becomes Damaging 1 to adversaries; this stacks every time you trigger the boost and with Fire Follows Close. Wound: Discard 3

ELITE - CRUSHER ĐĐ S:6 W:5 ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: 2 ĐĐ RANGE: 0 Damage: Meaty fists or a big club. Basic R:2 B:3 BOOST: Stunning Blow: If target takes damage, they may only make 1 action next round. Wound: Discard 6, and BLEED 3 until you are no longer occupying the same area as Crusher.

Headlong charge: When Crusher misses with an attack, the target may choose to move Crusher to an adjacent area. Smash through walls: When Crusher moves through a Challenging connection, it takes 3 damage and the connection becomes Open. Get off!: When Crusher takes a wound from a STRIKE action, Crusher may PUSH the attacker 1. Outta my way!: When Crusher takes a wound from a SHOOT action, Crusher moves 1 towards the attacker.

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ELITE - THE MASKED TERROR ĐĐ S:4 W:4 ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: 3 ĐĐ RANGE: 2 Damage: Crossbow, hit squads, traps and dirty tricks. Basic R:1 B:2 BOOST: We Are Many: Place a Masked Acolyte on the battlefield. Wound: Discard 4, and BLEED 3

Surprise Entrance: At the start of the battle, do not deploy The Masked Terror. When a troop or mook-level adversary dies, replace it with The Masked Terror at full stamina and wounds and inflict 4 damage to all player characters in the area. Many hands: When The Masked Terror takes a wound perform one of the following special actions: Place a Masked Acolyte on the battlefield Remove a Masked Acolyte and place The Masked Terror in the area they were occupying. Just you and me, sweetheart: When a player character and the The Masked Terror are alone in an area, The Masked Terror inflicts double damage (but not double BLEED).

MASKED ACOLYTE - MOOK ĐĐ S:3 W:1 ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: NONE ĐĐ RANGE: 1 Damage: Crossbows, thrown knives, razor blades Basic R:1 B:1 BOOST: Critical strike: 5 damage Wound: Discard 6, and Masked Acolyte PUSHES target 1 towards The Masked Terror and follows.

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LEGBREAKER - TROOP ĐĐ S:5 W:2 ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: NONE ĐĐ RANGE: 0 Damage: Hammer. Basic R:1 B:3 BOOST: Mob Rule: RED damage inflicted by Legbreakers increases by 1 to a maximum of 3. Wound: Discard 6, and BLEED 3. Target may not make MOVE actions until they remove the BLEED.

POTSHOT - TROOP ĐĐ S:4 W:2 ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: ACE ĐĐ RANGE: 3 Damage: Homemade rifles, stolen crossbows. Basic R:1 B:2

Bad up close: The Potshot does not gain the benefits of its attack boost on STRIKE actions. Hold ‘em off: Any area occupied by a Potshot is Challenging X, where X is the number of Potshots in the area.

BOOST: Lucky shot: Inflict a wound. Wound: Discard 8

GANGER - MOOK ĐĐ S:4 W:1 ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: NONE ĐĐ RANGE: 1 (KNIVES, CLUBS, JUNK) Damage: Basic R:1 B:2 BOOST: Gang up: +1 damage for every other friendly character in the area. Wound: Discard 5

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THE GREAT KHAN - LEGENDARY ĐĐ S:6 W:6 ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: 4 ĐĐ RANGE: 0 Damage: R:2 B:3 BOOST: You are a fragile thing: 8 damage. Wound: Discard 1, and scar the card you discard from your character deck. The first time you scar an Ace as a result of this power, it has no effect. After that, you’re dead if you do it again.

Punish Weakness: If you miss The Great Khan with a STRIKE action, take 1 damage. No Such Thing As Victory: When you fight The Great Khan, choose two elements that are at stake. If you lose, you lose both. If you win, you get to win one - choose which. Treat the other as though you lost the fight. Honour Guard: The Great Khan is never found without the Honour Guard, who are detailed below. Deploy them alongside the Great Khan in battle. Long Live The Khan: When The Great Khan is taken out of action, all Honour Guard inflict +1 damage. When the Great Khan takes a wound, choose from one of the list below. These powers are Limited Special, and they (all) recharge when each power has been used once. One Honour Guard takes an immediate turn out of order. All player characters take 2 damage. Until the Great Khan takes another wound, players may not use RECOVER actions.

THE GREAT KHAN’S HONOUR GUARD

DRAGON LORD ĐĐ S:6 W:4 ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: 3 ĐĐ RANGE: 0 Damage: Huge dragon-tooth hammer. R:1 B:4 BOOST: The Dragon Roars: All targets in area take 3 damage. Wound: Discard 3. All other player characters in target area take 3 damage.

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THUNDER-BLOOD ĐĐ S:4 W:5 ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: ACE ĐĐ RANGE: 3 Damage: Creaking greatbow. R:2 B:3 BOOST: Lightning strike: Make an additional attack against another player character in the target’s area. If this attack is successful, repeat against another target until you fail or run out of targets. Wound: 6 damage, and all player characters in the target’s area, aside from the target, take 2 damage and are PUSHED two areas.

THE UNKILLABLE ĐĐ S:15 W:3 ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: 2 ĐĐ RANGE: 0

Rip and tear: If The Unkillable hits with two or more attacks on a single target in a single round, the target takes 8 damage.

Damage: A pair of brutal axes. R:1 B:2

Not Yet: The first time The Unkillable is taken out of action, they return to play at the start of their next turn with one wound. Also, if the Unkillable is out of action when the Great Khan loses its final wound, they return to play on their next turn as above.

BOOST: Frenzy: Make an additional STRIKE action. Wound: Discard 5

Seriously, Unkillable, We Mean It: When the Unkillable is taken out of action, they do not die unless the players go through some massively complicated rigmarole, probably for an entire session, to make sure that they’re dead. Every fight The Unkillable survives increases its Proficiency by 1.

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BERSERKER - ELITE ĐĐ S:5 W:4 ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: 2 ĐĐ RANGE: 1

Fury: When the Berserker inflicts damage, their base damage increases by 1 to a maximum of 4. This effect is cumulative.

Damage: A pair of meat-hooks on heavy chains. R:1 B:1, Special, see below

Hooked chain: When the Berserker makes a ranged attack it inflicts half damage but PULLS the target 1.

BOOST: Frenzy: Make another STRIKE action.

Unstoppable: When an adversary attempts to PUSH or PULL the Berserker, the Berserker may ignore the forced movement if they take 2 damage instead.

Wound: Discard 5 and if there is a mook-level adversary in the Berserker’s area, the Berserker inflicts 8 damage on a wound instead of 5, and immediately takes the mook out of action.

BATTLE CAPTAIN - ELITE ĐĐ S:4 W:4 ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: 3 ĐĐ RANGE: 1 Damage: Brutal sword and sturdy shield. R:2 B:3 BOOST: Disarmed: Target may not use proficiencies until the end of the Battle Captain’s next turn. Wound: Discard 5 and activate a special ability from the list below.

When the Battle Captain takes or inflicts a wound, choose from one of the list below. These powers are Limited Special, and they (all) recharge when each power has been used once. One ally takes an immediate action. All adversaries within 2 areas take 2 damage. Deploy 2 Grunts on the battlefield

GRUNT - MOOK ĐĐ S:5 W:1 ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: ACE ĐĐ RANGE: 0 Damage: Cleavers, axes, swords and clubs. R:1 B:2

BOOST: Mob Up: A Grunt in an adjacent area may make an immediate move into the Grunt’s area. Wound: Discard 4, and deploy another Orc Grunt on the battlefield.

WARRIOR - TROOP ĐĐ S:7 W:2 ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: ACE ĐĐ RANGE: 1 Damage: Jagged spears and javelins. R:1 B:2 BOOST: Throw spear: Make an additional SHOOT action immediately. Wound: Discard 7

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Gang up: When the Warrior is in an area where they surround the adversary, they inflict +1 damage.

HUNTER - TROOP ĐĐ S:5 W:3 ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: 2 ĐĐ RANGE: 3 Damage: Dangerous, over-wound crossbow. R:1 B:3

Reload:The Hunter must make a USE action to reload their crossbow after firing. Unwieldy: The Hunter deals 1 damage and may not use their BOOST when making STRIKE actions.

BOOST: Deadeye: +3 damage. Wound: Discard 2,you may not restore stamina or receive healing until you or another character makes an opposed USE action to pull out the bolt.

DREGS - MOOKS ĐĐ S:4 W:1 ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: NONE ĐĐ RANGE: 2 Damage: Sharp bits of metal, heavy manacles, bricks and discarded orc weapons. R:1 B:2

Backstabbing: At the start of each round, draw a card. If it is a FACE card, one Dreg has attempted an escape. Remove one random Dreg, and if they share their area with nonmook adversaries from this hierarchy, an adversary in their area takes a wound.

BOOST: Name and a Backstory: Name the Dreg and give it a defining feature, and pick from the following: +1 Damage, +1 Wound, or Remove from the Battlefield and Make A Recurring Character Wound: Discard 2 for each Dreg in the area.

SCALEBEAST - MOOK ĐĐ S:5 W:1 ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: NONE ĐĐ RANGE: 0

If the Scalebeast is taken out of action, the BLEED ends. If you make an escape move, the BLEED ends.

Damage: Teeth and claws. R:1 B:1 BOOST: Maul 3 Wound: Discard 3, and BLEED 1. Until you remove the BLEED (and the scalebeast): The Scalebeast may not make actions, but will follow if you make a MOVE action. Attacks made by other adversaries against you are at proficiency 2 unless their proficiency is higher.

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THE TWICE-BORN QUEEN - LEGENDARY The Queen has passed through the veil of death and emerged triumphant. Fighting her in her lair isn’t the best idea, but she’s not about to leave any time soon. ĐĐ S:5 W:8 ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: 3 ĐĐ RANGE: 3

Damage: Flesh-warping spells and a cursed sceptre. R:3 B:4 BOOST: Curse of Ages: BLEED 2. Wound: Discard 6, and all Lost Souls on the battlefield immediately move 1 towards the Queen.

When the Twice-Born Queen takes a wound, choose from one of the list below. These powers are Limited Special, and they (all) recharge when each power has been used once. Your Own Personal Hel: The character that wounded her is transported to an area off-battlefield where they fight a Hel Wraith (see stats below). The player character may not return to the battlefield until they fulfill conditions outlined in the Spectre’s entry. Only one player character may fight the Wraith at any one time. Arcane Geometry: All characters in the Queen’s area are removed and replaced in any area she desires. Sunder Veil: Increase wound damage by 2. Deathless Servitors: Place 3 Undead Knights in the Queen’s area. The March Of Lost Souls: At the start of each of the Queen’s turns, deploy a Lost Soul on a random edge of the battlefield at the start of the Queen’s turn. When a Lost Soul enters the same area as the Queen, or she enters the same area as a Lost Soul, she heals 1 wound. Activate Phylactery: When the Queen loses her last wound, remove her from the battlefield. The player characters have two rounds to destroy her phylactery; if they don’t manage it, deploy her in the same area as the Phylactery with 2 wounds. This process will repeat until the players destroy the Phylactery.

PHYLACTERY - SPECIAL A bejewelled draconic skull that houses the soul of a discorporated Necromancer. ĐĐ S:4 W:2

CURSE: Whoever destroys the Phylactery is cursed. They accrue an immediate permanent scar (redraw Aces).

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LOST SOUL - MOOK ĐĐ S:2 W:1 ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: NONE ĐĐ RANGE: 0 Damage: Spectral claws. R:1 B:1 Wound: No effect, but Lost Soul makes an immediate MOVE action towards the Twice-Born Queen. BOOST: None

UNDEAD KNIGHT - TROOP ĐĐ S:5 W:2 ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: 2 ĐĐ RANGE: 0 Damage: Ancient shield and sword. R:1 B:2 BOOST: Make an immediate escape move towards the Twice-Born Queen. If you are already in the Queen’s area, make an immediate free STRIKE action. Wound: Discard 4, and Soul Beacon: Place a Lost Soul on a random edge of the battlefield.

HEL WRAITH - ELITE ĐĐ S:3 W:6 ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: 2 ĐĐ RANGE: 0

Come back to us: When you inflict a wound on the Hel Wraith, make a Challenging USE action. If you succeed, return to the battlefield in the area from which you left.

Damage: Rime-touched teeth and nails. R:1 B:3

Extra-dimensional: You don’t need to take the Hel Wraith out of action to win the battle.

BOOST: +2 Damage Wound: Discard 10, and return the target to the battlefield in the area from which they left.

Feedback: If you take the Hel Wraith out of action, The Twice-Born Queen takes a wound, and you may return to the battlefield in any area immediately.

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REAPER - ELITE ĐĐ S:5 W:5 ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: 3 ĐĐ RANGE: 1 Damage: Obsidian scythe. R:2 B:4

More sand for your hourglass: When you inflict a wound on Reaper after it has wounded you, heal 20. Spirit step: When Reaper takes a wound, make an immediate escape move to any area on the battlefield.

BOOST: Scythe sweep: Attack all targets in Reaper’s area. Wound: Discard 25.

NECROMANCER - ELITE ĐĐ S:4 W:5 ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: 2 ĐĐ RANGE: 2

Rise, My Minion!: When a troop- or mook-category adversary is taken out of action within 2 areas of the Necromancer, draw a card.

Damage: A cavalcade of hissing curses and a chattering skullstaff. R:1 B:3

RED: Bah! The Necromancer tries, and fails, to reanimate the corpse into a minion.

BOOST: Enervate: BLEED 3, and until you remove the BLEED, your attacks inflict half damage.

BLACK: Again! Place a Fresh Minion in the corpse’s area.

Wound: Discard 13.

FACE: Dance! The corpse lashes out. An adversary in the corpse’s area takes 3 damage.

FRESH MINION - MOOK ĐĐ S:4 W:1 ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: NONE ĐĐ RANGE: 0 Damage: Whatever it was holding just before it died. R:1 B:1 BOOST: Claw and bite: +2 damage. Wound: Discard 6

ARMOURED SKELETON - TROOP ĐĐ S:15 W:2 ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: ACE ĐĐ RANGE: 1 Damage: Mighty gauntlets and screeching platemail. R:1 B:3 BOOST: Boneshaker: +5 damage, and Armoured Skeleton takes 5 damage. Wound: Discard 4, and the Armoured Skeleton’s area becomes Challenging 3 until the start of its next turn.

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BALEFUL CULTIST - TROOP ĐĐ S:4 W:3 ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: ACE ĐĐ RANGE: 2

Not a fighter: The cultist does not get its BOOST on STRIKE actions.

Damage: Sacrificial knife and wicked hexes. R:1 B:2 BOOST: Grasping claws: BLEED 1, and target may not MOVE until BLEED ends. Wound: Discard 5, and a mook within 2 areas may make an immediate action.

SHAMBLING HORDE - MOOK ĐĐ S:10 W:1 (SPECIAL) ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: NONE ĐĐ RANGE: 0 Damage: Necrotic claws. R:1 B:1 BOOST: Many hands: Make an additional STRIKE action. Wound: Discard 5.

No wounds: You cannot inflict a wound on a Shambling Horde by any means other than exhausting its stamina if you inflict a wound through a boost or power, treat it as the card value instead (narratively, every one or two stamina removed represents a downed foe). Legion: The above stat block represents a small group of reanimated corpses. The Shambling Horde cannot be surrounded, and any player characters who share an area with it are treated as surrounded.

DECREPIT SERVITOR - MOOK ĐĐ S:4 W:1 ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: NONE ĐĐ RANGE: 1 Damage: A heavy serving tray and half a silver dinner service. R:1 B:1 BOOST: All yours, sir: An adversary within 1 area may make an immediate attack against the target. Wound: Discard 6

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THE DRAGON - LEGENDARY The Dragon has two forms - it starts off normal but, if its wings are destroyed, it crash-lands and becomes enraged. Inform the players that the wings can be attacked as a separate entity when the fight begins.

ENRAGED Mad: The Dragon’s stamina score drops to 5. Range: 0

ĐĐ S:6 W:10 ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: 3

Damage: Fuming maw and volatile breath. R:2 B:4

Huge: The area The Dragon occupies and all connected areas are Challenging.

Wound: Discard 9 , and lower total stamina by 1 until the end of the battle. This effect stacks.

Canny: The Dragon will fold early if it believes it cannot win a fight, and return and do something awful later on - generally involving a dramatic scene of some kind and huge loss of life. The players must work to trap the dragon somehow in order to permanently take it out of action or simply roll with the fact that, while they get what they want out of the battle, their village will be burnt to a crisp.

NORMAL Flying: At the start of each of the Dragon’s turns, make an immediate escape move action if you wish. Range: 1 Damage: Enormous claws and sharp teeth. R:2 B:3 BOOST: Dragon Breath: Attack an additional character either in your target’s area, or a connected area. Wound: Discard 6, and lower total stamina by 1 until the end of the battle. This effect stacks. At the start of the Dragon’s turn, select one of the following powers: Volley: The Dragon’s range is increased to 3 until the end of its turn. Swoop: Any characters in an area the Dragon enters this turn take 2 damage. Characters can only take this damage once a turn. Grab: Select a character in the Dragon’s area. When the Dragon MOVES, this turn this character moves with them. Evade: Make an ESCAPE move to any area on the battlefield.

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BOOST: Rip and Tear: If the Dragon hits, BLEED 4.

At the start of the Dragon’s turn, select one of the following powers: Inhale: PULL every character within 2 areas 1 area. Charge up: All normal attacks the Dragon performs next turn inflict 5 damage. Next turn, the Dragon may not select a power (tell the players you are using this power). Smoke: SHOOT actions against the dragon lose proficiency. Elemental aura: All characters in the Dragon’s area discard 4 cards from their character deck.

WINGS ĐĐ S:4 W:4 The Wings may not make actions, but they can be targeted - they occupy the same area as the dragon and cannot be pushed or pulled out of its area. If the Wings are taken out of action, the dragon becomes Enraged (see below). When the Wings take a wound, you must choose one of the following effects. You may not use the same effect more than once in a battle scene. Fall Back: 1 damage to all player characters in the Dragon’s area, and it must make an immediate escape MOVE. Thrash: All player characters in the Dragon’s area take 1 damage and are PUSHED 1. Crash Land: One character in the Dragon’s area takes 5 damage. Defensive Wall: Until the end of the Dragon’s next turn, if a player character takes damage from entering the Dragon’s Challenging areas, that damage is doubled.

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MODERN

HITMAN - ELITE ĐĐ S:5 W:4 ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: 3 ĐĐ RANGE: 4

Hard to pin down: When a character misses the Hitman with an attack, the Hitman may make an immediate escape move.

Damage: Paired 45s. R:3 B:4 BOOST: Crack shot: No damage, but Hitman inflicts a wound. Wound: Discard 12

SWAT CAPTAIN - ELITE ĐĐ S:4 W:4 ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: 3 ĐĐ RANGE: 2

Flak Vest: The SWAT Captain takes half damage from SHOOT actions.

Damage: Submachine Gun. R:2 B:3 BOOST: Small Unit Tactics: A SWAT Trooper within two areas may make an immediate action. Wound: Discard 7, and each time the SWAT Captain wounds a target, increase their wound damage against that target by 4.

SWAT TROOPER - TROOP ĐĐ S:4 W:3 ĐĐ Proficiency: 2 ĐĐ Range: 2 Damage: Submachine Gun.R:2 B:3 BOOST: Suppressive Fire: Choose: PUSH target 1, or all areas are Challenging 4 to your target until the start of your next turn. Wound: Discard 5, and until target leaves their area, they may not make RECOVER actions.

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Flak Vest: SWAT troopers take half damage from SHOOT actions.

ARMED AND DANGEROUS - TROOP He’s got a gun, a bare minimum of training, and a desire to look like a big guy in front of his mates. ĐĐ S:4 W:2 ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: NONE ĐĐ RANGE: 2

Damage: The biggest gun he could afford. R:2 B:3 BOOST: Empty the magazine: Make an additional SHOOT action immediately. Next turn must be spent reloading, so he can’t make attack actions. Wound: BLEED 5

ANGRY MOB - MOOK ĐĐ S:10 W:1 (SPECIAL) ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: NONE ĐĐ RANGE: 0 Damage: Torn-off chair legs and pocket-knives. R:1 B:1 BOOST: Lobbed Bottle: Make an immediate SHOOT action. Wound: Discard 5.

No wounds: You cannot inflict a wound on an angry mob by any means other than exhausting its stamina - if you inflict a wound through a boost or power, treat it as the card value instead (narratively, every one or two stamina removed represents a downed foe). Mob rule: The above stat block represents a small group of angry citizens. The Angry Mob cannot be surrounded, and any player characters who share an area with it are treated as surrounded.

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NARRATIVE ENEMIES These adversaries are not necessarily part of a larger theme or tied to a core like the preceding adversaries. They are for the GM to drop in and re-skin as they see fit to provide a very different form of challenge to the players.

THE BRASH MILITARY CAPTAIN - ELITE ĐĐ S:4 W:5 ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: 3 ĐĐ RANGE: 1 Damage: Mighty sabre and mighty cigar. R:2 B:3 BOOST: Mighty blow: +2 damage. Wound: Discard 5, and activate a special ability from the list below. These powers are Limited Special, and they (all) recharge when each power has been used once.

Mighty command: One ally takes an immediate action. Mighty kick: One target in The Brash Military Captain’s area is PUSHED 2. Mighty poor tactics: Pick a player; they may move one troop or mook-level adversary 2 areas. Mighty mighty: Increase all damage dealt by one. Stacks (like bricks would, in a house). Mighty Fine Smile: If The Brash Military Captain takes a character out of action, and the target does not die, The Brash Military Captain becomes either Your Rival or Your Romantic Interest the next time you meet them.

YOUR ROMANTIC INTEREST - ELITE This is a Romantic Interest in a Mr and Mrs Smith way; you fight them, at least initially, thanks to whatever circumstances have pushed you together. If the tension between romance and violence is resolved, they either become a helpful NPC (if they chose romance) or a different adversary altogether (if they chose violence) to represent their change of heart.

When Your Romantic Interest takes a wound, choose from one of the list below. These powers are Limited Special, and they (all) recharge when each power has been used once.

Damage: Something dangerous. R:2 B:4

YOUR Romantic Interest: Pick a player character at the start of the battle; this is Your Romantic Interest’s romantic interest. Against all other characters, Your Romantic Interest takes half damage and deals half damage.

ĐĐ S:5 W:4 ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: 3 ĐĐ RANGE: 3

BOOST: Get Your Coat, You’re Pulled: Target is PULLED one area. Wound: Discard 6, and Moment of Genuine Sexual Tension: Until the end of Your Romantic Interest’s next turn, the target and Your Romantic Interest are in a special off-battlefield area unique to themselves that no other characters may access, where you exchange attacks, witty comebacks and perhaps fluids.

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Shot through the heart: Attacking target takes BLEED 6. And you’re to blame: Any adversary within 2 areas may make an immediate move towards the target. You give love a bad name: 10 damage, and you pick up an embarrassing nickname from Your Romantic Interest that sticks, no matter how hard you try to get rid of it.

Not like this: Your romantic interest cannot die from taking damage, only as a result of you losing a battle or dramatic scene, but they can be taken out of action as normal. You just keep me hangin’ on: If you are taken out of action by Your Romantic Interest and they are, indeed, your romantic interest, you cannot die as a result - re-draw Aces.

YOUR RIVAL - ELITE We get a bit tricky with the language in this one, referring to Your Rival and Your Rival’s rival, who is a player character, and honestly it’s kind of hard to understand first time through but we hope you’ll stick with it for the fact that this is the only RPG adversary, as far as we know, who uses Just A Minute as a special attack. ĐĐ S:5 W:4 ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: 4 ĐĐ RANGE: 3

Damage: A nicer version of their rival’s weapon. Determined by suit, as though they were a player character. BOOST: Inflict a wound. Wound: Discard 12.

Your Rival: Pick a player character at the start of the battle; this is Your Rival’s rival. Against all other characters, Your Rival takes half damage and deals half damage. This is our final battle: Your Rival cannot die unless their rival puts their own life at stake when the battle begins; otherwise, they always manage to escape at the last moment. When Your Rival inflicts a wound on their rival, choose from one of the list below. These powers are Limited Special, and they (all) recharge when each power has been used once. This is personal business: PUSH all characters in the area who are not Your Rival’s rival 1. Lasting wound: Your Rival’s rival must immediately scar a card. Re-draw Aces. I am not left-handed: Increase Your Rival’s damage by 1. Long, drawn-out monologue: Instead of attacking next turn, Your Rival must gloat and boast about how much better they are than you for a full minute without hesitation, repetition or deviation. If they hesitate, repeat themselves or deviate from the topic, Your Rival’s rival takes control of the speech and must refute Your Rival’s claims. If Your Rival is talking at the end of the minute, gain a new Twist and apply the effects immediately. If Your Rival’s rival is talking at the end of the minute, they gain 3 temporary stamina.

THE RAVENING HOUND - ELITE The Ravening Hound is a shadow of the future, hunting backwards through time to avenge the actions of those not yet born. It is a many-eyed, skinless hunting dog the size of a doberman with a long, slavering maw full of shark-like teeth; it appears from nowhere, and can hide in your memories to attack when you least expect it. ĐĐ S:4 W:6 ĐĐ PROFICIENCY: 3 ĐĐ RANGE: 0

Damage: Fractal Maw. R:1 B:3 Face: Blink Strike: The attack also affects an adversary within 2 areas, who should draw to defend as normal. Wound: Discard 6, and BLEED 2. Each time a character attempts to remove the BLEED and fails, its damage increases by 1.

Hunter: The first time The Ravening Hound inflicts a wound, the character that they wounded becomes the Hunted. The Ravening Hound deals +1 damage against the Hunted. This persists for the rest of the saga. Desperate: If The Ravening Hound is not in the same area as the Hunted at the end of its turn, it suffers 2 damage and immediately moves one area towards the Hunted. Reposition: When The Ravening Hound takes a wound, it inflicts 2 damage to the character that wounded it, and may relocate to any area on the battlefield. No Escape: If The Ravening Hound takes a character out of action, the GM may choose to immediately take The Ravening Hound out of action too. In addition to their normal scar for going out of action, the character then scars a card with “The Ravening Hound” (redraw Aces); if they play this card during their turn in any future battle scenes, The Ravening Hound immediately appears in their area with 3 wounds.

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APPENDIX 1: OPTIONAL RULES If you want to modify your game of Unbound, we’ve had some ideas about ways you might do that.

ALTERNATIVES TO MARKING CARDS If you want to play Unbound with your absolute best deck of playing cards, or you don’t want to buy a new deck of cards for each character every time you start a new adventure, we’ve developed some other options for you. NO-MARK MECHANICS: Modify the way you pick up stories, scars and echoes. Scars: When you would scar a card, draw to determine what it is as normal, then note down the scar on your sheet along with the card you drew. The first time you draw a card matching that number in a scene, treat that card as though it was the scarred card. If you “scar” the same card twice, your character is removed from the game as normal. Stories: Instead of gaining a story card each time you resolve a fate, gain one every time you advance. Draw as normal but note down the story on your sheet along with the card you drew. The first time you draw a card matching that number in a scene, treat that card as though it was the story card. (If you have the same number for a story AND a scar, look at the colour of the first card that matches it. If it’s RED, treat it as a scar. If it’s BLACK, treat it as a story. Use whichever result you didn’t use the first time the second time you draw the matching number, regardless of colour.)

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Echoes: Instead of marking cards with echoes, use Jokers - put them back into the GM’s deck. Write down the echoes in your notes. When the GM plays a Joker, they draw an additional card and treat it as though it were any of their echoes. DECK PROTECTORS: These are a cheap, reuseable way of circumventing the issue; you can sheathe your cards in clear plastic (they come in packs of sixty for about £2) and slip a piece of paper inside denoting a scar, echo or story card. AN ARDUOUS METHOD INVOLVING NOTES AND A SPREADSHEET: Look, we’d never do this, but if you want to cross-reference a spreadsheet with every card you draw, and note down every modified card on said spreadsheet, that is a thing you can do.

LINKING ADVENTURES WITHIN A SAGA As you play through your saga, you might want to link the adventures mechanically as well as in the fiction. Here are some ideas: SHARED HISTORIES: Each player character starts play with an additional story and an additional scar relating to

the previous adventure - either something that happened in the past, or hinting at something that will happen in the future. The GM begins play with an echo card, marked to show to effect of the previous adventure on the current one. GROUP FOUNDATIONS: The core foundation of the group must relate to the effects of the previous adventure in some way. PERMANENT ADVANCEMENT: Technology, magic or tactics have improved over time. Choose one power per player - this power begins play at Advanced level. If you use permanent advancement, the GM gains an additional point per player to spend when creating combats. GUEST STARS: Once per adventure, a player can use a previous character instead of their current one (assuming, chronologically, such a thing is possible within the fiction of the adventure). If they do this, the character should pick up new fates, one new story, and one new scar to represent what they’ve been up to since the previous adventure ended.

focus on one group of characters for a long period of time - months of play, or upwards of eight sessions - then here are some options: GROUP FATES: Players have three fates instead of two, and the third is a group fate determined by the GM that relates to the adventure. This should operate on a longer timescale than normal player fates and revolve around major story beats. Once a player has resolved all three fates, their character may advance as normal. POWER UP: After every six games, each character unlocks another power slot to be used as normal. STAMINA BOOST: After every eight games, each character adds 1 to their stamina rating. GET PROFICIENT: After every ten games, increase one proficiency or foundation your character has by one point, or gain a new proficiency or foundation. No proficiency or foundation may be higher than 4.

LONG-TERM ADVENTURES Unbound is designed to run a series of small, linked adventures within the same world. But if you want to

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APPENDIX 2: MORE TOUCHSTONE TABLES We asked some of our friends and games design heroes to write up some touchstones for use in your games of Unbound. If you fancy changing things up a little, consider using these instead of the default one on page 13 - or a mix of both.

CARA ELLISON’S CYBERPUNK NOIR DATASLUGS Cara wrote us two sets of touchstones - one of cyberpunky noir-themed concepts, and one that’s more snatches of conversation or motivations for characters:

A

Fractals In The Sky

Communitek Revolt

Biosculpted Enforcers

Internet Relay Mule

2

Wake Up By A Loading Error

Go Mirrorshades On This Shit

Unreal Heist

Jack-In Fault

3

Six Day Cyberspace Withdrawal

Inducing A Netrip

Too Much Case Bling

Trans-Grid Assassination

4

Phreaker Junkies

Post-Industrial Frontier Foundation

SmartDrug Kingpin

One Large And The SprawlQueen

5

The Roundheels Hack

Teledildonics Virus

An Ode To Wirehackers

The Dames Of The Net

6

Splash Four On Grid

Hyperlight Avatars

Busting An ICE Rush

The Beautiful Boy Of The Mayonaka Security Corp

7

Toasternet Grrls

Hail Mary Runs At Sundown

Drag Heels For An R&D Rig

Frags Tattooed On Walls

8

The Diagnostic Indicates You... Are It

Remote Server Pinball

Noise On The Line

Counterfeit Multipasses

9

Post-Modem Flophouse

Corp Flunkies At The Gate

Supermodernist Head Doctors

Thread Paste Bomber On Deck

Run Six Firewalls Before Breakfast

A Server Room To Die For

Crimson All Over The Motherboard

The Roughhouse Nexus

J

Fingers So Hot They Burn Keyboards

Hack Me Hot Pants

The Big Cybersleep

Goddamn Bugs

Q

Config To Ghost

Matrix Geishas To Jam With

Biochip Hack Network

A List Of Handles

K

Fencing Offworld

Augmented Joyboy

Reconfig Some Ronin Punk

Get An Output,Use Him For Wetwork

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A

Only these wires are left

Way too young to take down a whole system

Change disks, change disks

Braids thick in the hand

2

He has too much meat for meatspace

We’re only close in virtual reality

There’s no such thing as one that’s offline

I can tell by syntax when she’s nearby

3

Put screenlight through me, then

No, no, only a couple of seconds until we make him

I don’t wanna go to jail for this

He gave us the mother lode and peaced out

4

It’s like hallucinating holograms

Minimum likelihood

There’s a thin line between hacked and reconfigured

Wearing a heart on a sleeve like old times

5

If my heart explodes, come pick up the mess

Neutralized by her tone

She slipped through a million worlds

Fused together in passion and hatred

6

They’ll never load it up again

Playing well with others

Something more awful than even I could write

We short circuit the whole thing

7

I’d run passwords in hell with you

A hackscript so messy it’s indecipherable

This manifesto is a weapon

All we do is look slick all day

8

We are the children of that last LED

Close all backdoors

All our enemies have too much power

Eyes too dark to flash

9

It hurts to avoid him and I prefer it

We look fit to corrupt data and we’ll tear holes in cyberspace

Make a copy in case I’m plugged in

We’re too close to get exotic now

This is the last sprawl in infinity

More memory than God

Go down and run the line

Like fencing on a skyscraper

J

Thirty-seven years ago, a nexus was busted for this same thing

You were the only person I met that I liked

Only a dermed-up booster would come down here

Eyes so glazed I can trace circuits in them

Q

I loved him like that rig

It’s too much machine for him

By the time it launches we’ll be long gone

An incredible IQ used only for high scores

K

Her heart is blacker than the pinprick in my eyes

Faster than the refresh rate

Like neural pathways carrying dopamine

You can’t close a contract without her

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FROG CROAKLEY’S SPACE ODDITIES Frog has delved deep into the sweltering morass that is his brain and dredged up 52 individual nuggets of strange, for which you should be thankful:

A

“Deadliest Catch” in a nebula

A beast that excretes gold

A vast ceramic fist

Aliens that breath carbonated syrup

2

An egg whisk

Award ceremony for warlords

Bellowing Blaggards

Biomech mausoleum

3

Bodybuilders with fish heads

Botched AI sacrifice

Building dyson spheres by hand

Cantankerous wooden cyborg

4

CARBARIANS AT THE GATES

Casino planet

Celebrity executioner

Comet racing

5

Culinary craze: alien turds

Eternal bar brawl

Eusocial skeletons

Fight in a can

6

God’s Crisps

Her Majesty’s Sixth Ghost Roarers

Hermit with a pet hyperslug

Inbred command caste

7

Infantry war as art

Interstellar battering ram

Living in an alien landfill

Massive baroque starship zoo

8

Meat Monks

Medieval Space Elevator

Mercenaries with lobster grafts

Muscly dracula

9

Neon deserts

Notorious worm salesman

Oceans of piss

Only cabbages remain

Psychedelic technoberserker knees-up

Religion based on Battletoads

Robot prison asteroid

Savages maintaining huge, ancient tanks

J

Sentient ammunition

Space is screaming

The Admiral IS the flagship

The brute’s flute

Q

The Court of King Prawn

The Gorillionaire

The last dinosaur on Mars

The Revered Coin

K

The Seven Songs of Crime

The tax moon

Valley of the Chimps

Village in a war machine’s ruins

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NAOMI ALDERMAN’S JEWISH TCHOTCHKES Naomi Alderman is fascinated by Jewish culture, and we felt it too difficult to stop her from writing that into her touchstones because she is a formidable woman. If you’re playing a game of Unbound and find yourself thinking: “Hey, this is great, but it could do with being 25% more Jewish,” do we have the charts for you:

A

cakes shaped like ears

Blood

flowers

a hut with leaves for a roof

2

fancy dress costumes

Frogs

a mountain

visits from seven ghosts on seven consecutive nights

3

a beauty parade

Lice

the very Word of God

fruit

4

you can’t tell anyone who your parents were

Wild animals

a man with a shining face

a significant plant

5

a much-married king

Cattle plague

cheesecake

watered-down soup

6

a plot to bring down the empire

boils

everyone you know

a small jar of olive oil

7

gifts to the poor

hail

a golden statue

gold coins

8

the king’s favourite horse

locusts

rumblings among the people

doughnuts

9

a golden scepter

three days of utter darkness

forced synaesthesia

the birthday of trees

a gallows

death of all the firstborn sons (except one)

sending spies into the new land

Insecure attachment

J

an enormous banquet

leaving in a hurry

giants

Stand-up comedy

Q

an evil Grand Vizier

the parting of the sea

the desert

Anxiety attacks

K

“you were given this power to use at this precise moment”

crackers

an unmarked grave

Psychotherapy

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SEAN SMITH’S HORROR NOIR KEEPSAKES Sean likes two things - hard boiled detective fiction and creeping insectoid horror. If you like those two things, or you want to add a bit of weirdness to an otherwise mundane game, here you go:

A

cyanide pillbug

slowly spinning a web of lies

rosepetal old fashioned

the perfect shed skin of a young man

2

encoded in a burlesque number

like a moth to an old flame

the patient face behind the mirror

kisses with an irregularly ridged tongue

3

stifled by a mouthless yawn

royal jelly amnesty

honey on the doorknob

make like a cocoon and split

4

a little fire cleans us of these deeds

rolled-up newsflash

a keening hulk in the harbour

frontpage slander

5

worm in the apple

cavity warrant

birth control deception

that perpetual itch

6

hitting the pre-dawn streets

barbed tail that cab

walking on viscous eggshells

burned coffee, bitter as beesting

7

chitin-crack of closing handcuff

hive of reporters

pesticide martini

REDACTED

8

facial infestation

swarmblood simulacrum

maternity ward bouncer

lifting a leaf from the legislator’s book

9

like a fly on the wall

the beat of dusty wings downwind

when the moth goes back to bed

owl-eyed whorl on the wharf-end wood

“We’ll always have Paris sights.”

firefly flashes at the fashion shoot

twelve-bar bluebottles

papertrail waspnest

J

maggot in the ashtray

non-sequential banknotes wrapped in silk

flecks in stagnant icecubes

hide and seek by dockyard sluice

Q

slender-fine legs longer than my laundry list

her children clustered round mother’s corpse

mantis spines beneath her skin

incubating warmth of the human womb

K

holding the secret for too long

the empty-briefcase ruse

the ageless hypnotist plying last season’s show

deafening drone of the DA’s denial

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JAKE TUCKER’S MILITARY BULLET POINTS Jake asked us if we wanted any touchstones doing, and we happened to know that his obsession with Rainbow Six could be used to our benefit. If you want to add a smattering of modern combat to any game, draw a couple of results on this table:

A

Coup

Prototypes

The Nuke

Chain of Command

2

Rogue State

Training Exercise

Private Military Corp

Black Ops

3

Counter-Terrorism

The Traitor

The Jungle

The Desert

4

Corporations

Commander in Chief

Politics

Secret War

5

Dictatorship

Weapon of Mass Destruction

Airborne

New Recruits

6

Organised Crime

No More Oil

Piracy

Arms Deals

7

Family

Cease-Fire

Freedom

Airborne

8

Armoured Cavalry

Intelligence Gathering

A Fragile Alliance

Prisoners

9

Undercover

Revolution

Hunter-Killers

Betrayal

Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP)

Multi-national task force

Communists

Rapid Deployment

J

Drone Strike

The Marksman

Survivors

The Defector

Q

The City

Conscription

Duty

Honour

K

The Virus

Double Agents

Close Protection Detail

Hearts and Minds

10

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JASON MORNINGSTAR’S REVENGE TRAGEDIES If you want to get your Elizabethan Revenge Tragedy on, or if you need to draw up some doomed characters and schemes to fill out the ranks of an organisation, look no further:

A

A vengeful ghost

Broken heart

A dead messenger

A heart, still beating

2

Doomed lovers

Forgiveness denied

Sadistic punishment

A powerful old fool

3

Frantic, rutting congress

An unpaid debt

Mutilation

Guilt and shame

4

Disaster and heartbreak

Arrogant pride

Suspicion and paranoia

An unholy alliance

5

Sudden death

A lecherous brute

A Terrible truth

Raving madness

6

Profound shame

Vast wealth in shaky hands

A hapless witness

A traitor

7

A scheming wanton

Mistaken Identity

A dreadful curse

An innocent beauty

8

A confession under torture

The return of one thought dead

Helpless tears

An arranged marriage

9

Prophecy fulfilled

Misdirected revenge

Self-murder

Unbridled debauchery

Poison

The one good person

Blasphemy

Impotent justice

J

Filth and corruption

The Devil, Prince of Lies

A Thyestean banquet

Degeneration

Q

A hideous bloodbath

Disguise

A useful idiot

A clever forgery

K

A spiteful rumor

Unknowing incest

A Bastard

Evil secrets, buried forever

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MERRITT KOPAS’ MORRISSEEDS All of these touchstones are, in fact, snippets of Morrissey lyrics. So that’s a thing:

A

The devil will find work for idle hands to do

We cannot cling to the old dreams anymore

This town has dragged you down

Everything depends upon how near you stand to me

2

Heaven knows we’ll soon be dust

The rain falls hard on a humdrum town

A river the colour of lead

The streets are crammed with things eager to be held

3

There is a light and it never goes out

The dream is gone but the baby is real

Belligerent ghouls run the schools

Under the iron bridge we kissed

4

A dreaded sunny day

Good times for a change

The queen is dead

Love, peace and harmony

5

The plans of a future war

The last night of the fair

Panic on the streets

Most people keep their brains between their legs

6

It just wasn’t like the old days anymore

Golden lights displaying your name

The hills are alive

The romance of crime

7

A hillside desolate

We have something they’ll never have

All men have secrets

People survive without feelings or blood

8

The ghost and the storm outside

A mystical time zone

Ceiling shadows shimmy by

Love is just a miserable lie

9

A sullen misty moor

The Holy Name Church

Nature must still find a way

Educated criminals work within the law

The depths of the criminal world

Home of the brash, outrageous and free

Combating ignorance, dust and disease

Under slate grey Victorian skies

J

The cold, small streets that trap them

An ancient ocean wide, wild, lost, uncrossed

The seaside town that they forgot to bomb

Mother Nature makes their bed

Q

Some bad people on the rise

The ladder’s a planet

One November spawned a monster

Warm lights from the grand houses

K

The wind blows bits of your life away

The voices of the real

Day or night, there is no difference

It begins in the heart

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GAV THORPE’S FANTASY HEARTBREAKERS You like swords? You like sorcery? Well friend, you came to the right place:

A

A Melancholy Fog

The Spire of Heaven

The Gods Wage War

A Cloak of Visibility

2

The Pharaoh’s Legions Rebel

Roaming Lych Mobs

The Tombstone Riddles

Sacred Goats

3

Autonomous Chariots

Autonomous Chariots

One Nation Under Gold

The Great Fires Return

4

The Working Dead

The Pen is Holier than the Sword

Sail the Skylanes

Free Speech for Sale

5

Jackal-headed Minions

Negotiable Time Flow

Mechanical Serpents

The Personification of Ambivalence

6

Pirate-hunting across the Dunes

Dogs without Noses

The Moonlight Burns

A Desperate Deity

7

All is Twinned

The Eight-limbed King

The Cursed Bones

Dice are Divine

8

Finding the Lost Tribes

Two-way Murals

Where did all the Gnomes go?

A Plague of Splinterbone

9

The Lady that Casts her Shadow on the Inside

The Prophecy Enforcers

Never Make a Wish

What Lies beyond the Starsea?

Rising Waters

Corsairs of Oblivion

Justice Incarnate

The Bell Tolls for Thee

J

The Infant Lottery

Ride the Winds

Venture into NoGod’s- Land

Crocodile Royalty

Q

The Gate that Never Opens

Streets Paved with Gold

Howler Monkey Temple

The Tree Uprising

K

Time Mercenaries

Coal-fired Demons

Joy Leeches and Despair Butterflies

A World Reborn… Again and Again

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MEG JAYANTH’S LUCKY DIP Meg’s touchstones do not have a theme. Some of them are quotes; others are fantasy twists and one suit focuses around her game 80 Days. Anyway:

A

“No woman has ever written enough” - bell hooks

wretched treasures

kidnapping nuns

the madwoman in the attic

2

“Those who sailed at dawn but will never return” Roger McGough

curses for beginners

the mechamermaids of atlantis

the mecha-mermaids of atlantis

3

“This is what the worship of death looks like” - bell hooks

snake person witches

a kiss lit by the aurora borealis

three sisters, each more ruthless than the last

4

“Scissors for clipping wings” - Nandini Dhar

the ghost-girl gang that hangs round the cornershop

moustachecombs

the djinn rebellion

5

“Words that do not describe my mother” - Nandini Dhar

banshee choir

automaton with a soul

uh, I think our spirit animals banged last night

6

“I spent seventeen months waiting in prison queues” Anna Akhmatova

the snake gods are afraid of rain

love on the transsiberian express

nouveau-riche alchemists throw a party

7

“No king was born here” Melanie Silgardo

none of the sorcerers believe in climate-change

submersible trains

smug polyamorous dragons

8

“We’re short on sacred rivers here” - Eunice D’Souza

the wizards of wall street

arctic whalehunt

the eternal general never sleeps alone

9

“You will hear thunder and remember me” - Anna Akhmatova

the orcs don’t make you their king

mozart was an artificer

all the music is turned to disco

10

“The mirage in the mirror” Tulsidas

Competing to become the elf- queen’s favourite violinist

automaton opera

emojis come to grotesque and terrifying life

J

“I’m a cutthroat boy, you’re an empty grave” - Cadence Weapon

the pyramids are timemachines

the copperballoon airships of east africa

chimaera coffee-shop

Q

“You can be the king but watch the queen conquer” Nicki Minaj

immortality is actually pretty great

an indispensable valet

after the war, the refugees sought shelter in human lands

K

“My heart so burns I can smell its roasting” - Jami

wizard prison

close shaves

it is the fashion to woo your lover with limericks

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ROB HEINSOO’S LIST THAT INCLUDES “YELLING ANIMALS” That’s the sort of thing that can really define an adventure:

A

Emergency Archeologists

Undead Gods

Musical Drugs

Immortals who age forward and in reverse

2

Colliding Moons

Telepathic Smoke

High Risk Farming

Sky Trains

3

Team Spirits

Unlikely Cannibals

Slow Giants

Gunfighters

4

Collapsing Forests

Personal Flags

Ghost Massacres

One Ring, Ten Fingers

5

Gargoyles

Alien Corporations

Bonsai Humans

Returning Saints

6

Burning Temples

War Sports

Chariots

Broadcast Heroics

7

Flagrant Blossoms

Kittens

Rock Avatars

Goggles

8

Yelling Animals

City-sized Alligators

Oracular Spiders

Marriage of Heaven & Hell

9

A Reluctant Dystopia

The Colour of Evil

Holy Assassins

Personal Gravity

Cornucopias

Ablative Armour

Daily Parades

Skill-based Reincarnation

J

Atypical Eruptions

Monolith Chess

Fortune Sellers

Truthful Shadows

Q

Interlocking Religions

Apotheosis Quests

Landladies

Immortal Pets

K

World Serpents

Ancestral Robots

Warehouse Continent

Ancient Satellites

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THANKS TO: PLAYTESTERS: Special thanks go to Matthew

Hawn, Steve Martin and Steven Wakeling, who were our very first playtest group back when Unbound was called Chronicle and a weird, different thing with a role called the Dominator and traits like Momentum. With them, we messed around with and refined the game into what you hold in your hands today. Our other playtesters are, in no particular order: Johnty Clark, Joanna Piancastelli, Helen Gould, Edward Arthur Croft, Paul Gregory, Rob Abrazado, Austin Cantrell, Jacob Hochbaum, Mary Hamilton, William Blackstock, Jake Tucker, Michelle O’Toole, Sean Smith, Jørund Kambestad Lie, Andy North, Bill Anderson, Ben Archer, Matt Mark, Rob, Abigail, Alex, Allie, Anthony Stiller, Dan Gatt, Scott Grice, Dave Hayward, Dejan Mirosavljević, Ivan Preočanin, Javorko Petričević, Dragana Vidić and Saul Alexander. If you helped us by playtesting the game but you’re not listed here, please get in touch - we will issue a formal public apology and probably buy you a drink as well.

BACKERS: Here are all the people that made

publication of this game a reality. Thank you. We couldn’t have done it without you. Hannah, Jon Davidson, Paul Gregory, Michael Roberts, Nathan Levine, William Blackstock, Mary ‘Brain the Size of a Planet’ Hamilton, Rob Abrazado, Clare Jones, Tim Maytom, Ben Pavey, John Parkinson, Ryan Hupperts, Liam Wright, Samantha Streeter, Andrew MacLennan, Glen E. Ivey, Matthew Cramsie, Jon Jones, Matthew Plozza, Rachelle Shelkey, Daniel Wallace, Ben McKenzie, Joseph Le May, Gowdy, Iralie, Zack Stone Socrates Garvey, CoolDJ, Ulf Hillebrecht, Matthew Sutton, Conan ‘Kewlen’ French, J.M. Sunden, Kyle Hinez, James C. Holder, Connor Burger, Francisco Javier Ortiz Madera, Robert Duffy, Wright S. Johnson, He-Zin Kwon, Johanne Skjerven, Aslan Silva, Sven Berger, Fran Marrero, Robbie S., Kendrick warnat, Simon

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Moody, FrÈdÈri ‘Volk Kommissar Friedrich’ POCHARD, Eddy ‘DeeWolf’ Wang, Mark Edwards, Johannes Stock, Dan Specce, Mike Shema, Donald Turner, Joviaan, Dempsey Kern, Eric Coker, Jeramiah Lewis, Tramaine S., Giovanni ‘KidSpanner’ Medrano, Barthemely ‘Skender’ Alezandaru, Charles Meigh, Tom Kitchin, Michael Tyrrell, Steve Martin, Paul Cosgrove, Robin ‘Jarval’ Farndon, Botch Games Podcast, Lindsay Mahood, Robert Whitford, WebCole, Ian Thomas, Martin Greening, Talena Sadie, Michael Meyer, James Turnbull, Alfie Kirk, Michael Freemantle, Syd S, Phil Hanley, Tyler Giffin, Henning Wollny, Hannah ‘Er00’ Fordham, Andy North, Joe Barnsley, Jeff Dieterle, W. David Pattison, Ben ‘the burner’ Turner, Thomas Latter, Dave ‘Wintergreen’ Harrison, William Scott Palmer, Joshua Nicholson, waelcyrge, Ant Stiller, Mark Fenlon, Helen G, John Dalton, Matt Nixon (we’re not printing your daft title, Matt), Jorund Kambestad Lie, Blastropodcast, Gareth McVicker, Ian, Alex Blue, ‘They’re all dead’ Dave, Chris Lackey, Martin Tulloch, Philippe ‘Sildoenfeinî D., Robin Bates, Benj Davis, Garret Dettmann, Owain Bennett, Eugene Wheeler, Tania Walker, Patrick Dunn, James Pierson, Sean M Smith, SolidMoonWolf, Stefanie Midlock Pierson, Holmes!, TPK, Bill Anderson, Sam Sarjant, Lucille Thompson, Andrew Bennett, Chris Forrest, Bob is Only Bob, Andy Evans, Jamie and Jonathan Gilmour, Chris Gannon, Piers Beckley, Douglass Barre, Chris Larrabee, Gert-Jan Verburg, Alabaster Crippens, Konrad Zielinski, George ‘Danger’ Seed, David ‘Yoda’ Odie, Aaron Ross Powell, Dan VK, Joel Priddy, Ian Adams, Michael Scott Mears, John M. Portley, Ron Schleimer, xerode, Lee Tibbetts, Jayce Fryman, Griffin D. Morgan, C. R. M. ‘Lector’, Sean T Nyhan, Aniket Schneider, Eric Borowski, Matt Kliot, Roy Nicholas Hansen III, M Lockwood, Giggling Tuna, Ian Porter, Adam Lyzniak, Tom Lock, Reynolds K. Skotts, Mr. Fluffles, Dani Cohen, Mike Houser, Alexander Cruz, Nikolas A. Martinez-Saroff, Benjamin Schmauss, Andrew Harvey, Russell Hoyle, Peter Cobcroft, Lee May, Dustin Headen, Drew Wendorf, Zack Norwig, Dale Lawson, Charles Burkart, James Cruise, Jona

151

Littler, Brandon and Jessi Fraser, Jere Kasanen, Jyan Delamotte, Christopher Vian, Dana Robert Miller, Racheet Dave, Justin Rasmussen, Jonas Schiˆtt, Richard Gant, Dante Warborn, Grazul, Mark Booth, Jief Roustan, Steve Dutton, Svend Andersen, Brett Doull, Alasdair Corbett, Frank McKinney, Colin Ward, Mark Crew, Jay, Anne Warren, HelloSushimi, McGravin, Alex Hacker, Matt George, Walter Robert Anfang, Clifford Herndom, Andrew Knapik, Todd Biggs, Mirqy, Robbie Scourou, Karl Dickey, Angelus Morningstarr, Ryan Holdbrooks, Justin White, Douglas ‘Caernkeeper’ Mota, Valis Archer, Johnathan Munroe, Hans Ernens, Matthew Mitchell, The Goeres Family, Mark Kuggeleijn, Kacy Howe, Adam M. Coleman, Greg Klein, Ken Lowery, Sam Archer, Christopher Kenney, Michael James Boyle, Boris Kipovich Karl, Alexander Harris, Laertes Ofelil, Paul Mansfield, James Ross, Adam Michael Szymura, Andrew Armstrong, Mark Mueller, David, Olivia G, (no thanks needed), Jason Arthur Shuey, Chris Heilman, Lakshman Godbole, Sean ‘Tag’ Taggart, Todd Dowling, euansmith, Alex Young, Jack Bock, Paul Baldowski, A. Krebs, Pablo Martìnez, Arne Handt, Peter Wright, Scott Lien, Pete Griffith, John Cooper, Beachfox, Lincoln Dutcher, Mikael S, spongefile, Frankie Santaella, Jason Poirier, Randy Reitz, Zach Hamilton, T.A. Simonelli, Chris W Mercer, Brian Fargo, Steven K. Watkins, Jon Keown, Samuel Won, Warren Niffenegger, Lakas Parrenas Shimizu, Patrick Mohlmann, Jesse Wilson, Michael S., Hank ‘Burger Buns’ Cappa, Adric Clifton, Kasper Melchior Christiansen, Matt Bevilacqua, Lorenzo Gatti, James ‘Wilde’ Wardle, Paul Cueva, Cathryn, Kyle Bode, James McGraw, Jonathan Fish, Mark ‘Carnus’ Rajic, Oliver Peltier, G’Andy, Chris Folkard, Amyus Bale, Phill Stewart, Colin Wadsworth, Mateo R Diaz, Joshua Martinson, Michal Pietrek, Hermes Pinto, Alexander Essery, David Terhune, Brett Wildblood, Steve Wright, Anthony Blander, Conor O’ Sullivan, Johnny-Mac WillcoxBeney, Karim Khaldy, Hannah Powell-Smith & Fay Ikin, Colin Roscoe, Isaac aguirre, Ezekiel Terwilliger, Craig Namvar, Angie Pettenato, Sham ‘Dantallian’ Suri, Edgar Milly, Nathan Redla, Jake Fields, John Keehn, Phillip Bailey, David BARTH…L…MY, Samuel Holley, Chris Jean, S.N. Brad KI6HDB Mitchell, XDM, Nick Marchetti, Leslie Weatherstone, Brie Sheldon, James Flannery, Madeleine

152

Fenner, Edward Prosser, Alasdair Watson, Y. K. Lee, Matt Alexander, BJ Chamberlain, Jim Clokey, Loughlan family, MAGICALwookiee, Christian Panzer, Weston Williams, Dann Sullivan, Jens H., John Tudball, Eadwin Tomlinson, Greg and Karen Taylor, Trent ‘Ax_kidson’ Boyd, Richard Jansen-Parkes, Dylan J Malenfant, Erik Cooper-Flowers, Leigh van der Waals, Munkey Abell, John Signorino, CommanderStone4, Mark Morrison, Shaun Krogulski, Sam Stafford, Vance Rawson, Dethe Elza, James Elliot, Rob Collini, Taylor Jumara, Christian Dummermuth, Tom Walker, Randy Mosiondz, Douglas Clements, Sammo, David Wild, Rory Oliver, The Penn-Dierauer Children, Steven Ritter, Joey Rodgers, Jason Sorensen, Derek Guder, Stephen Caffrey, Timothy Payton, Hamish Cameron, Brandon E. Gallant, Zach G, Stephen York, Maximillian Tompkins, Bryan Van Deusen, Sebastian Schreier, Scott W Hill, Tim D., Daniel Bayn, Jim Blackshaw, Schubacca, Aaron Lim, Chad Bussell, Matthew ‘Ardent’ French, Ian Herbert, Rick Rezinas, Matthew McFarland, Tim Aidley, Federico ‘Procionegobbo’ Maiorini, Marty Chodorek, Jay Sharpe, Brian Schoner, Justin Morgan, Sven Carpenter, Paddy Bardic, Lex Garrett, Paul Scarrone, Kirby Young, Andrew Keddie, Jeff Sweet, Agent Paperklip, Tyree Parkin, Liberty O’Dell, Rui AVELINO, Tegan Turcotte, Carlos Leon Rendon, Lee Rossi, Sam Suruda, Rick Harrelson, Bard, Stefan L., Kyle Robidoux, Marcus K, Jim Holt, David Dunham, Shaun Clinton, Ashley Autumn, Bethany Corcoran, Eva Dukerschein, Josh Louie, Daniel HP Campbell, James Allen, Nicx, Samuel Baird, Marc Cain, Greg Connolly, Jacob Dunning, Adam Hermanowski, Aaron Merhoff, JP Bradley, Robert Carnel, Troy ‘Wrongtown’ Hall, Clinton Hammond, Paul of the Bankers Guild, Aaron Marks, Luke Van Amburg, Erik Maisel, TJ Gerber, David A. Harrison, Jess Waters, Callie Kokajko, H. R. Ragnarsson, Saulo QuiÒones, Chloe Zane-y, Warren G, Koutabi Starfire, William Lett, Jason Prott, Adam Bishop, Krik, Martin Orchard, Dan Connolly, Super Andrew, Jennifer Fuss, Matt Duggan, Huxtable Whimworm, Judith ‘Xanthipe’ Owens, Richard ‘Vidiian’ Greene, VforViennetta, Rob Nadeau, Nick Colombo, Brett Lewis, Brian Dooley, Lee Kitchen, Kevin Greene, Zane Dempsey, LIU HONG, Chris Kerich, Chris Weisel, Rik Geuze, Nick Hopkins, Sami Nikander, Alexis Aurora Crew, pookie, Paul, Gary

152

Anastasio, Hana Usui, Jeremy Kear, Jedediah Callen, Michael, Tony Perkins, Johannes Oppermann, Lisa ‘Voo’ Trott, Steffon J Baker, Al Kennedy, BHabs, Derek McElroy, Michael Berkovich, Matthew Hayes, Grand Doom Lord Kyle, John Steele, G&T, Otso Hannula, Stephanie Wagner, Tori McConnell, Phil Vecchione, Michelle O’Toole, Matt Doherty, Lulu Blue, Morgan Hazel, Dr. Enos, Jago, Yragael Malbos, Gilles Ritzmann, Naomi Alderman, Daniel Gatt, Quinn Wongkew, Aetherlord, Dan Pitt, Bear Weiter, Luca Carioni, Remington Bastien, Andrew Piseck, Nathaniel, Henrik Collin, Laura Thomas Barnhart, Harry Goldstone, Nick Kerr, Henrik Langos, Steve Robinson, Sam King, C. J. Puckett, Jacob Cohen, Paul Magee, Luke ‘PunQuillity’ Elias, Zombie@Heart, Evan Williams, Lewis Shaw, Sam Lawton, Joseph Z. Drake, Adam Ottaway, Harry John Shephard, todd estabrook, John Taber, Miles Schmidtzau, James ‘Ginger’ Johnson, Matthew Milner, Josh Thomson, Jan Felix T., Keiran Sparksman, Dave Handley, Silhouette Zero Podcast, Mischa Hiessboeck, Adam J. Steel, Pablo Sanchez Bosch, Adrian Hon, Eric Goodman, David Wooten, James A Taylor, Chris Datta, Tom Schilling, David Harrison, Ben Woodhead, Jason C Singer, Peter R Brooks, Phil & Marion Anderson, Levi Whitney, Robert Hausch, Megan Hilliard, Grant Hohman, Lukas McNamara, Arnulphe de Lisieux, David Bond, Frost Holliman, Arun Persaud, Adam Williams, Derek Timm-Brock, Jared Files, Keith A. Garrett, Chris Sloan, Ben Campion, Anil Godi, Paul Michalik, Keith E. Hartman, Marius Latauskas, Edd Glasper, Ken Finlayson, Ray Otus, Joanna Piancastelli, Peter Brown, David Mali, College for Creative Studies D&D group, Graham Oinkfrog Hannah, Randy Eveslage, Magnus Nordstrand, Simon Ward, Valcun Zingel, Sandy Fesq, Thomas Jackson, Jack Gulick, Adam Tolson, Dan Henley, Chris Longhurst, Dan Johnson, Steve Hindmarsh, Dave C, Freya Whiteford, Matt Johnson, Jeff Healy, Andy Hayler, Silje Eide, Scott Paquette, Nicholas ‘Praxidicae’ Farley, James Jakins, Michelle VanSetten, Welis, Parker Nalchajian, Marvin ‘G.M.A.N.C.’ Langenberg, Martin Dennis, Lim Ee-Guan, Jordan Roberts, David May, Noah Plunkett, Joshua Ferrell, David Fernandez, Charlie Trochlil, Roderick Stedman, Flip, Russ Cox, Phil Jendusa, Dylan Tevardy-O’Neil, n/a, Eric Fleischer, Adam ‘Chili’ Stevens, Eric Coates, Nael, Cassiel Amador, Lucile Perkins-

Wagel, Dan Devereaux, Benjamin Gilbert, Taylor LaBresh, Zoey Rich, Simon Allcott, Marcus ‘ bigmalenurse’ Norris, Matthew D Dickson, Chris and Daisy Swaffer, Mike Musteric, Mattia Repetto, alasdair kinnear, Skylar Baim, Robert AndersÎn, Andrew ‘lord of the dance’ Hennessy, Theodore ‘Wolfman’ Posuniak, II, Garth Westphal, JP Ruiz, Ewen Cochran, Ryan P Evans, Laura C, Carlos Ovalle, Michael Hoffmann, SlemHundy, Pris Nasrat, Evan Saft, Michael Williamson, Jennifer ‘MaidOf’ Stone, Ryan Hiltunen, Tyler Rhea, Drunken Knight, Alyssa Doss, Dylan G.M. Schouten, Josh Starobin, Tom Van de Sande, Dave Deacon, Stefan Wertheimer, Zersrael, Matthew Nielsen, David Bigg, Simon G, Ryan Ramage, Keir ‘Kaffo’ Smith, Nicholas Rogers, Lindsay Newton-Smith, Drakythe, Steven Irwin, Paul Messenger, Michael Stanley, Sharif Abed, Joshua Bestwick, Kyle Thompson, Geoff Doty, Ian Scott Ken, Christopher Switzer, Jacob Bush, J. Allyn Mosley, Kenton Schlimmer!, Ben and Imii Allen, Karl Scheer, Rik, M. Alan Hillgrove, Pascal ‘Plageman’ Pflugfelder, Johan Jaurin, Tom Whiteley, Jonathan Sharp, Ryan Percival, Johannes Wohlschlegel, Aaron Pothecary, Pyro Stevie B, Kiwi Apteryx Tokoeka, Jonathan Schaefer, Robert Cudinski, Chris Farnell & Ella Scannell, Ryan Furtado, James O’Donoghue, Jon Bent, Daniel Crook, frank martin, Christian A. Nord, Matt Fennell, Boris Bernhard, Kalysto, Sam Ehmann, Kris Weavill Ventris, John Ahlschwede, Daniel Browning, Lillian Isabella Winters, Donald & Wendy Welsh, Joshua R Bradbury, Jared Reece, Cybin Nelsen, Jordan Lee MacCarthy, Victor Cervantes, Kevin Wales, Olive Pit, Kenny ‘the Solo Roleplaying Sage’ Norris, Joel Thurston, Will Templeton, Kelly Zimmermann, Andrea Pecunia, Ben Henley, David Chervony, Austin Conley, Nicholas Alaniz, Jerold H Farver Jr., Gareth Williams, Aaron the Warmonger, Craig A. Wildey, Brian Isikoff, Alasdair Stuart, Nathan Black, Morgan Ellis, DynamicGuy, Jeremy Taylor, Mathieu Lapenna, Shervyn, Bronson Slebos, Eric Azevedo, Chris Heath, Oliver Smith, Rupert Redington, Hel Gibbons, Nick Hendriks, Jason ‘Jadasc’ Schneiderman, MazHem, Robin David, Eric Levanduski, Alexander E Brygider, Fin Coe, D C Hogan, Senda from She’s A Super Geek, Hsieh, Wei-Hua, David Parrish, John M. Nolan, Caroline T., nikobe, Brook Kill, Sam drinkwater, Bob

153

Cartwright, Alea Studios, Wyatt Marschang, Jefferson Mills, Michael Tree, Rachel Kaplan, Erik Ingersen, Francis ‘meatwad’ Tommaso, Colin Fahrion, JBS WoodWorks, Robert Max Freeman, Aaron McClarnon, Poh Tun Kai, Sara ‘Sad Face’ Frandsen, Sarah Kaplan, Ronnie Ball, Neal Orr, James N Baldwin, Andrew Luczak, Mark Slattery, Jessica Sexton, BattleBards, Luke Smith, Dan!, Nate Newlon, John Barton, Michael ‘dmmikerpg’ Mitchell, Walter King, JOHN ETERNAL, Rick Hull, Edgerunner, Andrew ‘Baron Fortnightly’ James, Jean da Silva, Jack Harrison, Darren Buckley, Nick Dao, Dingleson, Doomhamster, Camilla Chalcraft, Erandi Huipe, Nathan B. Gilliam, Tunica Dartos, Markku Tuovinen, Nick Irish, Keegan Leonard, Jackson Brantley, RavenSworn, Aaron Griffin, Charles Tam, n/a, Daniel Kraemer, Adam Matherly, Yes these are in chronological not alphabetical order, Michael Pegg, Karen Twelves, Harkinson, Sean Nittner, Andy L, Markus Raab, Superfritz, Anders Lau, Tartufu, Tony Kelly, Jason ‘Vandaal’ Green, Sukelluskello, Cel Shading, Dologan, Andrew and Kate Barton, Samuel Kim, Erik Johnson, David Homola, Steve Beleck, Adrian De Smul, Justin Delaney, WOoDY GamesMaster, Michael Ferdy, Josh Fox, Mark Goldrick, Chris Edwards, Olek Giejsztowt, Thomas Sterchi, None, Minde B, Dustin DePenning, W David MacKenzie, Nat Benefer, Morgan Johnson, Rob Blackburn, @DAYtheELF, Paul DeMars, Teri Williams, Ron ‘Khaalis’ Owen, JJ Maloney, Bjorn Jagnow, Jim McClure (ThirdAct.pub), George C Alexander, Antoine Davrou, Mark Miles, Aaron Kubicek, Bruce Curd, Michaela M¸ller, Jesse Sierke, Eternityknot, PK Sullivan, Florian Hollauer, Jeff Stormer, Nathan Clark, Siobhan Morris, Chris Paladino, Patrick O’Duffy, Michael Richards, Bella Irvine, Levi Mote, Kieran Ponnusamy, Daniel Llausas, James Whittaker, D. Malloy, Johanna ‘Veki’ Kantanen, Charon MacDonald, Kim Shier, Jim Morin, Robbie Wallis, Erebo PÈrez-Silva, Shane Fitzpatrick, Michael Barnes, James, Rocket Lolly Games, Loons’n’ quines o’ Aberdeen, Dennis Skerra, Borri Stefano, Malcolm SW Wilson, K Davis-Owen, Puiheng Tse, Stefan Peeters, Dan Hull, Bay Chang, Quasi, John A W Phillips, Grant Greene, Eric Haverkamp, Dylika ManÈr, Tom Battey, WombatDazzler, Zhakk’Harn, Ryan DowlingSoka, Sylvain Pronovost, James Dunbier, Anthony T., Luke Wayland,

154

Christopher Steven Sims, Patrick ‘Bollywood’ Sayet, Mitch Rabbitt, Bernie, Samuel Steinbock-Pratt, Joel Pearce, Philip ‘xipehuz’ Espi, Patrick Tasse, Michael McCann, Hershey, Jared Espley, Linda Berryman, Rodd Closson, Jazz, Chet Gray, Matthew Reynolds, Zoyander Street, Ambjˆrn Elder, Adam Flynn, Reverance Pavane, evil bibu, Alex Fradera, Conehead Krinkard, Walt Ochab, Chris McEligot, Tom Lommel, David Morrison, Nicholas Zapetis, Will Scotland, Emma Dinkelspiel, Ariel Samoil, Stephanie Bryant, James Stuart, Eric Paradis, Morgan Osborn, Jim Hart, Lester Ward, Muffinbeard, Craig Jeskey, Ferdinand Biere, Stuart Chaplin, Aljen, Dregntael, Arraffa PiÈdiferro, Dave Agnew, Frank Reding, Grant Chen, Katherine Ogden, Jeff Smith, Megan ‘M5’ Matta, Bill Powell, Joe Schelin, Charlotte Boucher, Galit A., Jonathan Foster, Astor Sigma, Trip Space-Parasite, Kevin Turner, Matthew Federico, Ben Hatton, JK Koh, David Saggers, Fiona K.T. Howat, Owen Thompson, Jonathan Korman, Selene Tan, Angelo Pileggi, Bernd Preflller, Linette Voller, Thore Lim, Tim Partridge, Gabe (shonen413), Wade Cornell, Simon Langley, Joshua Reichler, Danny Wilson, John Karatovic, Bryant Durrell, Manuel Silvoso, Victor H. Molina, Robert Maxwell, Jason Steel, Nathan Pickett, Tanaka La Fontaine, Katrina Neumann, Iain Beresford, Paul Ooshun, Nessalantha, CP1R8, John Donahue, Peter Gates, Lissa T., You Don’t Meet In An Inn, Steven Wakeling, Stewart Abney, Rob, Benjamin Hinnum, Craig S, Gwathdring, Daniel Lewis, Zache, Pip Gengenbach, Andrew ‘Aeyr’ Duryea, Jolyne Haley, Jordan Bradley, Jams Mastodon, Helen Stirling, Jason Hardin, Scott Anderson, Michel Laterman, Neilson, Shawn Gustafson, Jason Childs, Craig Campbell, Bechoseveth, hfb, Vojtech Pribyl, Hal Mangold, William Ijebor, D.J. Thompson, Gary Burke, Tony E. Calidonna, Sam Hock, Geoffrey Rabe, Joshua Schauer, Patrick Phelan, Andres Villaseca, Joe Lunnon, James Gabriel, Bill Cohen, Charlie Etheridge-Nunn, Aarre Vuorio, Ashkan Abousaeedi, Dom Ellis, Khain Ladely (Yamigetsu), Dustin Bell, Josh l, Daniel WIlks, Will Clark, Ben Dumont, Jim Remmes, Abel S·nchez Jacobo, Marc Telow, Bert Isla, Tabalin Dmitry, Simon K, The Jotne, Noah Buntain, James Dillane, Michael Mersiades, Sean Richmond, Alison Fleming, Fred Ramsey, Daniel Scribner, John M. Osborne, Steven D Warble, Tim McCracken, Andrew Haufe,

MarsSenex, Michael V Williams, Michael J. Miller, Dave B., Erik Miller, Peter ‘Wiggles’ Underwood, Thibault MontaiguLancelin, Hawk Haines, Thomas G Huber Jr., PÈter TÛth, Tomas Denemark, Jordan White, Xavier AubuchonMendoza, Zack Wenning, Noah Schoen, Nadav Ben Dov, Alex Davis, Mark Winnington, Philippe Niederkorn, Marcus Yonce, Lars Aennerth, Hugo Mardolcar, Ryan Smith, Ben Collier, Caleb Penning, Clayton Culwell, Jennifer Hogs, Allen Varney, Waseem Aftab, D. Fox, Zackery Wolfe, Hao Zhang, Jacob Womack, Rich M., Trevor Wirgau, Rodney, Florent Poulpy Cadio, Michael Skelton, Marcio Chammas, Francesco ‘Frankie’ Bianco, Fabrice Breau, Silvio Herrera Gea, H. M. ‘Dain’ Lybarger, jason e. bean, Anthony Craig Senatore, blujoker, Arlene Medder, Anthony Cullen, Keegan T. Smith, Richard ‘SirCrash’ Willis, Darrell Snowball, Tracy Barnett, Steve Lord, Rolf Laun, Bryan R. Marshall, Krumrein, Menachem Cohen, Dame and Amy, Kristian E. Hyttel, Henrik Ljungquist, Joe Beason, Nicolai ÿstergaard Jensen, Andrew Bailey, Mike Tucker, Chris ‘Grimtooth’ Colborn, Kevin McDonald, Adam ‘Sick Budgie’ Drew, Danny Silva, Kimberly Johnson, Christopher Sanderson, Crystal M, Greg Field, Aaron Smithies, Maxwell Kurtz, Toastmaster General, and Erik Schmidt.

SPECIAL THANKS: Grant would like to thank Mary, for her endless support and enthusiasm; his Mum and Dad, for accidentally getting him into gaming at an early age and then honestly kind of regretting it for the next 25 years; and Chris, for being a fantastic games designer, a continual source of good ideas and a wonderful friend, but not in such a way that he feels obligated to thank him back, because that might sound kind of hollow. Chris would like to thank his family for keeping him alive during the writing of Unbound, and for not being too upset that he devoted much of his life to games. He is also eternally grateful to the lovely people that tested the game in their own bizarre and often unsettlingly detailed worlds. Of course he is also contractually obligated to thank Grant who successfully puts up with his crap on a daily basis.

IF YOU LIKED UNBOUND, WHY NOT TRY: Wushu, by Dan Bayn, which has fantastic freeform combat rules and a character sheet you can fit on a cigarette paper. FATE, by Fred Hicks and Rob Donoghue, which does a very similar job to Unbound but has actual support from a publisher and therefore lots of great supplements. Goblin Quest, by Grant Howitt, because he wants you to play it and send him a picture of the goblins that you drew.

155

Character Name: 1S T 2A M 3I N A

4 5

PLAYER NAME:

Core Foundation: FOUNDATION: FOUNDATION: CORE: ROLE: TRAIT: PROFICIENCIES:

FATES:

6 7

STAMINA:

BoostS: SHOOT: STRIKE: MOVE: RECOVER: DEFEND:

1T E 2M P

3

S T A M I N A

Powers: RECOVERY

POWER:

POWER:

POWER:

RECHARGE: END OF SCENE EFFECT:

TYPE: EFFECT:

TYPE: EFFECT:

TYPE: EFFECT:

Index A

Blazing Blade

45

Bleed

74 27

A Long Way From Home

81

Blood In The Eyes

Action Types

70

Bombardment 84

Adventure Creation

88

Boom

29

Adversaries 106

BOOST 8

Ambush

Brash Military Captain

Ancient Guardians

51, 84 81

Brawler (role)

27 27

Angry Mob

135

Bring It On

Appendix 1: Optional Rules

138

Building A Fight

Appendix 2: More Touchstone Tables

140

Armed And Dangerous

135

Armour (Transform)

55

Armoured skeleton

129

136

110

C Captain (trait) Cara Ellison’s Cyberpunk Noir Dataslugs

41 140

Assassins 82

Centre Of Attention

35

Aura (trait)

37

Character Details

58

Aura Of Healing

37

Cloak Of Shadows

51

Aura Of Pain

37

Collateral Damage

47

Aura Of The Bulwark

37

Combat (Transform)

55

Aura Of Wrath

37

Combat Medic

31

Combined Assault

39

Companion (trait)

39

Cores

15

Cornered Beast

49

B Bad Part Of Town Baleful Cultist Ban Battle Scenes Battle Captain

82 131 83 67, 102 124

Courtier Of The Ninth Circle

117

Critical Failures

9

Critical Successes In Battle

9

Battlefield

67

Crusher

119

Beaten Up

82

Cursed

80

Cut Off The Head

84

Berserker (Adversary)

124

Berzerker (Power)

49

Bitter Cold

85

157

157

D Damage

71

Dangerous Ground

43

Darkness

82

Deadeye (role)

29

Decrepit servitor

131

Demon prince and his harem

115

Demonic Incursion

80

Desecrated Temple

80

Desperate Measures

19

Devout (core)

15

Devout (twists)

80

Difficult Terrain and Adversaries

67

Dirty Fighter (trait)

43

Dragon

132

Dragon lord

122

Dragon wings

133

Dramatic Scenes Drawbacks (Transform) Dregs

9, 63, 100 55 125

Drink Their Fear

49

Duel

33

Elites

84

Encroaching Weirdness

83

Enervated

83

Event Order

69

Extraction

51

Extreme Range

29

F Fallen Legionnaire

78 117

Fates, Stories And Experience

60

Feign Innocence

43

Fire (trait)

45

Firebomber

119

158

45

Force Of Nature

25

Foundations

58

Fresh Minion

129

Frog Croakley’s Space Oddities

142

G GM Turn Sequence

69

GMs During Player Turns

68

Gaining A Scar

76

Gamesmaster

78

Gang Up

43

Ganger

121

Gav Thorpe’s Fantasy Heartbreakers

148

Get Down!

35

Giant

113

Giant of Moorfell Peaks, The

113

Going Out Of Action

75

Great Khan, The

122

Grunt

124

Guardian Angel

31

H Healing And Recovering Stamina

E

Factions

Fireburst

74

Hel Wraith

127

Hellknight

115

Hitman

134

Hunger

83

Hunted

80

Hunter (Adversary)

125

Hunters Hunted

85

Hypnotic Secrets

81

I I Like Those Odds

27

In The Dark

51

Incubus

115

Infernal Signifer

117

158

Infestation

83

Memory Hole

Initiative

68

Merritt Kopas’ Morrisseeds

Insects

85

Mighty (trait)

47

Insidious Whispers

80

Mobile Assault

33

Introducing New Players

12

Momentum

33

Inversion

83

Mountain Ogre (adversary)

Iron Constitution

35

Multiple Targets

J

83 147

113 70, 71

N

Jake Tucker’s Military Bullet Points

145

Naomi Alderman’s Jewish Tchotchkes

143

Jason Morningstar’s Revenge Tragedies

146

Necromancer

129

8, 65

Needle terror

116

Jokers

K Keep Moving

41

Kick In The Door

47

Knockback

47

L

Never Back Down

23

No Succour

80

Not On My Watch

41

O On Dark Wings

80

On Your Feet

31

Last Chance Arcana

17

Outlaw (core)

19

Laying Out Your Cards

68

Outlaw (twists)

82

Overwatch

29

Legbreaker

121

Let It Burn

45

Life-stealing Hex

21

P

Line In The Sand

35

Pactbound (twists)

83

Look Out, Sir!

39

Pactbound (core)

21

Phoenix

45

Lost Soul

127

Phylactery

M

126

Player Actions During Gm Turns

69

MOVE

70

Player Turn Sequence

68

Magi (core)

17

Playing The Game

62

Magi (twists)

81

Police Attention

82

Marked

35

Portal To The Unknown

83

Marquis Of Hell Martyr

116 31

Potshot Power Of The Righteous

121 15

Masked Terror, The

120

Powers & Recharging

9

Masked acolyte

120

Precarious Battlefield

82

Meg Jayanth’s Lucky Dip

149

Protector (role)

31

159

Pushes, Pulls And Forced Movement Pyroclast whelp

70 116

R

Spirit Storm

53

Stakes

62

Stakes

96

Stand Fast

41

RECOVER

70

Stay Down

33

Rage (trait)

49

Stay There

41

Ravening Hound, The

137

Story And Echo Cards

64

Reaper

129

Striker (role)

33

Reckless

49

Superweapon (transform)

55

Surrounding

69

Swarm Of Filth

80

Rob Heinsoo’s List That Includes “Yelling Animals”

150

Roles

27

Running Battle

29

Running Dry

84

Running The Game

87

S SHOOT

70

STRIKE

70

Saga Creation Checklist

11

Scalebeast

125

Scars, And Going Out Of Action

76

Scars, Damage And Death

94

Scattered

82

Scenes (types of)

62

Scorching Heat

85

Sean Smith’s Horror Noir Keepsakes

144

Severe Hangover

82

Shadows (trait)

51

Shambling Horde

131

Shield Generator

81

Shock And Awe

72

Shuffling

8

Smashing Blow

47

Smoke Bomb

33

Snipers

84

Spectral Form

53

Spirit (trait)

53

160

Swat Captain

134

Swat Trooper

134

T Take Advantage

43

Taking Damage

72

Teleport

81

Temporary Stamina

74

Terrified

84

The Core Mechanic

8

The Earth Cracks

85

The Parasitic

57

The Ritual Is Almost Complete!

81

The Stars Are Right

83

They Took Our Weapons

82

Thin Street Arsonist Through Hell And Back Thunder-blood

119 57 123

Touchstones

13

Traits

37

Transform (trait)

55

Turns

69

Twice-Born Queen Twists

126 79, 80

Twists And Factions

94

Twists And Factions Are Your Character

94

U USE

70

Undead knight

127

Unkillable, The

123

Unnatural, The (trait)

57

W Walking Wounded

84

Wall Of Steel

47

Warden (role)

15

Warrior (adversary)

124

Warrior (core)

23

Warrior (twists)

84

We Fight As One

39

We Stand Together

31

Weakened

80

Wild (core)

25

Wild (twists)

85

Wildfire

85

Wildman Ogre-kin

113

Wired To Blow

81

Wisdom Of The Elders

53

Wounds

72

Writhing Tentacles

57

Y Your Rival

137

Your Romantic Interest

136

161

INFINITE ADVENTURES IN NUMBERLESS WORLDS Unbound is a universal roleplaying game with a twist: the players and the gamesmaster create the world, the plot, and the adversaries during character creation. Using a series of leading questions and a rule system that lets players fill in the gaps with their imagination, you’ll craft a unique setting together - and then get out there and explore it! Unbound supports short, linked campaigns and has an innovative, fast-paced combat system that puts pressure on players to make tactical decisions every turn. To play Unbound, you’ll need a group of 3 to 6 players, a gamesmaster, and one deck of regular playing cards per player.