Circle of Hands Copyright Adept Press, December 2014

All rights reserved.

This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying
permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the US Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without
written permission from the publisher.
Printed in the United States of America

BY RON EDWARDS

Softcover ISBN: 073-0-699-62398-5

Hardcover ISBN: 073-0-699-62399-5
adept-press.com

CREDITS

Interior design and layout and cover design by Nathan Paoletta, ndpdesign.com
Cover art by Mike Perry, mikeperryart.com
Interior art by
Phillip Simpson, coroflot.com/plsimpson4225
Rachel Kahn, portablecity.net
Amos Orion Sterns
Juan Ochoa, juanochoascrapbook.blogspot.com
Tony Dowler, tonydowler.com
Dyson Logos, rpgcharacters.wordpress.com
Sarah Jacobs-Tolle, racerxmachina.deviantart.com
Jez Gordon, gibletblizzard.blogspot.com
Adam Schmidt, misteradam.com

Circle of Hands is part of the Heartbreaker Redemption Project

ADEPT-PRESS.COM/HEARTBREAKER-REDEMPTION-PROJECT

Illus. Amos Orion Sterns

AUTHORS NOTE

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Table of Contents
Authors Note

CH 1 ORIGINAL METAL
The absolute rundown
All about play
Beginnings
CH 2 IRON FOLK
The backdrop
The Crescent Land

CH 3 FORGING STEEL
Creating the Circle
Preparing a venture
Play gets going

- p.4
- p.5

- P.9
- p.10
- p.12
- p.16

- P.19
- p.19
- p.19

- P.43
- p.43
- p.54
- p.68

CH 4 CIRCLE OF STEEL - P.71

Talking
- p.72
The big picture
- p.73
Between ventures
- p.78
Resolution: Rolling Dice - p.80
CH 5 KILLING
Setting it up
Fighting named

Circle of Hands is about survivorship, not victimhood. Some of us think our survivorship is earned, beginning with
searing clarity about the past converted into a forceful drive forward.

- P.93
- p.94

CH 7 LIGHT AND DARKNESS

Using this
Ordinary and everywhere
Named people and beasts
Monsters
A quick reference

CH 8 FANTASY HEARTBREAKERS
At the time
The first essay
The second essay
A look back
CH 9 HEARTBREAKER
REDEMPTION
The found object
Gray Magick
GLOSSARY OF TERMS
Character Sheet

- P.137
- p.137
- p.138
- p.139
- p.141
- p.159

- P.161
- p.161
- p.161
- p.166
- p.171
- P.175
- p.175
- p.181

- P.214
- p.216

This game draws directly on human trauma for its horror and for its very purpose. It begins by overcoming denial
and therefore presents if I do say so myself one of the grittiest contexts for play yet published in a role-playing
game. Its dressed up a bit in the trappings of fantasy but gains no distance via cartooning. Cruelty and misery are
here, in clinical detail and without apology.
Yet doing this artistically can fail, into bathos and misery porn. Human pain is tragically inflated today, meaning,
devalued in currency, at maximum volume for minimal value. My friend Paul says it well:
Im horribly disturbed by the way our television programming harvests and renders up human emotions and life
dysfunction for audience consumption. Im disturbed by the Jerry Springer Show. Im disturbed by The Glee Project,
where the judges encourage high school kids to savage their adolescent emotions and lay them bare while performing,
so their singing has emotional power. Were emotionally dead American couch potatoes who cant feel alive without
consuming the emotions of youth and life trauma. Were vampires.
I think RPGs can activate us in productive ways, by engaging our creativity, by putting us in human proximity, collaborating over something meaningful. An RPG doesnt need the base, disgusting packaging of human trauma for the
consumption of others to be a powerful experience.
Ive done my best to hear Pauls warning and to find the way to bring us closer, rather than recoil in fear or betray
into cheap spectacle.
This is not a trigger warning. Its a hand held out to either side, ready for clasping, no longer withdrawal, no longer
therapy, but in fierce joy for creating something fantastic and awful, which is to say, full of awe at what we are.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INSPIRATION

- p.94
- p.99

Steve Perrin and Greg Stafford for RuneQuest

and its supplements Cults of Prax and Cults of
Terror, published by The Chaosium

and groups

- p.102
- p.104

(The American) Steve Jackson for Melee, Wizard,

and The Fantasy Trip: In the Labyrinth, published
by Metagaming

death

- p.109

Michael Moorcock and Howard Chaykin for

The Swords of Heaven, the Flowers of Hell, published by HM Communications

characters

The killing
Fighting unnamed people
Tools of violence
Injury, recovery, and
CH 6 GRAY MAGIC
Metaphysics
Oaths
Wizards
Spellcasting
Spell list

- P.111
- p.111
- p.115
- p.116
- p.118
- p.121

PARTNERS IN CRIME
Listed without permission:

Jake Norwood, author of The Riddle of Steel

Paul Czege, author of Thy Vernal Chieftains
James Raggi, author of Lamentations of the
Flame Princess
Clinton Dreisbach-Nixon, author of The Shadow
of Yesterday
Vincent Baker, author of Apocalypse World:
Dark Ages

(The British) Steve Jackson for Sorcery! from

Fighting Fantasy, originally published by Penguin Books

Erik Bernhardt and Marek Jones, authors of

Crone

Greg Stafford for Prince Valiant: the Story-Telling

Game, published by The Chaosium

Rafael Chandler, author of Lusus Naturae

Jonathan Tweet for Over the Edge, published by

Atlas Games

Nathan D. Paoletta, author of Annalise

Keith Senkowski, author of Conspiracy
of Shadows

Richard Garfield for Magic: the Gathering, alpha

and beta especially, published by Wizards of the
Coast
J. Michael Straczinski for Babylon 5, produced
under the Babylonian Productions label for
Warner Bros Domestic Television

Ralph Mazza, author of Blood Red Sands

THE COMMUNITY
Backers

The Circle of Hands Kickstarter campaign in February 2014 exceeded its $6,000 goal with a total of $9,586, for a
return to me of about $8,600 after Kickstarter and Amazon fees. The art and production costs for this book were
paid with these funds.
One Strong Grasp
Steven S. Long, Fealoro, Andrea Ungaro, John Bogart, Al Billings, Dennis Kadera, Steve Hickey, Karl Miller, Jace Java, Christoph
Boeckle, Scott Dorward, Zed Lopez, Andy Kitkowski, FelTK, Jeremiah Frye, Joshua Bearden, Daniele Di Rubbo, Michael Fake,
Naas, Shinya Hanataka, Alex Fradera, Felix Girke, Bendik Vedeler, Vincent Arebalo, Markus Schoenlau, Neall Raemonn
Price, pdcurry, Empcho, Brian Wille, illotum, Joshua Rainey, Akiazoth, Davide Pignedoli, Czigny Pter, Thomas Fitch, Chad
Reiss, kalyptein, Dennettlander, Alan Barclay, Mr. Mario, James Schmitz, Ezio Melega, Grant Howitt, Robert Bersano, Arn
Poulsen, Matt Machell, Seann Ives, David Mihola, Asen R. Georgiev, Ville Halonen, Ziliuse, William Scott Palmer, Doug
Bolden, Nerf, Jonas Schitt, Michael Walsh, Brandon Davey, Ty (Troll) Sawyer, Herman Duyker, Brad Ellison, Dan Maruschak,
Shimrath Nimrod, Gordon Landis, Marius Bauer, Cthulhuspawn Azathoth, G. Hartman, Stras Acimovic, Fagner Lima, Eric R.
Duncan, Jeffrey Hosmer, Boris, Roderick Edwards, Kevin W. Kulp, Stewart Wieck, Jordan Raymond-Robidoux, Tobie, Rocky
& Yoshi, Phillip Bailey, Matt Clay, ihmcallister, Richard Greene, Reverance Pavane, William Chung, Simon Berg Jakobsen,
Goran Radovic, Luca Veluttini, Claes, David Morrison, Walter, jbrownd, Lisa Padol, Simon Mawdsley, Simon Ward, Donogh,
Matthew Caryl, Dave Sherohman, Morgan Hay, Mauro Ghibaudo, Russell G Collins, Marc Margelli

Circle Knight
Rafael Chandler, John Willson, Jonas Mockelstrom, Luke Crane, Justice Platt, Christopher Weeks, Christopher Mitchell, Eric
Franklin, Christopher Chinn, Victor Garrison, Tim Koppang, Justin & Adre Smith, Christian Nord, Thomas Walker, Ed Heil,
Juliusz Doboszewski, Wade Jones, Erik Bernhardt, Michael S. Miller, Kyle Simons, James Ritter, Chris Gardiner, Guillaume
Carr, Joe Beason, Joel Rojas, Brian Vander Veen, Martin Deppe, Antero Garcia, Mendel Schmiedekamp, Nathan Black, Rene
John Kerkdyk, Jon Edwards, Gethyn Edwards, Marc Majcher, Paul Czege, Brandon Salinas, Jason Leisemann, Ryan Percival,
Doug Baumeister, Kirt Dankmyer, Anders Nordberg, Gary Anastasio, Scott Martin, Clinton Dreisbach-Nixon, Dan Behlings,
Steven Douglas Warble, Jesse Alford, Ian Cooper, Mike Olson, Phillip Lewis, Antonio Reyes, Mark Somogyi, Giulia Cursi,
Orion Cooper, Benjamin Van Sickle, Adam Boisvert, Topi Makkonen, Jonathan Lee, Dmitry Gerasimov, Richard Mundy, Sam
Zeitlin, Edouard Contesse, Petter Wss, Spencer Keoppel, Alessandro Ricc, Jonathan Davis, Jason Paul McCartan, Joe Prince,
Robert Rees, Fabien Hildwein, Sage LaTorra, Adam Tannir, Nat Barmore, Brendan Conway, Paul Hedrick, Klaus Ole Kristiansen, Radek Drozdalski, Flavio Mortarino, Guy Shalev, Vladimir Filipovi, Fabian Stroh, Luigi Amedeo Bianchi

Hard Core
Judd Karlman, Chris Bloxham, Douglas Bailey, Martin Ralya, Mark Malone, Jrgen Mayer, Adams Tower, Simon Brunning,
Ed McW, Edoz, Jonathan Korman, Lawrence Saker Collins, Larry Lade, Filthy Monkey, Robert Strickland, Patrice Mermoud, Adam Rajski, Declan Feeney, Dan Wood, Ralph Mazza, Esteban Osorio Gallardo, Johan Karlsson, Justin Akkerman,
Simon Smith, Mark Delsing, Vincent Baker, Eric Mersmann, Tom Pleasant, Gregor Hutton, Jeremy Friesen, Justin Hamilton,
Code Decode, Mike Sands, Wade Geer, Nicola Urbinati, Dylan Clayton, Anthony Deming, Vern Ryan, Martin Greening,
Jesse Burneko, Stephen Dewey, Jesse Butler, Matt Whalley, Bruce Curd, Lee McDaniel, Trip the Space Parasite, Casey Garske,
Jason Blalock, Arturo Cavari, Lester Ward, Jonathan Colin Madden, Markus Bruckhardt, Lorenzo Gatti, Iacopo Frigerio, Piers
Conolly, Brett Easterbrook, anonymous1453, anderland, Scott Anderson, Cameron Eeles, Love Dahlgren, Simon Rogers, Henry
W, Richard Forest, Products for Robots, Raven Daegmorgan, Damon Van Demark, Andreas Davour, Alan Sharland, Mike Wallace, Sean Bourke, Charles Perez, Brazil808, Clyde L. Rhoer, Timothy TravelingTim Salisbury, Wayne Rossi, Okerampa, Rich
Karpusiewicz, Christian Mller, Antoine Fournier, Davide Di Antonio, BC Parker III, Oliver Granger, Mark Solino, Shawn P

Inner Circle
Keith Senkowski, Matt Snyder, Willow Palecek, Eddie J. Brown

Full Circle
Marco Behrmann, Tomas Hrenstam, Martin Frjd, Moreno Roncucci, Michele Gelli, Giorgio Grigio, Antonio Caciolli, Raffaele Manzo, Luca Cecchinelli, Russell Hoyle, Braden Badger Spooner, Finn McCool Hoyle

During the Kickstarter, I made my preliminary notes for the game available and invited backers to playtest. Many
accepted the invitation and provided a variety of insights and suggestions at the Adept Press forum. Even more
than the money, this feedback became the primary benefit of the pre-publication promotional campaign.
Ive credited significant input from playtesters throughout the text, occasionally quoting especially helpful phrasing.
For anyone considering a similar development process, I strongly recommend that playtesters provide only
reports of what happened at their tables and personal impressions of the setting, but not suggestions about design
or writing. Enforcing this principle dramatically improved the utility of the feedback.

PERSONAL THANKS
To my friends John Marron and Margie Klugermann
lo these many years past, in play and design!
To the playtesters, many of whose notes and suggestions youll see credited right where they had the
most influence.
Gray Magick ~1993: Margie Klugermann and several
people whose names have passed from memory
Gray Magick, 2012: Peter Charnley, Megan Pederson,
Sam Rivier
Circle of Hands, 2013-2014: Rasmus Lundholm, Rickard Elim, Johan Kemi, Sarah Richardson, Brian
Wille, Mark Malone, Mark Delsing, Joe Beason, Per
Fischer, Moreno Roncucci, Alessandro Ricc, Mauro
Ghibaudo, Vern Ryan, Joshua Bearden, Gethyn
Edwards, Benjamin Edwards, Joseph Edwards, Justice Platt, John Willson, Peter Liaw, Mitchell Rozen,
Christian Scarlato, David Rti, Keith Senkowski,
Nathan D. Paoletta, Eric Mersmann, Tim Koppang,
Larry Lade, Mike Holmes, Jen J. Dixon
To Mike Holmes for fifteen years of dialogue concerning realism and settings, Meguey Baker for her
thoughts on social contracts, Marshall Burns for
music consultation, and Jake Norwood for special
violence and weaponry head-banging.
To the many readers and commenters, especially
Chris Chinn, Raffaele Manzo, Anna Kreider, Kira
Magrann, and Sara Williamson. Most of these dialogues are archived at the website.
To the Inner Circle backers, listed above.
To the Kicksnarkers (you wretched, ruthless bastards), especially Eric Franklin and Caius Ward.
To Caias Ward, again, for help with the poetic text on
the back cover.

PERIPHERY
PHILOSOPHY

Feel free to check out Arthur Schopenhauers Die

Welt als Wille und Vorstellung (The World as Will and
Representation) and Friedrich Nietzsches Jenseits von
Gut und Bse (Beyond Good and Evil). The rules include
little references to other writers here and there if
youre looking for them.

MUSIC

The game was written to the tripping-out throb and

wails of heavy prog from a specific period of rock history.
A song from Uriah Heeps album Demons and
Wizards (1972) inspired the game title.
For what its like to be at the table, playing the
game, I think of Paladins second album Charge!
(approximately 1970-1972), and Pinnacles only
album Assassin (1974, re-issued as Cyborg Assassin).
For what its like to be a Circle knight on a
venture, I think of Comus first album First
Utterance (1971).

Chapter

1O

riginal

Metal

WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE

The world is gritty and pre-medieval, what some nowadays call mud-shit fantasy. Natural terrain is both beautiful and harsh; action centers on armor, monsters, swords, smoke, spells, and blood. Briefly, the culture is very
much not high and glittering chivalry, not heroic idealism in surcoats instead, life is all too often described by
authority through force, brutal extraction, squalor, ignorance, self-indulgence, torture, despair and resignation,
the inscription upon the body, and most importantly, theres no historical happy ending: no Renaissance, no
ancient classics, no cradle of literacy, and no end in sight.
As for individual persons in such a situation their ordeals are not going to be anything well-established insetting, not a designated nobility, not a spiritual guide or personage, not a developed ideology, not a modern ideal.
Theres something, but its the barest beginning of a hope for a new social order. Heroism and indeed anything
worthwhile is going to be discovered and shaped through the passions of the moment and the travails of the body.
Imagine with
with long locks
m e , a p l a ce :
If necessary, you will kill, and too, for any of a of tawny hair,
having ridden
his lined face
thousand bad reasons, you will die.
through many
and hooded
rocky ridges,
eyes more fitthick with scrub and cut by gorges as if chopped with
ting for a man his fathers age he should be tilling
an axe, having switched back and forth up the mounhis own land somewhere, laughing with his family
tainsides to reach a saddle only to see more ahead, at
whove survived the harsh winters, speaking for his
last, at this crest, you see what youd only glimpsed
clan at the moot to decide about herds and water.
during the past mornings ride. Now the mountains
Not here. No less so the broad-bodied woman whose
fall away before you, no less rugged but each ridge
emblem tells you of some gentry family now lost in
lower, fading into the lowlands, themselves stretchfire, who bears the scar of a francisca strike through
ing further with no way to reference the distance
her cheek and lips, and whose sword of actual steel is
across their patchwork of scrub, dense forest, and
the most valuable thing anyone in these mountains
farms. One of your companions has never been this
or the villages below has ever seen. As well, too, the
far east before, and you hear him inhale sharply in
kindly older man who speaks once a day at most,
awe. For above it all, from this perspective its horiand who keeps his eye distorted by Rbaja covered by
zon seemingly straight across from you, so it forms a
a leather patch. Like theirs, your home is the Circle:
majestic vertical wall filling the lower half of the sky,
look at your left hand, the fingernails emitting faint
rises the sea.
light, and at the right, mottled black beneath the skin.
You can see the river now too, at least some of its nearer
curves winding its way through the hills and final
plain to the shore. The complex of villages lies there,
and the scout says you can arrive by later afternoon,
or perhaps next morning. A beast dripping with slime
stalks the fields, or the valkyries gather overhead, or
the raids open the door for an alliance You know
only a little bit, enough to bring you here for the
king, for your newly-forming sense of purpose, for the
haunted drives that jolt your sleep.

Illus. Jez Gordon

Your mail and weapons ride with you in the common

wagon. Your tough mountain horses stamp as theyre
saddled. One of your companions is a young man

Dont call it a mission. You and your fellows heard

about this place and decided to come here: to help the
young kings cause, or to defy both warring powers, or
to find momentary peace in the thick of danger. Some
of you think of the good you may do. Others envy that
hope. If necessary, you will kill, and too, for any of
a thousand bad reasons, you will die. The culture is
unforgiving, its people grim and often desperate, so
you will not be the first or last arrivals to find your
death at the end of spears. The powers you may face
are cosmically inhuman and malevolent, and you
may even be consumed when you wield those same
powers in defiance.

Circle of Hands
THE ABSOLUTE RUNDOWN
The thing about RPG rules is, everyone wants to know and understand everything all at once. So here you are.
This is everything about the game in a single massive, semi-ordered data-dump. After this list, everything else in
the book is merely procedural explanation and helpful detail.
The setting is called the Crescent Land. Culturally, its
equivalent to 10th or 11th century north German and
Baltic Europe its not medieval, its not feudal, and
its not chivalric. Id say Dark Ages except historians
dont say that anymore screw it, the term applies.
Dark Ages fantasy.
The most common technological materials are wood,
wrought iron, and leather.
The only armor used is the mail hauberk, simple
shields, and simple helms. No plate armor, no limb
armor, no barding for horses, and no body armor at
all for most people.
The chief weapon is the spear. Only wealthy people
have swords. Regional weapons include the great axe,
the francisca, and the chained mace. There are no
such things as daggers, longswords, specialized pole
weapons, or longbows.
A thrown spear, or a spear used in a mounted charge,
goes right through mail, so look out.
There isnt any heraldry and no knightly culture.
Brace yourself for human horror. Its a time when
torture is on hand, power is almost entirely determined by immediate ruthlessness, and no one knows
the first thing about hygiene, sustainable agriculture,
geography beyond the immediate area, or history
besides vague legends.
Theres no education. People only know what their
family circumstances and limited geographical experience provide.
The map shows an extensive crescent-shaped shoreline, with the ocean to the east. The lands along the
waters edge, north to south, are forested Famberge
(fam-BEAR-geh), mountainous Rolke (ROLE-keh), and
sea-hugging Spurr, with Famberge also including
most of the inland north. The inland to the west is
wide, rolling Tamaryon. These are not nations, but
subcultural regions within a single culture.

10

Regions dont have governments, only local hierarchies based on raw power and immediate history.
Its mostly about villages, clans, banditry, fortified
strongholds, and families, shaking out into a stratified
society based on who has the most wealth crops,
animals, weaponry, connections with a lot of people
being miserable. Petty war among ever-changing alliances is the default condition.
Two magical forces are at war, black and white. They
are savagely effective, diametrically opposed, utterly
inhuman, and ultimately destructive, represented by
fanatical wizards, and manifested in actual locations.
They are stagnating and obliterating the culture.
Black magic is called Rbaja (ur-BAH-ja), and in its
extreme form, taints and scorches the landscape into
stinking pestholes filled with undead.
White magic is called Amboriyon (am-BOR-eeyon),
and in its extreme form, gathers in clouds from
which angelic beings descend and lead people into
what looks like virtue until it enlightens them
into amorally perfect form or even erases them from
reality.
The prevailing religion of the culture is not centralized, similar to minimally-institutional Buddhism.
It is opposed to the magical forces, directed toward
steadfastness, endurance, survival, and submission
when it shifts to resistance, it gets crushed.
Cannabis is not native to the region but is cultivated
where possible, and its leaves are dried and smoked in
most social situations. Its resinous extract is smoked
in religious observances.
The Rolke region is newly liberated from the magical
wars, united under a young king. He has instituted
extensive reforms and sworn to defy both Amboriyon
and Rbaja by using white and black magic together.

Original Metal
Y ou play characters whove banded together to
support the young king in Rolke, who opposes both
kinds of magic, and you are not only a trained fighter
no matter what your social background and prior life,
but you use both kinds of magic at once. This group
is called the Circle its the only one.
The Circle is the sole institution in the setting with
any glimmer of a better life free from the not-so-Cold
War between Amboriyon and Rbaja. Its also unique
in that no social background is excluded.
All player-characters are outstanding physical badasses. If their background doesnt indicate this, then
the Circle trained them up.
The fictional culture includes sex and gender bias.
Female Circle members, who are armored fighters,
are yet another society-challenging innovation of the
Circle.
Everyone makes up two characters, and thats the
Circle. For any given adventure, you can play any
Circle character you want, although not twice in a
row. There are no Circle NPCs.
Characters are described by four attributes, two personality traits, one or more professions, a resulting
social rank, a few interesting details, and a Key Event.
Other things follow from their professions too.
Theres a single GM, the same person throughout
play. He or she does make up two Circle members
at the start, along with everyone else. His or her job
after that is to prepare the adventures, play the various other people and foes, and monitor the tripwires
that turn a scenario vicious and horrible.
Play does not concern events at home. The young
king and the circumstances of his presence in Rolke
are never seen. The characters are played during their
ventures.
Ventures are created using random components and
a specialized process to combine and refine them.
Ventures include local people with interests of their
own and difficult locations. They also include the
chance for knowledge, lurking threats, and the fell
influence of Rbaja, Amboriyon, or both.

A venture offers opportunities and resources for the

young king, and the characters take these very seriously. It is not a mission; they have no assignment or
pre-arranged objective.
A ventures outcome for the Circle in general, and
for the young king in Rolke, is most likely successful by default. Its purpose in play is to showcase the
characters, develop their passions, and bring them to
fateful conclusions.
Characters improve mechanically a little bit after
adventures, but change is mostly due to magical
effects and significant personal experiences. Leveling-up or its equivalent isnt a major part of play.
Ordinary resolution is a 2d6 roll + a characters
attribute, to equal or beat a 12. For easier or harder
rolls, add or lose a d6. Thats familiar Im sure, but the
whole fictional context for rolling is pretty different
from most games.
A characters social rank and professional background dictate what he or she knows how to do.
There is no common sense or general resolution.
In a culture based mainly on personal confrontation and immediate connections, one might commit
murder and grin ones way out of retribution, but
theres no way to stop a mob from killing you, outside
of magic.
Fighting and other dynamic conflicts are organized
by clashes, a system which emphasizes simultaneity
yet preserves individual, make-or-break actions.
C lash resolution compares mutual offense and
defense simultaneously, and every exchange gives the
advantage to one side or the other.
Weapons different properties are expressed in terms
of who gets the advantage die. A knife is a superior
weapon to a great-axe if the fight takes place between
the sheets in a dark bedroom.
A killed Circle member becomes a wraith and still
participates in the current adventure, but is gone after
that adventures conclusion.

11

Circle of Hands

Original Metal

Anyone may swear mighty oaths tapping into black or white magical power. Doing so brings great power and great
consequence.
All Circle members know a few white and black spells. Your character can also be a full-on wizard, who knows
all the spells. Yes, every single one.
Magic is powered by ones own bodily energy. Wizards must be physically very tough, vital people. Magic has no
other practical limiting factors no resolution roll or anything else.
Spells are rated either black or white, with values of 1 to 3. Its value is both the energy it costs and the number of
color points the caster fills in.
A character has nine slots to fill in with color points, from casting spells or swearing oaths. White points cancel
black and vice versa, but if all nine are either white or black, then more magical consequences appear. Its OK
to do this, but the effects are permanent. Unlike ordinary wizards, Circle members use this option tactically, not
ideologically.
Its true that wizards are more powerful and flexible than non-wizards, but the wizards tend to hurt themselves
too much to run around unsupported. The two kinds of Circle knights are the same when it comes to plain old
spear and sword mayhem.
Few non-wizardly people can stand up to a Circle member in open combat, but they do have local social roles and
status, whereas the adventuring Circle members are far from home.
Monsters and dangerous beasts add danger but also pathos of their own, unlike the outright horror of manifestations of Amboriyon or Rbaja. Creatures of Amboriyon are unbearably pure avatars or disastrously enlightened
eidolons; creatures of Rbaja are foul, all too cunning undead or insane, disturbing demons.
Non-Circle wizards are always a threat, serving Amboriyon or Rbaja. No one knows if the magical war is due to
actual scheming overlords or to the mere accumulation of so many scheming wizards.

ALL ABOUT PLAY

Circle of Hands is played by a group of three to six
people through a series of sessions. There is no
required number of sessions, but several design
features operate across them, so one alone barely
touches upon the games potential. I recommend
playing at least as many sessions as there are people
in the group.
One of the group is designated the Game Master
(GM) and stays in that role from session to session.
The others each play a single character during sessions, chosen from a circle of characters created
prior to play, and everyone switches to a different
character at the outset of a new session.
What happens during a session is called a venture,
played through fully in a single session. I left off the
ad- because it means toward something, and in this
game you dont play toward, you play in.

12

crack wide open, becoming a tapestry of different

dramas. The setting becomes fleshed out and definitely your own, its implications become realizations,
and the characters themselves become nuanced. This
happens through action and interaction, through
re-visiting, without enforcing mechanical character
development or adding setting material in texts.
Ultimately, the rewards of play are not so much in
character effectiveness or even character survival,
and contrary to the characters own possible motives,
not even so much about changing the setting for the
better. Theyre about in-crisis drama and the developing portraiture, the realization of heroism as gained
and as failed.TUFF
Im not messing around, this setting is rough. But lets
dissect that word setting a bit. Its too damn vague.
Im breaking it into three layers: the backdrop, the
situation in force during a session of play, and the
scenes which we actually play, including immediate
opportunities and threats for characters. Stay with
me, I have a point, I swear.
Backdrop: This is the broad sweep of what
you read in game books and tell each other
before preparing anything. In play, its distant
and not really touched, imagined as the landscape and mentioned in evocative details.
You take it as a given that things look like this
and that things like this can happen, as a general description, before preparing scenarios or
making up characters.

Situation: This is what youve prepared the

location, time, and individuals for the fiction
during play, the causes and circumstances
specific to this spot and this particular history, and the drives and problems of characters
interacting with one another there.
Your own characters are part of it too, either
intrinsically or by arriving there depending on
the game, to become included in those drives
and problems.
Scenes: These are the immediate locations, direct
sensory input to your characters, the interactions
among characters, direct threats and opportunities,
what parts of the situation ignite, the consequential actions, and what can happen there,
Only in scenes is action possible specifically, what can happen to anything and anyone,
including you.
The whole book is organized off the diagram below:
Chapter 2 is the backdrop, Chapter 3 is situation for
both players and GM, Chapter 4 is playing scenes,
and Chapters 5-7 are the various subroutines for play
concerning fighting, magic, and creatures.
So what? So: all of this concerns how you get a setting
solid and vivid and valuable out of play, over time,
and what its like to do it.

MULTIPLE VENTURES

As more ventures are played, youll see they have the

same basic structure, and youll be drawing from the
same pool of characters, but also that each strikes at
the topics of play differently. Mitch Rozen described
the full arc of the game as fractal, meaning that you
dont travel across wildly diverse exotic lands, but
rather do it again, richer and more nuanced each
time. Youll keep seeing similar places but with different cultural details, different tensions, and different
responses. Also, different characters are played, each
with distinctive social perspectives, and repeating
characters are played by different people.
As the succeeding ventures carry more and more
comparison with those which have already happened, as the characters become more and more
known, and as the cultural details become more and
more solid as genuine setting, the emergent themes

BACKDROP

Maps and regions

Ecology
Culture
History
The magical war
Technology
Values
Ethnicities
Creatures

SITUATION

Location and time

Immediate geography
Immediate history
The people present
Cultural details in force
The creatures present
The played characters

SCENES

A particular spot
A time of day or night
Whos there
What just happened
Actions and responses
Crises and threats
Opportunities
Consequences

13

Circle of Hands
Keith Senkowski insisted that I
include a big overview of play here.

PROCEDURAL OUTLINE

1Make your Circle: the number of characters =

twice the number of people
Individual work
Group work

2Preparation

Original Metal

Keith also says You and your diagrams,

so heres the diagram version:

like GM/player. All such talk has it completely insideWhen you see hard limits to your own sensibilities
out. Instead, all the real-people roles, game rules, and
in the backdrop, which is to say, Chapter 2 of this
character roles are embedded in a real-world social
book, then your choices about preparation are valid,
scene, made of who these people are and why theyre
socially assertive means of getting those limits into
hanging out together. This scene includes everything
play. Given the second concept above, I Will Not
imaginable about how people
Abandon You, that also means
relate to one another, specific to
that whatever you do put in there,
this particular group at this parI Will Not Abandon You youre accepting responsibility for
ticular time, whether they know it
others possibly finding it at their
or not, or say it out loud or not.
limits.

MAKE YOUR CIRCLE

Number of characters = 2x the number of

people (including GM)
Individual Work
Group Work

The GM prepares the first venture

Each player chooses one of the characters he
or she made to play for the first venture

3First adventure
Deaths, tripwires, tallies
Immediately after: roll to increase scores

FIRST PREPARATION

The GM prepares the first venture

Each player chooses one of the characters he
or she made to play

4Preparation
GM preps next venture
Players choose characters: any they didnt
just play; revise spells as desired

5Next venture

They want to do something fun with one

another, at this time, more than with anyone
else they know.

FIRST VENTURE

Deaths, tripwires, tallies

Immediately after: roll to increase scores

They want to play this particular game as the

something, as opposed to any other game they
could be playing or an activity like watching a
movie.

Deaths, tripwires, tallies

Immediately after: roll to increase scores

6Back to #4, and cycle through #4-6

In developing and crowdfunding Circle of Hands, I
discovered how strongly setting material is perceived
as play instructions: if its described, then its what
youre supposed to do and whats going to happen
to you. But thats why setting is too vague, because
its totally mixing up scenes vs. backdrop.
In playing, you (the group) and I have entered a longdistance consensual. something. Im definitely
responsible for the backdrops content. But what
gets into the prepared situations and the characters
histories is what you choose from it, according to your
standards for content and threat.
The good news is that if you dont like something in
the backdrop, or like or not, you dont want it in your
face during play and maybe even happening to your
character, then you dont have to. Its in the setting!
is a cop-out. The only way, ever, for seeing something
in a situation and especially in a scene, is because a
real person at your table put it there. I had my reasons
for putting it in the backdrop and you have yours for
seeing it in play.

14

PREPARATION

The GM prepares the next

venture
Each player chooses a character
they didnt play in the last
venture, revise spells as desired

6
REPEAT

AWFUL STUFF, RESPONSIBILITY

AND SOCIAL CONTRACT

Let me tell you the fundamentals of this thing, Ill

call it Social Contract and I stress that it is mostly
tacit and quite likely not ever fully grasped by the
people who are doing it but that as long as were
talking about people doing anything with each other,
its there. Anyway, as with most fun things people
gather to do, the following have to be included for
role-playing.

NEXT VENTURE

Deaths, tripwires, tallies

Immediately after: roll to increase
scores

So thats kind of cool, actually, because you can take

something in the backdrop and invert or subvert it as
in-play content, or you can leave it in the backdrop
as it happens in the world without wallowing in it.
That also means that soaking up and engaging with
the backdrop isnt threatening, because its not happening, and it can never touch you without your leave.
The other news neither bad nor good is that
direct responsibility also lies at your table. By your,
I mean anyone and everyone there. Real people are
not governed by in-game fiction or rules categories

If these are happening, then everyones responsible to

take care of their own fun, and to expect that everyone
else is happy to help with that. Also, its everyones
responsibility to back up how this is getting done
here, in other words, if someone is clearly unable to
do this, they have to be faced with fully supported
social disapproval.
Meg Baker wrote about two ways for a social contract
to deal with fictional content which is harsh, confrontational, or even transgressive.
No One Gets Hurt is perhaps the more straightforward: personal limits are made explicit in
the beginning, and play includes an overt social
acknowledgment that well stay within them, to
avoid prompting discomfort. Black cards and
trigger warnings are mechanics to help express
this social commitment. The point is to stay
within the borders of tolerance.
I Will Not Abandon You is scarier. Here, the
group walks along the borders of tolerance, and
play is expected to respect feelings about them,
but not to avoid them. My game designs tend to
operate in this sphere, including Circle of Hands.

TECHNIQUES

What does all that mean for real play? Thats scenes,
and what goes on in playing a scene is happening to
your character or right in front of him or her, and that
is not a whole lot different from it happening to you.
How can a group possibly functionally play such that
I Will Not Abandon You is not an ongoing exercise in
gonna shock ya now?
I wont leave you on your own with this one, so the
rules include plenty of techniques concerning Lines
and Veils, concepts I first wrote about in Sex & Sorcery
(2003).
Lines are ones personal limits to content being
in the fiction at all.
Veils are ones personal limits to content being
explicitly depicted, implying that its presence is
acceptable as long as its narrated and imagined
less directly.
Im even butting into your game myself because I cant
fathom or stand crossing certain Lines in playing
Circle of Hands, so Im injecting some built-in Lines for
player-characters into the rules, for different reasons
in each case. Its called Plot Armor, as follows:
Infection could easily happen to Circle knights
except that in the stories made through playing
the game, it happens not to.
Sexual activity is certainly an option for a Circle
knight as directed by the player, but the GM
is not to presume it for purposes of starting a
scene, or to depict it without the player initiating the events.
Pregnancy does not occur for Circle knights
without the player expressly saying so.
Rape does not happen to Circle knights as
with infection, it could in fictional terms, but
those are not the stories we are making here.

15

Circle of Hands
Chapter 4 includes rules and best practices for working with Lines during play. Again, the easy point is
not gratuitously to cross evident Lines and jump
around in others trauma zones. The more relevant
point concerns getting close. If its No One Gets Hurt,
then in-scene depictions stay well within the Lines,
so knowing what they are and establishing beware
signals are the key. However, for I Will Not Abandon
You, play stalks along those Lines, or perhaps inks/
outlines them when we discover where they really are.
For that to work, Veils are the outstanding technique
to master. Chapter 4 includes rules toward that end.

DISCOVERY

Why bother with Veils if you can wall it all off with
pre-play Lines? Why would I have put any of that
torture, rape, wretchedness in the backdrop at all? I
have an end in mind, and I think its a good one.
Reality and real people in it are messy, uneasy, desperate, passionate, reflective, and confused. They exult,
they feel relief, they suffer in agonies of the body and
mind, they cry out. All of us feel so much the same,
think in so many of the same ways, and are born, live,
and die those the same, most of all. And yet always
alone, his or her own person, no other in that place
and at that time.
Whereas Rbaja and Amboriyon are so abstract,
extreme, and inhuman: more than simple color, but
rather the blackest void and the most flawless white.
Our paltry colors are mere reflections of the visible
light spectrum, but Rbaja and Amboriyon do not
absorb or reflect they are. There is no individuality
of experience. The whole magical war loves the clarity
of this Black and this White. Wizards seek its purity.
The Circle defies both, even daring to use them
opportunistically while refusing to submit. In defying opposed poles of purity, they seem like relativists,
but theyre actually struggling into a different, richer
framework for moral action.
Its all embedded in the gross, mixed-up mess of

reality and humanity. The knights themselves are

people in stress, shaken loose from their moorings of
culture and defying a terrifying ideology imposed by
force. Theyre not sure where theyre going or what
its for. There are no guarantees, no imprimateur of
being played by a favorite actor, no unswerving moral
code. These people are nothing but what you make
of them.
So lets not start with good and evil; Amboriyon and
Rbaja respectively claim theyre good and evil, but the
Circle knows thats mistaken and leads only to horror.
They and you are on a journey to discover the lesser,
messier, impure possibility of the human good and bad.
In the absence of cosmic purity, what are those?
The scout points out the scree-covered slope to traverse down into the hills, indistinguishable from any
other, then leaves to return to his mountain village.
Throughout the day, local people join you, replacing
those whove reached the limits of their local knowledge or time away from home, trading out as theyve
done throughout the journey, word traveling ahead.
When you arrive at the villages dotting the convergence of several creeks to swell the river, the chief
knows of you. Youll move in for a while, as any travelers would, in the age-old exchange of hospitality for
civility, underscored by threat of outlawry and execution. Gebhard joins with the men clearing the rocks
from their recent tumble into the northern villages
stream, soon to sit quietly as a guest at the freemens
council. Krimhilde, whom they call Baron Falk from
her emblem, shares word of chieftains battles, marriages, and deaths at the longhouse with the others of
her station. Old Rudi already disappeared among the
peasant people, sleeping in their piles of brush and
eating who knows what, now invisible. You arrange
your seating blankets and pipe at the glade with its
shrines, ready to speak of what you know to be true.
Your spears, axes, shields, mail, and Krimhildes
sword stay in their wagon. Everyone knows theyre
there. The time for their use may come.

BEGINNINGS
I wanted monsters and cosmic magic, certainly, but I really wanted human evil and human pain. I wanted combat
that felt like fighting, with fear and desperation just ahead of effective tactics. I wanted damage not merely to tick
down a fuel tank, or even just to penalize, but to hurt. I wanted a knife to be a deadly weapon, as dangerous as a
great-axe in the right time and place. I wanted a reason to fight which made sense to me. I wanted wizards to be
physically tough. I wanted scary, raw, scarring spells that visibly sprayed and spattered. I wanted shocking powerful magic that wasnt limited in multiple stifling directions. I wanted characters to be vivid at the start, but also to be

16

Original Metal
unfinished, to have somewith a well-known fanwhere to go. I wanted
tasy RPG, typically the
in 1990, i wanted fantasy role-playing
all of us playing to care
most institutionalized
and it just was not happening.
about the characters.
D&D, and to inspire
I wanted to get to know the party, experience the
audiences with a home-grown fantasy setting but
events that would become its collective memories,
so strongly buy into the assumptions of the play
see its members develop and the whole membership
theyre fixing that the mission is subverted. Tons of
change. I wanted to see things happen in adventures,
games like this have been published, peaking in the
not because the GM says if you get the silver widget,
late 1990s.
the realm is secure, but because some player decided
Theyre less common now and less heartbreaking
to do something and made it happen. I wanted playbecause digital print doesnt require you to pay for
ers to decide for themselves whom they wanted to
five thousand copies to set a reasonable price-point.
kill. I wanted awesome cosmic forces in opposition,
D&D-inspired design and publishing has also taken
but characters who were not pawns. I wanted stuff
on several new forms with plenty of creative and
to happen in our very first session, and never to let
publishing savvy, quickly spawning a whole library
up. I wanted to look back on a game with grim pride,
of games about dungeons and elves with not a heartremembering moments of breaking-points, fury, tragbreaker in sight. However, crowdfunding has brought
edy, and shared joy at the table.
its new versions of deadlines, promises, high hopes,
A few influences kept me thinking I could somehow
and a big opening outlay of funds.
get this. RPGs like The Fantasy Trip, Fighting Fantasy,
In a dialogue about my essays, Mike Holmes wrote,
or Prince Valiant were out of print or on the fringe,
Everyone should write a heartbreaker, which means
but I saw something there which diverged from my
their own heartbreaker, in part to expose and resolve
long experience with the Hero System, GURPS, Rolepersonal ambiguities about fantasy role-playing.
master, and BRP. Magic: the Gathering hit me as hard
At the least, its a lot of fun. Moreover, in doing so,
as anyone else with the perfect evocation of a setting
knowing what they know now, a person may find its
wracked by color-coded magical war.
heart and bring it whole into a retooled design. Some
Like many role-players, I have a personality disorder
of those authors I wrote about hit it right away long
called Must write games. My first real efforts came
ago, e.g. Kathleen and Joe Williams with Legendary
to about six distinct designs, from 1986 to about 1994,
Lives, and some other people have done it right out of
almost all obviously founded on whatever I was
Mikes advice, such as Clinton Dreisbach-Nixon with
playing at the time. Soon after Magic: the Gathering
The Shadow of Yesterday and Ralph Mazza with Blood
was released, I wrote one called Gray Magick and
Red Sands.
playtested the hell out of it.
The crazy thing is that at the time of writing those
It wasnt the most ambitious of those various designs
essays, I totally forgot this Gray Magick thing of mine,
that would be Bullshit-Less Role-playing or BSL,
which almost certainly must be some form of denial.
from a little bit earlier but it had a lot of passion in
I found it much later in a pile of old stuff, actually
it. I thought Id totally chucked fantasy role-playing
while looking for BSL. It totally qualifies as a Fantasy
out the window considering my long history with
Heartbreaker and should have been front-and-center
Champions and my disgust with mainstream fantasy
in the second essay. Playtesting it again, I was struck
fiction of the time. But I hadnt. Like so many others
by its power, and how easily the heartbreaker-ness
of approximately my age and approximately my pop
blazed into what I really want with a bit of loving care.
culture history, I was trying to redeem it by starting
Now its time to take Mikes advice myself, the way
over, doing fantasy role-playing right.
I failed to do when writing the essays. In my case
Ten years later, I wrote two essays about this disand perhaps yours too it takes the form of dusting
tinctive branch of RPG publishing called Fantasy
off a manuscript from ones youth to discover that its
Heartbreakers and More Fantasy Heartbreakers
embarrassing features can be forgiven and forgotten,
you can find them in this book too, with some annoor may not be such bad ideas after all, and that you
tations. Briefly, theyre about publishing games which
can discover that its not about the breaking, its about
are sincerely intended to solve mechanics associated
the heart.

17

Chapter

2I

ron

Folk

THE BACKDROP
This chapter is about the whole tapestry of geography and culture, which means the fictional situations of play
characters and location are initially conceived in front of it.
The rundown in Chapter 1 is probably enough for most of the people in play. This chapter is here to clarify and
specify those brief points, if anyone has questions, and especially, for the GM to prepare immediate locations for
ventures, with their geography, inhabitants, and local history. But the situation isnt simply a lift from the backdrop
with more details. It may be exemplary of the backdrop content, or it may be atypical in some way. And it will have
members of the Circle riding into it, which makes quite a difference indeed.

BACKDROP

Maps and regions

Ecology
Culture
History
The magical war
Technology
Values
Ethnicities
Creatures

SITUATION

Location and time

Immediate geography
Immediate history
The people present
Cultural details in force
The creatures present
The played characters

SCENES

A particular spot
A time of day or night
Whos there
What just happened
Actions and responses
Crises and threats
Opportunities
Consequences

We all want our setting to be solid. But all the map books and reams of texts and representational objects used
during play will not make that happen. Prior to play, backdrop will always be detached and blurred, no matter
how big or detailed it is, which is why this chapter isnt a gazetteer. Its here to get the cycle started, to inspire
and provoke character and situation creation, and then we can play. Chapter 3 shows how to use backdrop in an
organized way to get those characters and situations built.
The more we play scenes, the more powerful the situation becomes in the imagination, and as the scenes change
the situation, then the backdrop finally comes into focus, and now, sure enough, we are playing these characters
in this setting. Thats what the rest of the book is about.

THE CRESCENT LAND

THE LAND ITSELF

This is the coast of a crescent-shaped bay, so big that

it might as well be called a Sea, justified as well by a
significant drop-off from a continental shelf. Its an
eastern coast, so the inland is to the west. The coast is
mountainous at the innermost curve, with highlands
to the inland north and lowlands to the direct west
and continuous with the southern coast. The best
port is to the south.

By and large, the Crescent Land enjoys two mild

seasons: a long, pleasantly warm, not very humid
summer, and a rainy, foggy winter that rarely drops
below freezing for long, but with frosts at night. The
highlands of Famberge are notably drier on the average, but vegetation is lush there due to steady water
supply from the mountains, and winter brings frost
and light snow cover. On the coast, the temperature difference between night and day is extremely

19
Illus. Tony Dowler

Circle of Hands

marked throughout the year. Occasionally, perhaps

once every two years, somewhere on the coast is hit by
a savage oceanic storm. The winter is much harsher
in the mountain range of Rolke and western Spurr,
including snowdrifts and blocked passes. To the west
of the mountains in Tamaryon, fog and cold ocean air
are blocked, so the temperature is consistently more
even through the day and night cycle.

Literary reference: Zo Oldenburgs The World is Not

Enough, David Drakes The Dragon Lord.
Spurr is mostly coastline including the best natural
harbors with many direct sea-lanes to isolated spots,
as well as the best ship technology in cutters of all
sizes. This has led to many independent small estates
wielding considerable local power, as well as to two
or three distinctive cities honeycombing the coastal
cliffs. In these cities, cabals compete over immediate
economic decisions, freely combining trade with
punitive and destabilizing expeditions, often empowered by black magic. Rbaja is strong here; powerful
wizards and even liches are found ruling towns or
consortiums, each one providing its own spin on
blending profit, power, and enchantments. Literary
reference: many of Karl Edward Wagners Kane stories, especially Undertow and Dark Muse in the
Night Winds collection.

The society most closely resembles 11th century central and northern Europe. Its not medieval: there is no
feudalism, no manor, no realm, and no monarch. The
regions are merely subcultures; there are no borders.
The northern coast and the highlands to its inland
are called Famberge, a hilly, forested area characterized by small constantly-warring fiefs. The majority
of the inland map, north to south, is called Tamaryon,
a region of rolling hills and winding rivers; it is mainly
peasant farms and villages. The comparatively small
center of the coastline and the
most mountainous region is
Its not medieval: there is
called Rolke, and the southern
no feudalism, no fiefdom,
coast is called Spurr, maritime
no realm, and no monarch.
and bellicose.
Tamaryon is a plains-and-rivers
countryside, dotted with farming villages and rare
hilltop forts. The culture includes the makings of an
all-mans law body of practices, which could sustain
a formidable society but for the constant disorganization by white magic. Amboriyon is strong here, with
the cloud-citadels a common sight overhead. Raiders from Famberge turn the broad northern reaches
into a constant low-level hell, and river ships from
Spurr establish further and further centers of power
inland, weapons-first. Literary references: Henryk
Sienkiewiczs With Fire and Sword, Poul Andersons
Hrolf Krakis Saga.
Famberge (fam-BEAR-geh) is a forested land of winding low ridges and lowland swamps, with a soggy
coast. Its ruled in patches as crude fiefdoms, whose
nominal rule changes hands through shocking
sudden wars and by assassination. The culture is
constantly wracked by raids, counter-raids, and turf
battles, with no general rule of law it all depends
what the local strongman thinks, and how long he
lives. Rbaja and Amboriyon are deadlocked here,
so wizards feud constantly, interfering with and
manipulating the war culture and contributing to
the local destruction and misery. The coast is hard to
settle, although a fishing culture has sprung up, subject to ruthless trade practices and raids from Spurr.

20

Rolke (ROLE-keh) is a forested

mountain land, with a rocky
rough coast that nevertheless
includes some maritime communities. Most communities in
Rolke formed in geographically
defensible places, with stone-reinforced fortresses
and classic walled mountain towns with winding
streets. The culture is continuous with that of Famberge, but recently has unified around a young king
(chief of chiefs), has developed the beginnings of a
common law, and fiercely resists intrusions, both
ordinary and magical. Many isolated areas experience problems of adjustment to the new social
developments, and the rugged mountains harbor
some of the worst monsters in the Crescent Land. The
coast communities struggle with raids from Spurr,
but in developing ships of their own, some have also
established consistent trade there. Literary reference:
Graham Shelbys The Knights of Dark Renown and The
Kings of Vain Intent, specifically the protagonist Lord
Balian.

Iron Folk
Food is extremely local; the only food that gets transported more than a few miles from its source are
the cereal grains, wheat and rye, which are eaten in
every imaginable version of mash and bread. Along
with these, anywhere in the Crescent Land, get
used to eating plenty of root vegetables like turnips,
burdocks, purple carrots, white parsnips, and huge
radishes; a veritable ton of beans and cabbage, and
whatever meat is most common locally. Such meat
is most often beef (using the term loosely, including
oxen as well as cows), or depending on location could
be mutton, goat, pork, horse, poultry, dogs in some
places, or any of a variety of game such as deer, hare,
squirrel, wild birds like pheasant, or boar. Fish and
shellfish are obviously the primary meat along the
seacoast. Neither corn (more properly maize) nor
potatoes are known to the area. Fruit is available
seasonally, mostly berries, with some members of
the peach group and various grapes. Salt is a prized
additive and not too easily come by, as is honey which
is collected from wild bees.
One of the customs in the port town of Spurr, crucial
for maintaining its population, is to bake bread in
huge ovens every night, to be distributed throughout
the day in enormous quantities to anyone and
everyone who wants it.

THE PEOPLE

Long ago, the land was inhabited by tribes of people

named the Pananthuri, of whom little is remembered.
They were tall and slender, and did not forge iron.
Todays population is descended mostly from people
who migrated into these lands, cleansing or absorbing the Pananthuri. Little is left of them besides their
genetic contribution and a variety of local practices,
one of which is extensive tattooing in circular patterns. The people of todays Crescent Land, whose
word for themselves is iron folk, share a distinctive
ethnic look: tall foreheads, high cheekbones, and
sometimes epicanthic folds. They are light-skinned
(white) which tans quite dark, with straight or wavy
hair ranging from medium brown to very blonde
with rare redheads, and grey or blue eyes, and high
cheekbones.
In the intervening centuries, the region has seen
plenty of cross-cultural contact with the wider world.
Therefore just as with historical populations, the
look is not universal. Skin pigmentation ranging up
to mahogany-brown, eyes brown enough to be black,
and different hair textures can all be found together
or separately as individual and family variations,
among about 15% of the general population. One
might meet a light-skinned person
with a thick shock of curly brown
hair, for instance, or a darkskinned person with smoky
grey eyes.

LOCAL ECOLOGY AND FOOD

The culture is primarily agricultural, with some

shifted emphasis on herding, farming, hunting, and
fishing depending on location. Geography matters
greatly to the style of farming, favoring terraced
farming on the mountainsides of Rolke, seasonal
migration onto the flood plains of Tamaryon, and
controlled burns in the forests of Famberge.
Illus. Amos Orion Sterns

21

Circle of Hands

The present day is an isolated, harsh time, and

whatever other empires, routine travel, and cultural
effervescence may be occurring, they arent happening here. Not many people travel into the Crescent
Land, and not many people leave and come back, so
the people of the Crescent Land generally know little
of other places and ways. Some foreign contact does
occur, at the far western plains reaches of Tamaryon
and at the farthest maritime reach of the best ships
from Spurr, and it is presumably ongoing, but at this
time, its impact on the Crescent Land itself is intermittent, and foreign-born, foreign-dressed people are
unfamiliar to its inhabitants.
This results in the local diversity being far less coded
and significant than one might think, because its
not associated with other places, or correlated with
social rank, economics, or designated subcultures.
Everyone is wearing similar clothes, speaking similarly by region, and sharing semiotic values. Calling
someone the black man, perhaps as a nickname for
a person known for a notable skill or event, does not
carry an Other tag, but is similar to the tall or forkbeard. The term minority in this case is merely
quantitative, because whatever racism the people of
the Crescent Land might harbor, now or in the future,
does not apply to their current strong cultural sense
of us.
One of the European playtesters asked me why I
wasnt using the term Anglo-Saxon, when so much
of the look and feel was obviously based on it. I
explained that first, I didnt want to identify the Iron
Folk with a single historical source but only to draw
from such sources; and second, that the term has
distinctive meanings in the U.S. which I did not draw
upon and did not want to invoke in readers.

A note to history buffs: as this is a non-feudal society,

issues of land ownership and rent are either absent
or so murky as to be merely local arrangements. Its
a lot more like the 11th century Baltic coasts than
anything else. Therefore freeman, for instance, is
much less contractual than the status by that name
during the 1400s, and the limited status of serf
doesnt apply at all. Ive chosen peasant as the most
generic, least economically loaded term.

22

THEIR WAYS
SOCIAL RANKING

Society and its practices are not founded on principles-based law or authority or status, and all power is
local. The social rankings are not designed but rather
emergent, nor are they even quite understood. They
are, however, quite real.
Peasantslive by minimally skilled labor, or if skilled,
inconvenient labor. Wood is gathered, animals are
herded, fires are kept burning, dung is gathered,
semi-frozen fields are broken by plow, slaughtered
human bodies are gathered, and no one really
notices that the peasants are doing it. They rarely
leave their home communities unless traveling
with seasonal work or fleeing from violence.
The terms villein, peon, and serf do not
apply, because members of this social rank are
not tied to a particular plot of land (albeit many
never leave one), nor forced to work, nor considered anyones property.
A special sort of peasant is the low entertainer,
who does travel, indeed lives by doing so, but
can expect hospitality, lodging, and social treatment as a peasant.
Freemenare not above many peasants tasks,
especially farming, but they exert authority and make decisions about these tasks, and
they organize work efforts and governance,
among themselves if no one else. In groups
freemen can be a considerable social force.
Freemen include a significant fighting force, in
numbers if not in organization or general skill.
A well-established community can muster a
militia or be rallied to fight with gentry.
Professionalsin this coin-less society are best
understood as contractors for highly skilled, difficult, or dangerous work. They are paid through
patronage in terms of living space and privileged
conditions, with the understanding that they
might be doing whatever it is for someone else.
Gentryenjoy the most material privileges, by
definition, as they are the few people in communities who do not labor in order to live, and
whose upbringing focuses primarily on conflict
with other gentry. By modern standards, the
difference in quality of life between gentry and
everyone else is slim, but it matters a lot in terms
of infant mortality and personal longevity.

Iron Folk
Many gentry do not have special titles, only
famous nicknames that sometimes approach
the quality of a title. The term baron is used
to indicate armed defense of or control over a
territory, including fortresses.
Social rank is set by what you do; its only hereditary
insofar as people learn what to do from their home
communities and family associations even for
gentry. Although perceived as a fundamental and
immutable aspect of ones identity, and although
its certainly consequential in every way, its more
mutable than the stereotype of Dark Ages society.
Yes, most people remain in the professions and
social rank in which they were raised and everyone
thinks thats the way it is, but as much as 10% of
the population shifts social rank from their parents
at any given time.
The gentry are the most regionally variable rank.
In Famberge, every mans a chief if he or she
can command thugs to terrorize a community
strategically enough to maintain power through
seasons and years. Here, gentry sit at the top of
resource extraction.
In Tamaryon, gentry arise as leaders within
social networks and therefore managers of
resources, sometimes shaping collective opinion via the seasonal moots and sometimes at its
mercy.
In Spurr, wealth is based on trade-and-raid and
the management of risk, so gentry emerge as the
privileged offspring of mercantile success.
In Rolke, social status was continuous with and
similar to that in Famberge, but given recent
events, its now in a ferment of reconstruction;
gentry are now more defined by allegiance than
by privilege. The most extreme example is the
Circle itself.
Continuity of power is constant through networks
of clan relationships and marriage, but its less tied
to persons than to situations. Individual respect and
authority across the social ranks is emergent from
circumstances, whether positive like a shared effort
to repel wolves during winter, or negative like the fear
of starvation and torture.
Gentry status is not synonymous with family, as
extended families in the Crescent Land include a
range of social ranks. You dont get to be gentry just
because your brother is. As a related point, direct

hereditary power is unknown as a social concept,

but in practice it occurs briefly, mainly when a noted
leaders children or relative have themselves won
recognition, and when the name of the older person
is folded into the younger generation, perhaps even
into the communitys identity. Such a lineage tends
not to last literally more than two generations, but the
names can persist.
The concepts of nobility and monarchy are absolutely absent as concept or practice. Language like
lord doesnt exist, nor any concept of gentle birth
or good breeding for humans. The equivalent of
sir merely acknowledges authority for the moment,
and the most common word for someone with consistent authority is chief. Knight is a surprisingly
generic term that does not even carry the implication
of combat, let alone hereditary status. King is nothing more than a temporary executive status accorded
to a chief by other chiefs.

CLOTHING AND APPEARANCES

Hair and clothing are specific to professions, which

are tightly constrained by social rank. Most men cut
their hair short or bob it beneath the ears, with not
much distinction among the social ranks, and trimming ones facial hair in various ways is an individual
thing, although shaving ones face entirely typically
indicates skilled work or education. Most women
wear their hair long and braid or bun it close to the
head, with very definite social rank indicators.
Everyone wears pretty much the same things in terms
of basic design, but the fit, the quality of the cloth, the
extent and material of trim, and other details are finegrained indicators of relative positions in society. Men
typically wear a sleeved, long-skirted shirt, belted to
serve as a kilt or tunic, over an undershirt (singlet)
and sometimes with a mantle or heavy cloak over it.
Pants are worn for appropriate work such as riding
horses and when the weather turns cold. Fancier
mens clothes are more robe-like but follow the same
design. Women typically wear sleeved dresses with
low-cut tops, sometimes not even reaching over the
shoulders, always over a blouse or singlet; over-wear
such as mantles or cloaks are similar to mens but may
be cut differently as a gender tag.
Leather is a primary material: shoe soles, belts, straps,
hats, reinforcements for work clothing, woven containers, tarps, and just about anything else you can
think of. Boiling and hammering yield a wide range
of hardness and stiffness for shaped containers of

23

Circle of Hands

all kinds if you fetch water, youll bring it back in a

bulging bucket made from this. Various applications
are seen across most animal-oriented equipment
such as yokes and saddles. Thus far, leather has not
been developed into armor.
A common feature of clothing is a circular patch worn
to one side of the chest, displaying simple symbols
that indicate a bit of information: family, a region, a
profession, or anything else similar. Its not very complete and isnt a snapshot of a persons whole life, but
to people in the same community, its a strong orienter.
The Circle knights all wear such an emblem indicating their membership, as well as any other a
particular character wants to retain from his or her
former life (see Details in Chapter 3).

CRIME AND JUSTICE

There is no written or even widely-acknowledged

system of law of any kind in the Crescent Land. Practices for privileging acceptable acts and preventing or
punishing non-acceptable ones correspond roughly
to the four main regions and are strictly customary,
used without much reflection but also in force only
in the literal meaning of that phrase.
Some beginnings of common-law have begun in
Tamaryon via seasonal and emergency moots, in
Spurr via mercantile contracts, and in Rolke via social
upheaval and allegiance to the new king. Its all still
not much more than proposed modifications for
custom backed by organized violence. In Famberge,
even such talk is no more than a faint hope, as communities there are characterized by violent feuds,
forced labor, massacres, savage revolts, and famines.
The most recognized and punished crimes include
habitual theft, shirking, the passing-off of inferior
goods or services, betrayal of kin or clan, and the
various forms of assault including rape and outright
murder. In many cases, the perpetrator, or person
presumed so, is simply maimed or murdered by
people who feel injured, and most of the time, the
justice is then acknowledged as finished without
further review. When it comes to more organized
punishment, imprisonment is unheard of. By far the
most common social criticism-and-control method
is ostracism, permitting a person to live and work
in the community but with minimal reciprocity and
giving them no effective voice or recognition. The
most extreme form of ostracism is outlawry, in which
a person is cut off from work and social support, and

24

those discovered helping him or her are punished. An

outlaw is effectively an un-person as far as the social
network is concerned; killing an outlaw typically
doesnt bring much social criticism, if any, so sometimes being pronounced outlaw is a tacit invitation
for someone to execute the person.
Outlawry may seem to be a time-release death sentence, and it can be, but communities are limited
in their reach and few in a far-away village care if
the new arrival was outlawed somewhere else if he
or she is well-behaved here. The convention also
offers a venue for interesting compromises and
room to develop provisions for appeal and reversal,
sometimes prompting debates that lead to more
widespread social change.

FREEDOM AND SLAVERY

The culture doesnt include ownership of or commerce in people. The edge of more far-flung human
trafficking shows up in the intermittent contact
with other cultures in Spurr, but no local practices
preserve this status. Most raiding in the Crescent
Land concerns goods, and bringing captive people
home with you is a good way to get killed one day,
so thralldom isnt an acknowledged status. Even if
such a captive were to be kept in servitude, and if
this situation were to be sustained for him or her, no
collar would be involved and no one would assume
the persons children would be in the same position.

Iron Folk
As far as social authority goes, women do in fact
wield power all over the Crescent Land, but in two
ways: (i) being the brains and force alongside a face
husband, and (ii) through remarkable personal force,
usually participating in armed combat. Both ways
work, and neither is actually exceptional, but they
are typically perceived as individual cases, i.e., more
exceptional than they really are.
At first glance, the culture of the Crescent Land seems
prudish. Women cover their hair and wear fulllength dresses, men do not strut about bare-chested.
The body is almost never exposed, except during
work in hot conditions. However, it is not a puritan
culture, merely modest. Sexual matters are not topics
of shame but reserved for specific situations.
A woman typically covers up thoroughly when
dressed and reserves nudity for privacy, but if she
were nude or partially so in ordinary events, like
changing clothes, and someone walked in accidentally, she wouldnt scream or feel ashamed. A man
changing his clothes doesnt care whether others are
in the room or not, but hell turn away and everyone else will happen not to look in that direction.
Similarly, certain public actions are considered not
really naked or immodest. Women and men who
would never fail to stay covered when dressed also

bathe nude in the same river, perhaps in sight of one

another, but not at the exact same spot, and with a
different point at the shore for each group.
In pre-modern culture, tolerance doesnt mean
friendly acknowledgment, access to power, and curtailment of prejudice. It means not being slaughtered
or outlawed. In that sense, the culture is pretty tolerant
of minority gender identities and sexual preferences,
as there is no such thing as a region-wide hunt for
people with same-sex preference, nor routine abuse
or social censure on that or any similar basis. Given
enough social clout on a professional and community
basis, a person may well conduct their sex life as they
wish. But there arent any terms or social mechanisms
for helping anyone cope or even talk about their feelings either, nor any relaxed expectations regarding
childbirth, fighting, or gender-tagged work. People
who defy those expectations need to back up their
choices with charisma, community respect, and
potential violence no matter what their motivations
may be, and the lives of those who cannot do this are
unhappy and short.

FAMILY

The most visible component of family is marriage and

children. However, the term and concept of family
is wider than the single-couple marriage unit; it refers

Since money isnt especially developed, there are no

weregild mechanisms, with their connotations of the
monetary value of a human life.
None of this speaks to a cultural value favoring liberty or the concept of human rights. Its merely the
way resources and population are playing out in this
place and time.

MEN AND WOMEN

Gender roles and expectations are deeply entrenched.

On the one hand, women own property and the culture does not prevent a woman from, for example,
speaking in a public discussion, but on the other, a
daughters sexuality is thought to be under her parents control, and a wifes is thought to be under her
husbands. In practice, thought to be is not always
true people are generally pretty good at skating
around presumed barriers to having sex. Sometimes
the outcome of doing so is not problematic, and
sometimes, perhaps more often, it leads to simmering
social strife, punctuated by murder and feuds.
Illus. Rachel Kahn

25

Circle of Hands

to an extended network of cousins and other marriages well past the range of genetics. Personal surnames
typically refer to this network and one marries into
it as much as or more than marrying that particular
person. The constellation of social ranks and professions within it is practically a community of its
own, itself networked with other such groups. When
this extended family become widely-known for any
reason, positive or negative, its called a clan.
So marriage isnt the unit, nor is it an expression of
a special emotional relationship. Its a feature within
this larger, more significant unit. Not everyone marries or has kids, but everyone belongs to an extended
family and probably to a clan.

twelve, everyone has worked, everyone has fought in

some way, everyone has seen at least one bad winter
and one dry summer, everyone has seen family and
friends die, and everyone fears illness. Everyone
knows his or her life is a bit luckier than the kid who
was kicked by a horse, or the infant who couldnt
keep her milk down, or the nicest guy in the village
who broke his ankle and didnt make it back from the
woods that night and everyone holds onto life both
fanatically and fatalistically.

Everyone knows how babies are made, and everyone

has made hard choices about that or been overtaken
by it by about age fifteen. Remember that when you
role-play any character. He or
she made knowledgeable and
Let me tell you a bit more about likely desperate life-decisions
childhood in the Crescent Land.
about sex, marriage, and birth
There are no innocents here.
which in our culture are often
delayed to the mid-thirties.

Childbirth is both constant

and special throughout
everyones lives. Most women
become pregnant and given a
stable community and some
luck regarding illness and scarcity, many may deliver
up to ten or eleven children. Most of the women of the
Crescent Land are sturdy and healthy after all, they
are still alive and no one grows up nave, to be taken
by labor unexpectedly and without first-hand, eyewitness experience. Midwifery is not a specific profession
or even considered a ritualized or special role; the
skills are readily available across most adult women
much like butchery, farming, and making clothing.
The risks are real: there is no anesthetic, no good way
to staunch hemorrhage, no well-understood practices
for helping infants born at risk. Tragedy always awaits
labor, and of those ten or eleven, perhaps seven will
live to adulthood. But the bodies, will, and community are there, and such tragedy doesnt occur unless
it cannot be stopped.
At first glance, children are locked into social ranks
and professions, and thats true in terms of high percentages, but the exceptions are consistent: peasant
children may be adopted into other ranks, gentry
children typically become professionals with gentrystyle combat training, and freeman children stay
close to their home power structure but are sometimes mentored up to professional status. Children
of the wealthiest families are frequently sent to live
with kin or allies away from home, creating a system
of acquaintances and marriages that doesnt exist for
other social ranks.
Let me tell you a bit more about childhood in the
Crescent Land. There are no innocents here. By age

26

This is why kin ties become fanatical, whether positive or negative.

Although the death-rate doubles after about age
forty, a few people every generation make it to sixty
and beyond. If a person is hale enough to get that far,
barring accidents, he or more likely she may well last
into the eighties, getting only thinner, tougher, and
smarter with every year, and dying after a very brief
decline. However, if and when an older person succumbs to senility or to injuries that make him or her
feeble, ruthless customs set in which slightly reduce
his or her care, warmth, and other necessities. Its not
outright deprivation, and people might not fully know
that theyre doing it, but its effectively euthanasia.

MONEY AND WEALTH

Money barely exists. Food, clothing, shelter, and all

the basics of life are produced and exchanged in a way
thats difficult for modern people to understand. Its
not barter in the sense that three chickens equals
a pig equals half a goat, nor is it communitarian in
an organized or fairness-oriented sense. Everyones
living and working and using the stuff that results as
a matter of relationships and proximity.
It sounds pretty nice in some ways. If youre part of
a network of villages, youre going to be busy doing
daily work, youll have a place to live and food to
eat, and people will enjoy your company and share
opinions with you. Given some stability in the area,
leaders and organizers spread around opportunities

Iron Folk
and exchange of all kinds. Given some resources
and some skilled labor available, merchants, priests,
entertainers, and artisans can be supported and provide a stimulating environment.

merce. High quality of this kind arises from some

combination of workmanship, durability, or cultural
history, even for things which are not made of anything special.

However, no one is making sure that everything, or

even anything, is fair. At any given moment, some do
well out of the current array of work and goods, and
some are getting screwed.

Some few metals are considered inherently valuable

aside from their utility, being both attractive and
hard to get. Copper alloy is a common metal, but
smelting nearly-pure copper from it is skilled work
with low yield. Silver can be smelted from lead ore,
which is rarer, and the technology to extract it from
silver-copper ore isnt known. Gold or rather electrum (silver-gold ore) is available from panning and
sluice-boxes, which is hard labor with absurdly low
yield, and its gold content is a matter of luck, as the
technology for extracting pure gold isnt known.

Furthermore, the culture has little if any infrastructure to deal with disproportionate hardships. Hard
times hit due to droughts, hard winters, occasional
disease, and human strife, turning a once-thriving
village community destitute, and for many there is
no recourse besides finding somewhere else to live.
For a population with minimal geography and few
skills aside from their previous way of life, this goes
poorly, and die-offs of over half the original community arent unusual. Less drastic hard times are still
pretty bad, with losses of up to half the very young
and all of the very old.
People deeply feel their ownership of land, resources,
social circumstances, and items, but its personal and
social, not legal. The only real recourse against ones
stuff being taken away is the community buy-in that
it belongs where it is. That serves adequately most of
the time, but as with so many things, it can be overridden with greater force. The distinction between he
stole it and times change is very much a matter of
social power and implicit threat.
Since wealth is real but money is not, high-quality
utility items take on an intermediate, money-like role
for display and significant gift-giving, but not com-

Worked items in these metals are very precious, the

more so once theyve acquired cultural associations
with persons, events, and agreements. The most
valuable are about the only thing in the culture that
can serve as abstract currency outside of mercantile
agreements.
The only things which resemble coins arent disposable currency at all. Theyre big credit tokens used
by the wealthy in Spurr, made of copper or brass.
Culturally they are similar to wax seals on a contract,
accepted as tokens of investment passed around
among specific people who know one anothers reputations, and rarely made. Having one without being
these people or their known associates is regarded
as theft, and it wouldnt do you any good anyway,
because such things are not used in general exchange,
and theyre absolutely worthless to anyone else.

SPIRITUALITY

Religion as such isnt very institutionalized and is generally disconnected from overt social power. The culture
shares a common or at least baseline array of practices, including a number of fixed phrases and some common
symbology, but in any given place, its always couched in local history and geography. The idea of standardizing
doctrine hasnt occurred to anyone, and there is definitely no book beyond a few disconnected writings that
few have ever seen. The rites are typically simple and include the display and a bit of wasting of whatever local
resource is most abundant.
The common doctrine is similar to textual Buddhism: life is grim and nothing protects you from pain, the best one
can do is develop practical ethics and arrive at a heartfelt, personal decency. It is not particularly metaphysical,
although it includes many symbolic details regarding spiritual things. Its also not ecstatic and doesnt concern
contacting the divine or anything like it. When all is said and done, its pretty boring in whiz-bang miracle or
spectacle. Instead its all about being decent and steadfast right here in the real world with real people.
Here and there, and everywhere a little bit, in the course of time, local customs and spiritual standards get factored into the practices, sometimes with startling results, simply because the people there know thats how
it is and dont give a hoot about whether the widespread, common-baseline doctrine is consistent with their
goat-sacrificing or their gentry-get-married-naked rite.

27

Circle of Hands

At this level, people handle the dead and get married

and all that stuff according to the religious rites as
they know them, but not necessarily with a special
professional to officiate. The oldest family member
or local chief can do that.

scholars and some scholars like to collect the sayings

of priests, so theres an extensive library or at least
assortment of available text to discover. No one has
yet tried to compile a definitive, let alone authoritative summary in text form.

Priests, as the word is used, are not set-off sharply

from most of society, but rather are those individuals
who counsel others effectively using this doctrine.
Theyre not priests in the sense of a representative
of institutional power, but in the sense of intense,
demonstrated practice. The terms sage, imam, and
evangelist all apply fairly well, because their indispensable skill is nothing more than dialogue.

At first glance, its a losers creed: suffer, keep your

chin up, and dont make waves. Perceiving it as such
is probably why wizards dont dedicate themselves to
annihilating priests in the first place. Under the surface, though, the religion serves as a social connector
and as a language for steadfastness, the ability to
endure overt abuse while developing and maintaining practical power.

A priest doesnt act or dress differently from most

people, most of the time. There arent any taboo
activities for them, or kept away from them. He or she
certainly wears an emblem denoting this expectation
or reputation, and the religious iconography communicates a lot per emblem. In an official conversation
(gathering, service, ritual), he or she wears a
special hat. They are also notable for preparing resinous extract from cannabis, smoked in rituals with a
distinctive long pipe.

What form that steadfastness is supposed to take

varies all along the spectrum between submission
and defiance, and priests tend not to get along very
well specifically due to disagreements about this
issue. They are, however, sometimes quite effective
in mobilizing communities toward their preferred
strategy, as the differences among abstract discussion,
personal counseling, and political organizing are very
blurry in practice.

So visually at first glance, a priest is not much to talk

about except for the emblem, but his or her profession becomes swiftly clear in dialogue as it turns to
expert application of doctrine and ethics, and then in
practice, out comes the hash pipe and the hat.
They either travel a lot or become deeply rooted in a
community because other people really like talking
with them about certain principles, to the extent that
communities use these dialogues as an important
foundation for doing something specific. What they
say varies in precise moral content, but always takes
the discussion seriously and brings a lot of tradition
and interpretation into review. A person who does
this well is almost always granted hospitality and
respect, and in leading social rites, he or she creates a
special legacy of community satisfaction.
Thats why religion is not very centralized; the closest would be some famous teaching centers, usually
because someone well-respected lived there and has
left behind a community legacy which keeps up the
discussion and practices and welcomes visitors.
Priestly, educated doctrine is deeper and more explicit about both Rbaja and Amboriyon, calling out both
as direct threats, and urging observants to avoid both
their uses and their dangers. Some priests are also

28

Due to the regional differences in prevalence and

situation for the sides of the magical war, the social
positions and goals of priests tend to vary accordingly.
Priests in Famberge span the full range from
being complicit with powerful, abusive gentry,
keeping the lid on social pushback by telling
people their lot is to suffer and be steadfast
without doing anything; to vocal organizers
across villages and rallying peasantry as well as
freemen. The latter make great martyrs.
Priests in Tamaryon are solid social organizers, also often in tandem with chiefs power
network, as they are likely kin, and many of
the priests are also martial fighters in their
own right, typically defiant of and targeted by
Amboriyon. However, religious practice is all
too easily suborned by it too, and the priests are
as vulnerable as anyone else.
Priests in Spurr include a dedicated body of
scholars as well as a network of older women
across the countryside, who exert an increasing
high-pressure, low-profile push against the lichcentric mercantile powers of the region. They
are particularly intolerant of magic from any
source.
Priests in Rolke face the first major heresy
conflict in the Crescent Land, as many support

Iron Folk
the Circle and its use of both black and white
magic, and just as many abominate the practice
as double the danger.

HANDLING THE DEAD

Constant death doesnt harden people against it, but

rather results in deeply felt and pragmatic rituals.
Unless circumstances are so harsh as to prevent it,
proper handling of corpses is considered one of the
top moral obligations in Iron Folk culture. The more
settled the community, the more elaborate the practices become among community, clan, and kin.
In line with the soft, or non-explicit religious culture,
the persons identity and social ties are acknowledged
and celebrated in funeral rites, themselves a mix of
local spiritual practice and more general religious
doctrine. A distinctive mode of singing is heard at
these rites, usually beginning spontaneously but nevertheless expected by and including all participants.
The body may or may not displayed during the funeral, depending on the location and circumstances.
In all cases, the body is dismembered at the knees,
elbows, and neck, or those joints are shattered with
blows. This is not considered disgusting or taboo,
merely what must be done, and the person who
does it in a given instance has no special status. The
unspoken practical side of this custom is to keep the
body from being raised as undead, and as a corollary,
a body not treated in this way is an object of intense
disapproval bordering on horror effectively, its
desecrated. After this procedure, the body is either
buried at a special community site or partly cremated
there. Complete cremation is actually quite difficult,
so cremation of this sort typically leaves major muscle
masses, close-packed viscera, and dense bones intact,
which are then buried. Markers of this disposal are
not kept at the location but rather with family and
larger social groups. A large community has a deathlodge in which specialized records are kept in an
elaborate display.
All rites serve to organize and strengthen clan and
community identities. With a priest presiding, death
rites become significant covert statement about the
magical war, with special attention to denying the
possibility of undead status. Communities without
priests often welcome traveling priests to consecrate
all the deaths since the last such visit.
When a person of considerable reputation or a
member of the gentry dies, special disposal is merited, varying greatly by region.

In Famberge, complete cremation, usually

requiring a full day and night of intense heat
and flame in a special stone kiln
In Tamaryon, mound burial
In mountainous inland Rolke, hammock/exposure, then interment
In coastal Rolke and Spurr, weighted burial well
out to sea
Deaths are remembered with formal markers and
records, and artistic commemoration. Priests are
expected to be expert at local customs for this and
may have elaborated them personally or even invented them

TECHNOLOGY

People live in villages, not towns in any sense we

think of them, and not cities. A villages permanent
population ranges from about 100 to about 500
people. Villages arent isolated, but are found dotting a geographical region with a common ecological
resource base; people work fields, haul goods, or herd
animals among all of them. Such a community typically features 2000-2500 people, and its practices and
government are locally distinctive and named.
The only true town in the Crescent Land is Spurr, the
port community in the region of that name, where
over 10,000 people live if you include all its outlying
villages and areas.
No system of roads runs through the Crescent land,
and within a region, usable roads emerge mainly
through use; civic road work is strictly a matter of
local effort to shore up an embankment or maintain
a bridge. Long-distance travel therefore includes
extensive stretches on tracks barely distinguishable
from the area they pass through, and sparsely-inhabited areas are traversed only through trails or ways
which are known only to locals.
Farming is the core of human sustenance, from little
plots next to huts to common fields worked by most
of the able-bodied inhabitants. Herds of meat and
draft animals are also universal, with many of the
former being wild deer and elk, followed rather than
herded. Arriving at a community, one does well to
walk straight into whatever threshing or planting is
going on and to lend a hand, to be asked questions
only later, around the hearth-fire. Everyone helps
farm a bit, although those who do nothing else,
without leadership or individually-recognized skill,

29

Circle of Hands
are thought of as little better than draft animals
themselves.

The people live in cottages, gather in longhouses, and

sometimes hold multi-community negotiations in
special halls. Of the powerful, the warlike build forts,
typically a wooden palisade on a hilltop or an altered
and stone-reinforced cliff-face. They serve as meeting
venues, temporary refuges, and for battened-down
defense, but are not necessarily where people live or
of much interest at peaceful times.
A modern visitor to the Crescent Land would be
struck by the time and effort expended regarding fire
and heat. The defining feature of a home, rather than
a hut or wretched warren, is the hearth, built of stone
and featuring a chimney even if its hardly bigger
than a modern oven, its there. Bigger building like
longhouses and halls are only functional insofar as
their hearths burn wood, at multiple points in the
building. Hearth fires are kept going all day, every day,
all year long; in hot weather they may be no more
than charcoal embers, but they dont go out. Constant
tasks concern wood: gathering it, carting it, chopping

Iron Folk

it, stacking it; chipping tinder, making charcoal,

laying aside promising pieces for construction and
tools

demic levels. Influenza hits seasonally and is a known

infant-killer, but given low contact with other cultures,
is not as virulent as observed in the modern day.

Light is primarily a matter of daylight. Although

blowing glass is a known art, its mostly for jewelry
windowpanes and casings for lamps are not present.
Therefore lamps are not much more than a longburning candle set in oil. The most sophisticated are
wheel-made clay oil lamps, open at the top but with
a rolled, almost closed spout for the wick a lot like
a modern gravy boat. Poorer folk use cruder, handmade simple saucers with one or more pinches to
hold wicks. Once the sun goes down, most industrious activity ceases across the strata of society.

Isolation is the populations sole defense. There

is no germ theory of disease, and no knowledge of
microbes at all. Boiling for disinfection is unknown.
People have a practical if clumsy understanding
of contagion, and a general aversion to decay or to
fouled water, so pragmatic sanitation measures are
strongly felt and observed; they dont live in shit
or go about caked with mud. But they are helpless
against undetectable or intermittent sources of infection, and genuine water management is a matter of
local geography and luck.

HEALTH

Although populations typically arent devastated

by pestilence, personal tragedy is common. Child
mortality doubles at the very least during flu seasons, especially for those under a year old. A family
without at least one such event in its recent history is
deemed lucky indeed.

Fortunately, this is not a disease-ridden culture; in

this, at least, the Crescent Lands current isolation is a
blessing. Cholera, typhus, and plague are unknown, as
are gonorrhea and syphilis. The most well-known and
feared disease is smallpox, but the ecology does not
support reservoir populations so it does not reach epi-

When a spate of influenza or smallpox does hit a

community, then the only effective policy against it
is quarantine, which is best understood as building a
fence around a community, posting sentries around
it, and killing anyone who tries to come out.
Folk remedies and various herbs like fennel or garlic
have no health-aiding properties, nor is alcohol a
bactericide. There arent really any physicians in the
modern or even pre-modern sense. Herbalists are
good at brewing one thing though, and their most
common and arguably admirable care of the grievously sick and injured is rarely acknowledged for
what it really is: euthanasia, including family counseling during the process.

MATERIALS

Architecture is almost entirely wooden, roofed with

thatch over a timber frame, and for larger buildings, a
stone foundation and lower framework for the walls.
Gathering stone from local cliff faces and quarries is
an ongoing social task, for local use. Rarely, impressive
taller walls or towers are made using stones embedded in cement, but new work of this kind hasnt been
undertaken for generations, and the architectural
skill for it is scattered at best. Fortresses do include
underground cellars, but theyre not dungeons in the
prison sense, merely storage space.
Brickwork can be seen in the older buildings and
walls of Spurr, and in some of the mountain for-

30

Illus. Amos Orion Sterns

tresses of Rolke, but the technology necessary for

architectural quality is not currently in practice.
Some cruder brick firing for small structures is found
where lime-heavy, sandy clay can be worked directly
from deposits, mainly in Tamaryon.
Purer clay is a common handiwork material for all
sorts of vessels and minor objects of art. Its also
used for architecture and boundary-walls where its
common and of the right composition, also in the
river-plains of Tamaryon.

METAL

This is an Iron Age land, and its primary metallurgy

is iron smelting in thick stone furnaces, either vertical or horizontal, called bloomeries. A bloomery
typically looks like a thick hollow pillar made of
stones, about four feet high, open at the top and with
an opening near its foot. Its lowest level is full of hot
coals so its incredibly hot, belching smoke, and you
stick a shovel full of iron ore or ingots into the lower
opening. Another opening permits fresh air to be
blown onto the coals using a bellows.
The technique is almost, but not quite, to melt the
iron ore or pig iron, running red-hot slag out of the
sides and producing a spongy mass of iron and slag
(the bloom) from whats left. Doing it repeatedly
produces varying percentages of each, toward the end
of whatever item is planned, and the still-hot bloom is
then hammered into whatever shape is desired, often
a bar for later re-heating and shaping. The resulting
object is called wrought iron, the common specialty
metal of the Crescent Land. Its used for mail, cone
helms, arrowheads, bolt-heads, knives, spear-points,
most axe-heads, the chained mace, knives, and plenty
of pieces of equipment used widely throughout the
society. Iron ore and pig iron ingots are a fundamentally valuable good, produced in large amounts where
ore can be acquired and carted all over, and the smith
with his bloomery is one of the fixtures of society.
Steel production is in an early stage, by carburization: heating shaped wrought-iron pieces in charcoal,
then quenching them in water, which turns the outer
layers into steel. Its the single most valued metal.
For weapons, swords are carburized steel, as are the
frames for spangenhelm and some great-axe heads.
In many cases, especially for swords, the wrought
iron was also specially produced by folding while
shaping the item. A very few other specialty tools
are produced this way, each one prized by its owner
above all other possessions.

31

Circle of Hands

Undeveloped technologies include water-powered

foundries, the crucible technique, and whatever
sophistications produced Wootz or Damascus steel.
Cast iron is only beginning to be developed in Rolke,
and is many steps short of decarburized steel, which is
melting cast iron and wrought iron together to get steel.
The other main smelted and worked metal of the
Crescent Land is copper alloy. If the combined metal
is mostly tin, then its bronze or pewter. Since tin isnt
native to the area and has not been imported in at
least a century, the only bronze or pewter work comes
from preserved and re-purposed items, mostly in
Spurr. Much more common is copper-zinc alloy, or
brass, specifically calamine brass, which is smelted
in a bloomery straight from calamine ore. Getting
this stuff is the only dedicated mining in the culture
and doesnt amount to much more than digging a lot.
Every ore deposit has its own characteristic percentages. The more copper, the more malleable it is and
can be worked cold; the less, the more brittle and cast
with heat. Brass isnt suitable for weapons and armor
but is used for various tools and fittings best suited to
its qualities based on the nearby ore.

ANIMALS

Domesticated and semi-domesticated animals are

everywhere, integral to human life and culture in the
Crescent Land. They are valued highly as resources
for work, for products, and for meat, but not as individuals, so animal care is real but entirely pragmatic.
Objectively speaking, outright abuse of animals is
rare and considered disturbing, but common use isnt
aimed at their long-term survival or comfort beyond
maintaining their utility. Some are treated humanely
and individually, but any animal which no longer
serves its human-centric purpose might be killed
without question.
On the other hand, the culture includes very little
illusions about animal behavior and people are rarely
kicked, clawed, or bitten due to projecting human
intentions and attitudes onto their interactions. An
outdoorsman, farmer, or gentry of the Crescent Land
is probably better at it than many modern animal
handlers.
Oxen and cattle are the universal work and food animals, found everywhere in a bewildering variety of
accidentally-distinctive local colors and sizes. Sheep
are generally easier to tend, but theyre also useless
for work and prone to sudden die-offs, so theyre
more common in rugged mountain areas where

32

herding cattle isnt possible and animal labor is more

costly than its worth. Goats are herded and milked in
similar places, to a lesser extent.
By modern standards, the horse of the Crescent
Land is small, only about thirteen hands high, and
not very personable, forming few relationships with
humans aside from work and food. They arent bred
scientifically enough to yield breeds in the modern
sense either, so differences among named types are
mainly a matter of treatment. Most of them are haulers, plowers, and pack animals, trained to the horse
collar and not otherwise utilized or ridden. The giant
plowhorse, destrier, or any horse bred for size and/or
trained to fight in tandem with a rider are unknown
in the Crescent Land.

Iron Folk
Every so often, especially among social ranks and
professions with some leisure time, people adopt
local animals as pets, especially dogs and hawks.
Typically the animals never quite lose their working
status, but they come to be physically and socially
more attuned to people and their quasi-family status

through selective breeding, especially dogs in Famberge and hawks in Rolke and, a little oddly as far as
everyone else is concerned, snakes in Spurr. Cats are
a rare animal in the Crescent Land and most people
have never seen one, but here and there they can be
found as semi-wild farm animals and occasional pets.

The most common riding horse is the rouncey, which

is the same animal as the work horses but trained
to the saddle. Rounceys receiving special training
for easy riding are called jennets, denoting a quiet
disposition, and palfreys, which are trained to a
smooth-stepping gait by and for the wealthy.
A rouncey accustomed to human combat is called a
hobby. Hobbies are typically big (by regional standards, still not much), fast, and agile. They do not
fight human opponents aside from reflexive kicking
and biting, which is not part of their intended use.
Instead, they are trained to keep to a walk or canter
as directed while the rider shoots arrows, not to bolt
while a rider fights with a sword or axe, and to stay
on course for a mounted charge. Its hard to manage
a powerful, spook-prone animal while fighting, and
the skill is consistently found only among gentry and
those few with similar training.
Hobbies are most common and best-trained in Famberge, and any horse from this region is generally
assumed to be meaner than ordinary, with some justification. Its also where dedicated breeding programs
for horses and other animals are most developed.
Riding technology includes the solid-tree leather
saddle, stirrups, and short spurs with rounded
rowels, used for signaling rather than goading. The
high canted seat associated with dedicated for cavalry
use has not been invented. There is no silliness about
riding side-saddle nor any other gender-based issue
concerning horses. Women put on trousers and ride
like everyone else.
Donkeys are a common peasant animal, and where
you have donkeys and horses, you get some mules.
Illus. Phillip Simpson

33

Circle of Hands
NARCOTICS AND
PSYCHOACTIVE SUBSTANCES

No human culture has lacked its drugs and alcohol.

Every edible grain and fruit yields its well-known
fermentable magic throughout the land in a thousand locally-infused varieties, and local beer and
mead are produced so widely and constantly that a
community without them easily available would be
a strange place indeed. The most distilled spirit is
similar to flavored vodka, or akvavit, or schnapps, and
producing it is a prized specialty skill.
Smoking is practiced by burning the desired dried
plants in a bowl over a low flame in an enclosed space,
and rare specialty devices that bubble the smoke up
through water are greatly admired. The hookah has
not been invented, so inhaling remains more about
the room than about sucking it directly from the
flame. Pipe smoking is an available technology, but
typically reserved for religious observance.
Many common herbs are smoked because they
smell good, but without narcotic effects. Tobacco
is unknown. The preferred substance is cannabis,
which grows in most areas of the Crescent Land
but since its not native and doesnt thrive too well,
produces low and inconsistent yields. It is therefore
utilized socially and in small amounts. By modern
standards its also not very strong. Priests sieve it to
isolate the resinous parts, then press those into cakes
to smoke in their pipes.
Since resin is not easily acquired and used in such
specific rituals, addiction to it isnt common or to
put it less politely, if a priest is addicted, who could
tell? The primary addiction of the culture is alcohol,
and in Rolke, to red pode exudate. Both of these
include a broad range of function, and high-function
alcoholism is unfortunately pretty common.
The culture has little room for those who dont pull
their weight in some way, and the most common
social solution to severe addiction isnt exactly
humanitarian: simply to reduce and ultimately to
deny the ordinary helping upon which every person
in the Crescent Land relies. This results in miserable circumstances for the addict and for whoever
depends on him or her, and in most cases, eventually
to his or her death by exposure.

WRITING AND RECORDS

No institutionalized or expected standard for education exists. Obviously every person in the Crescent

34

Land is educated in the sense of being taught skills

through experience and local mentorship, whether for
smithing or plowing or any task you can think of. What
they dont have are schools or even less a school system.
Modern concepts of writing and literacy dont apply
well to the culture. Almost no one in the Crescent
Land is able to read in the sense that you and I think
of it, composing whatever they feel like saying and
knowing that almost anyone else would be able
to understand it. However, everyone is extremely
well-versed in the symbols and the mode of writing/
marking thats specific to their professions, both
quantitative and verbal. Such information technology is highly specialized, including physical objects
like tally cuts on dowel rods, any number of devices
which function similarly to an abacus, woven rug-like
hangings or scrolls with a sophisticated vocabulary
of patterns and ties, or even stacked stones for farmers tracking which fields are being used this year, and
what yields they produced in past seasons. I know
this sounds weird, but bone is a great surface for ink,
and a nice dry scapula from something like a wracker
is a standard means of record-keeping in some places.
A merchant is notable in understanding multiple
professions methods of this kind, and in knowing
where many variants are from.
Scholarship is a relatively isolated profession, in
terms of connections with other aspects of the society.
Such a person has been mentored separately to some
extent, whether born to it, as the child of scholars for
instance, or a bookish gentry child whose parents
valued a teacher enough to make a home for him or
her, or being a child whose dialogue impressed a traveler one day. Upon some achievement, the student is
now aware of and connected to a larger, scattershot
community across the Crescent Land. Couriers with
letters and translations and drafts of essays may well
be traveling around, from one scholar to another, all
the time.

Iron Folk
The term book means a collection of related documents in a case or set of matching cases, but codex
binding using sewn-in pages is unknown. The most
sophisticated version is a sheaf of parchment or
vellum pages folded into a well-made protective case
made from wooden boards or boiled leather, pressed
very flat using straps and buckles. Its a rather large,
hefty thing, not easily portable, that you keep on a
table or a lectern. Its certainly a prized possession. If
you own one and arent a scholar, then scholars know
who you are and will make themselves as useful to
you as they can.

MUSIC

Singing is part of life, and only some of it is entertainment or leisure. Planting and harvest time bring lots of
harmonic work singing among the freemen and peasants, and a variety of similar if simpler chants or group
singing can be found across many professions. A lot
of it is merely call-and-response, but some is similar
to historical plainsong and plainchant: soaring held
notes over a repeated ten or twelve-bar rhythmic arc.
Horns are also common tools, made from animal
horn, wood, clay, or light metal, shaped straight or
curling, with no valves or stops. Theyre used mainly
ceremonially, usually for gentry functions, but hardly
ever in music.

Hide-headed drums are the single most common

instrument, used for many social practices including
group labor, signaling, village alarms, and more, of
which entertainment or dancing is just one. The ones
made for dancing and for leading sing-alongs are
made in all sorts of shapes and sizes, often with distinctive local craftwork. Theyre really loud and the
rhythms wouldnt be out of place in 1970s funk-rock.
Dancing is almost always simple: step-step stomp,
turn, often organized in groups rather than couples,
a lot like modern contra dancing. It features all kinds
of regional variations as well as definite distinctions
by occasion and by social rank. Most people in the
culture are good at it.
Pipes and flutes are made from bone and wood,
often loud and piercing. Panpipes and ocarinas
are common personal instruments, and give rise to
widely known, surprisingly nice, often brisk tunes,
which are constantly invented, revised, repurposed
with new lyrics, and refined.
There are no lutes, which means no ballads, and no
lyra or rebec. Nor are there any reed instruments, so
none of that medieval tweedle-twee recorder stuff
either.
Low entertainers make their way through life by leading enjoyable group fun. They arent jesters and dont

Scholars write and read more in the sense we understand and have their own characteristic technology.
Paper is unknown in the Crescent Land, and the
closest equivalents are made from animal skin, i.e.,
parchment, and the most prized version from calfskin, called vellum. Sheets are rarely bound flat and
are most commonly prepared as single-sheet scrolls.
Textual integrity is not observed too carefully, and
many parchment sheets are used as palimpsest, as
old text is scraped off to make way for new.
Illus. Rachel Kahn

35

Circle of Hands

wear kooky clothing or costumes. They typically set up on their own in a public area, without a stage or special
props, and just get going, aware of what time of day will be most appreciated by the people there. A performance
includes loud rhythm instruments like drums and pipes and funny things like ocarinas, little skits with frequent
belch and fart noises, juggling, and some ground-level acrobatics. As with all service providers in the culture,
pay comes in the form of food and shelter for a fortnight or even a season, socializing, and not being killed.
High entertainers are analogous to the historical skald or scop: essentially poets with musical accompaniment
with their own system of standards and education, living in wealthy households permanently or seasonally.
Typically they chant and play in alternation, with the material including complex themes, rhymes and content
spanning riddles, legendry, and politics. The main tradition is not literate outside its own symbology and doesnt
overlap much with scholarship, although certainly some scholar somewhere is doing his or her best to get as much
of this material written down as possible.
High entertainers typically use portable harps and lyres. Foreign instruments equivalent to the oud and zither
are sometimes seen and heard, although they are not manufactured nor their techniques taught in the Crescent
Land by more than a handful of people.

There is nowhere peaceful in the Crescent Land, not for long.

VIOLENCE
THE SOCIAL CONTEXT FOR FIGHTING

Raiding and other offensive violent efforts focus on

scattering people, seizing goods, and destroying habitations and habitat its not really about warriors meeting
one other to determine victory or defeat. There are no
armies in the Crescent Land. Able-bodied people in
a community organize themselves for raids, defense,
or feuds, gentry rally local freemen to raid and fight
one another, and some people effectively live by being
available to fight for someone who provides lodging
and food, in bands of about a dozen people.
Famberge is characterized by warbands, goons,
and gangs who raid relatively defenseless
communities or clash violently with similar
groups run by someone else; also, sometimes
desperately-organized community resistance to
repel such bands.
Spurr suffers from little overt violence, although
the slow and more subtle feuds of mercantile
interests can be as destructive. The raiding-andtrading ships that ply the coast and up the rivers
into Tamaryon are notoriously ruthless, known
for vicious reprisals toward those who resist and
for equally vicious lessons toward those who
acquiesce to ones mercantile rivals.
Tamaryon is characterized by complicated feuds
among and within extended clans which draw
upon community manpower for the biggest
battles in the Crescent Land, community levees
to repel raiders along the major rivers, and the

36

occasional rise of a charismatic warchief who

tries to extend some economic organization
across broad areas.
Until recently, Rolke was much like Famberge
compounded by frighteningly intense magical
strife, but is now in the aftermath of a civil war
which has left many surprisingly functional,
newly-organized communities in its wake. This
does include local pockets of surviving older
gentry who maintain their position with iron
force, and emergent armed groups who see
nothing wrong with imposing their new ideas
on as wide an area as they can.
Every hour of every day and night, somewhere in the
Crescent Land, a village is burning.

FORCE, CRUELTY, AND MISERY

The Dark Ages stereotype isnt true: people arent

shuffling around covered in filth, their skin weeping
with sores, ignorant to the point of grunting and
bumbling. People love one another, do skilled work,
celebrate community accomplishment, observe holy
days, teach their children, sing, and make art. Most
communities, most wielders of force at every level
of society, and most parties in the exchange of goods
and services would prefer to live their lives without
being murdered, raped, or tortured.
However, written law does not exist, and pragmatic
law emerges from immediate community standards
and from force of arms, both of which have a limited
decency and justice hit rate.

Iron Folk
In a land without much institutional memory and
without accountable social responsibilities, few organized efforts exist to reverse or prevent misery.
This is not nice fantasy. The world is often cruel. Even
the most decent characters have seen a person killed,
often for no good reason. Many of them, the most
decent I mean, may well have done it.
In a community, people who run afoul of social
approval can be ostracized or expelled, either one
functionally a death sentence, especially when
accompanied by amputation or branding. But sometimes cruelty is subtler and becomes part of the
local way of life. It always starts with petty privilege
associated with social ranks, professions, or clans,
expressed as chronic cruelties visited upon designated professions and families. Theyre marginalized
in food and shelter, censured quickly compared to
and even in place of others, and punished excessively.
Once entrenched, such practices get folded into local
custom and spiritualist language, then escalate and
become tied to specific people and clan associations
of power. Dont look for any arc of justice here.
More organized, multi-community power typically
emerges from cooperation and a sustainable division
of labor. However, when gentry become organized in
certain ways, it also emerges from beatings, torture,
enforced hunger, examples, and messages. Not
to put too fine a point on it, once the family ties and
economics of gentry become well-established, some
of them turn to simple extraction to maintain as
much privilege and as much lack of accountability
as they can force people to endure. Whole systems
of governance and commerce can form around pockets of such communities, each one presided over
by gentry aided by fighting-men who rely on them
and the system of oppression for their own survival,
each petty ruler fighting with nearby rivals as well as
against desperately-mobilized locals.
Such fighting has nothing to do with armies or
squads marching to engage one another. Its primary
target is people and communities, seeking to destroy
and terrorize. Sometimes the local warband defends
the community, and sometimes not; sometimes the
community includes its own muster of defenders,
and sometimes not. In each uprising or series of raidreprisals, the people who fought with the losing side
die like dogs, transfixed by spears from horseback, or
they flee to nearby areas, their children and elderly
dying of exposure in the night as they travel.

Life in such times is raw brutality and misery as

people live in the context of inflicted pain or its threat.
Whole communities are treated as private reserves if
they cant defend themselves. Some become combined work-slaves and rape camps, similar to the
farm village in The Seven Samurai. Some are simply
brutalized, including mass maiming and mass executions by spiking six-inch iron nails into peoples ears.
When people subject a community to this authority
by violence for a long time, they use public methods
of execution to instill fear and obedience, and the
most common means work exquisitely well toward
that end.
The pole always spoken of in exactly that way
is a sharpened and greased stake about ten
feet long, inserted into a persons anus and then
posted into the ground, such that the persons
weight slowly impales him or her. Death by the
pole can last days in unimaginable agony.
Crucifixion has nothing to do with nails, but
similar to the pole, it relies on gravity. The persons arms are strapped to a framework in such
a way that he or she cannot breathe effectively
given the pull of his or her weight, for death by
slow suffocation. Canting the frame slightly
back and providing a very slim shelf to support
the feet dont change the outcome but rather
make it even slower.
Making people watch their friend or family member
or a respected leader die like this and see the body
rot in place is standard law enforcement in all too
many places.
The gentry are even crueler to one another in their
incessant feuds and raids: the loser can expect to be
hung from the feet and eviscerated, to look at his or
her guts while dying. Or castrated and kept naked on
a leash in the enemys hall, or given no food and raped
daily until dying. Again, these are displays; they arent
carried out in a chamber somewhere and require no
special professional skill.

TOOLS OF VIOLENCE

Weapons are rarely manufactured in bulk and distributed as such, if ever. Instead, your spear-point was
probably made no more than ten miles away. There is
no systematic effort or policy directed toward developing the technology; developments are emergent
and local.

37

Circle of Hands

One does not carry a personal weapon about as a

sidearm when not in use, not even swords. Weapons
are taken from their place of storage and brought
to places where people plan to fight. Spontaneous
personal violence typically employs whatever comes
to hand, usually something thats also a tool like a
quarterstaff, an axe, or especially the knife.
The only metal armor is mail, fashioned as a loose
rustling hauberk (tunic) that reaches to about the
elbows and knees, sometimes with a coif (hood),
worn over a similar cloth garment called a gambeson. There are no such things as scale or ringmail,
leather armor, or plate armor. No limb armor is worn,
let alone gauntlets or articulated chausses. Only the
wealthiest and most powerful people in a region have
mail, and a few people they trust. A person who owns
mail also typically uses the relatively sophisticated
spangenhelm, built on a steel framework. A recent
fashion has added ornamental face-masks to the
spangenhelm in Famberge.
Everyone else fights without protection
beyond a round wooden shield, easily
manufactured; and head protection not
much different from a wrought iron pot,
called a cone helm. People with mail and
spangenhelm also use these shields, as
well as the newer kite design when
on horseback. All shields are made
from wood and are considered
throwaway tech, as a shield
hardly ever survives a fight. In
fact, almost all the weapons of
the Iron Folk are daily tools with weapon
capacity
The main exception, and the primary
dedicated weapon of the culture, is the
spear, used overhand to stab down or to
throw. There is no design distinction between infantry and cavalry
spear, and no such things as the
ultra-long or jousting lances, or
the footmans pike. Spears are
dangerous enough as they are
thrown or used in a mounted
charge, they go
right through
mail as if it didnt
exist. Similarly to
shields, spears are
considered write-

38

Iron Folk

offs once damaged in combat.

The other exception is the sword, which is typically
taught and used only among the gentry, being the
ultimate specialty item of this social rank. The sword
is at most a yard long, with a single full edge, a partial
second edge, and an unsharpened point. There are
no greatswords. Shortswords are not present either,
probably due to the lack of mass production and
distribution, as there is no military and massed
training and weapons supply are flat out of the
picture. Similarly, there are no daggers, including
misericordes and other armor-specific forms. An
ordinary knife is a tool, not a dedicated weapon.
Short bows are common but used in war only
regionally in Rolke, and there are no longbows at
all. Crossbow technology is simple and cumbersome
and they are used only briefly in battles; however, the
revolving nut mechanism has recently been invented
in Spurr.
Axes and hatchets are readily available in any
community and often employed as weapons.
Designs specialized for fighting are most
common in Tamaryon, where the Danishstyle great axe is used by the gentry; it is
not, however, a fantasy-style double-bitted monster but rather a bit lighter than
a woodsmans axe. The area is also known
for the widely-used and wicked
francisca, a smaller axe that
can be
thrown at
lightning
speed.
Similarly,
the chained
mace or flail is
adapted from
agricultural
tools into a vicious, effective weapon by the gentry
in Spurr, composed of two
or more long chains with
small heads.

THE MAGICAL WAR AND ROLKE

Wizards also use the common emblems much less
The Crescent Land is also a battlefield between
than everyone else.
profoundly opposed magical forces: one of healing,
Magics morality might seem clear-cut: white magic is
purity, and light called Amboriyon (am-BOR-eeyon),
nice and good, and black magic is evil and bad. The
against one of bitterness, rot, and darkness called
latter assessment is correct. Comparing the Cure or
Rbaja (ur-BAH-ja). As an abstract force, each is powerWarding spells to Pestilence or Sacrifice is usually
ful and ruthless, knowing no compromise. The lands
straightforward. Rbajas presence unquestionably
reflect the conflict, in that some areas are blasted,
yields outright horror, provoking aversion and terror,
blackened, and full of grim pockets of chaos, whereas
and its wastes disgorge abominations whose acts are
others actually reside on the high-floating clouds,
too awful to recount. Tales abound of avatars swoopclear of worldly troubles. However, most of the lands
ing down to defend against such things, as well as
are pretty much like the ones we know, consisting
to right wrongs and smite evildoers. In most places,
of mountains, forests, rivers,
white wizards can expect
seas, and communities of
for help and black
various sizes. The competing
Magic is a shocking, consequen- pleas
wizards can expect fear.
tial force; it cannot be easily
forces are eager to bring these
hidden nor does the ideology
However, the truth about
lands under their control.
backing it seek concealment.
white magic is more grim.
Wi z a rd s c a n b e f o u n d
The fate of lands domithroughout the lands, and it is
nated by the Amboriyon
certain that each is up to something, usually thwartmages and overseen by the cloud kingdoms is just as
ing one anothers plans. One of the mysteries of magic
destructive, if more slowly. White magic is cleansing
is whether Amboriyon and Rbaja are respectively
in the worst sense prompting bizarre social norms
ruled by personifications of their warring magics,
and laying waste to human passions, ultimately to be
and whether people with Gifts are actually sworn to
purified into inhumanly abstract forms. The cloud
their fealty. It may be that the war is a direct contest of
citadels are as dangerous and toxic to ordinary lands
wits and power between unthinkably abstract Black
as the blasted, stained areas. A unicorn is a fine and
and White entities, with the most powerful wizards as
ruthless ally against an infestation of undead, sure,
loyal agents and the others as useful idiots. Or it may
but once theyre gone, it will simply continue to look
be that the war is merely the cumulative by-product
for the next thing which profanes its notion of purity,
of so many scheming wizards. Few visit either realm
which, in the absence of undead, is likely to include
and return to tell much about it.
you. Communities which welcome Amboriyon wizMagic is a shocking, consequential force; it cannot be
ards typically wind up silent forever, the children
easily hidden nor does the ideology backing it seek
murdered in their beds and the adults sitting together,
concealment. Its wielders vary widely socially and
dead by suicide, smiling.
intellectually, but they are all distinctly committed
Ordinary people have little defense against magic,
to it, to a degree that approaches ecstasy and fanatic
whether the outright horror of Rbaja or the insidious
determination. Breaking with social norms is practicleansing of Amboriyon. Religious people do their
cally required, and wizards often symbolize doing
best to stay low and to avoid the worst effects of magic,
so, in any of the following ways, but tending toward
and doctrine correctly warns that even benevolentspecific methods by geography.
seeming magic hides ultimately horrifying effects.
In the highlands (inland Famberge): painted or
Sometimes, priests can become effective organizers
ash-marked faces
to cope with local disasters associated with either
type of magic or both, leading to a culture of defiance.
Along the coast (Famberge. Rolke, Spurr): scariSuch efforts typically come to sad ends against magic
fication, especially on the lower arms, hands,
itself, but they can also topple or rearrange the local
and face
power structure.
In the mountains (inland Rolke): long tangled
hair

Far inland (Tamaryon): iron ornaments, either

worn or used as piercings

39
Illus. Sandy Jacobs-Tolle

Circle of Hands
SOMETHING NEW

Recently in Rolke, a young man has wrested power

in the region from warring chiefs, themselves
manipulated by competing white and black wizards.
Communities all over the region responded to the
call to fight, identifying his cause with their own
local troubles, and often underwent drastic revisions
of their local power structures. One of the principles
by which he led is to avoid falling under the sway
of either Amboriyon or Rbaja, for whichever is
ascendant in an area tends to draw the attention of
the other and lead to cataclysm. His chief advisor in
this matter is an aged wizard who beyond anyones
comprehension has been practicing magic without
following either path. The recent decade of war in
Rolke resulted in an outright purge of many wizards
and the gentry who supported them, as well as a drastic reduction of the effects of Amboriyon and Rbaja
upon the land.
The young leader is called the king in Rolke, meaning an acknowledged chieftain of chiefs, a status
which depends solely upon this continued acknowledgment. The verbal construction king of Rolke, or
anywhere else, doesnt exist. Neither is there a court,
an organized tax structure, nor a judiciary or constabulary. Its not a realm. Every location in Rolke is still
in recovery from the social upheavals, its community
leaders (old or new) trying to understand how their
way of life is to relate to the young king.
The regions of the Crescent Land are not nations, so
there is no policy or even general attitude toward the
new ideas and practices in Rolke elsewhere. There are
no designated borders or even the beginnings of the
concept of sovereignty, and war among the regions as
units is completely beyond the cultural framework.
The regions are, however, identifiable geographic
and genealogical areas, so some trends in attitude
can be found. For instance, Rolke is only recently
identified internally as distinct from Famberge, so
the gentry and their relatives in Famberge share a
notion that their clan networks into Rolke overrides
the stated kingship there. Also, the seagoing raidersand-traders from Spurr, and those who invest in them
see the whole coast as its resource, putting coastal
communities in Rolke into some tension between
their connection with the king in his inland, highland
territory and their general willingness to appease the
raiders and to conduct trade.

40

The kings efforts were and are notable for its inclusion of, even reliance upon non-gentry social ranks
for organization and leadership. The king has issued
a widespread proclamation to expand the ranks of the
Rolke gentry through fealty to himself and through
deeds of merit, as opposed to deeds that gain color
tallies. This revolutionary concept is causing quite a
stir across the lands. People travel to join the cause,
and the hardest, most committed of them become
Circle knights. In addition to ranking among the
deadliest fighters known in the Crescent Land, they
practice white and black magic simultaneously.
The term knight does not mean anything like most
literary usage, instead reaching back to the word
knecht which literally means servant or committed
person. The equivalent word would be Kreisknechten,
sworn to the circle. (Words like gesith and thegn
may also apply.) Many medieval tropes concerning
knights do not apply at all: no squires, no decorated
shields, no jousting or tournaments.
The player-characters are the veteran bad-asses in
the Circle created by the young king in Rolke. Some
may have helped him in his rise to power; others have
arrived since, drawn by the new ideals. Play focuses
on the actions they take to secure the gains made by
the new regime, to combat the forces of Amboriyon
and Rbaja at their worst, and to open inroads to
others who might listen.
And thats where the Arthurian stops. Instead of
heroic noble icons stiffly posing on tapestries, these
characters are products of their age and backgrounds
perhaps striving for something new and different,
but producing it more in the crunch and by the
sacrifice of their bodies and minds, rather than by
clear design. Stories and play should be more reminiscent of Kurosawas ronin films the political and
epic background permit us to step into the utterly
personal and utterly passionate local story. The Stars
Spartacus series also qualifies in just the same way. A
good way to look at it is that the characters are committed to the ventures potential to help the king, but
play is less concerned with the venture as a mission
and more with the passions and actions of the characters in the moment. The ideals of the Circle are one
thing, but its human agents and their personal fates
may be another.
The system is built to dramatize these issues, especially in its magic mechanics. Therefore for every
character, the route taken depends on what the character does during the course of the game.

Iron Folk
CONTEXT VS. DIRECTIVES

The ventures of the Circle happen in front of this backdrop. As the constructs in the book and on your papers
turn into a played-in, lived-in setting, youll discover and develop who the knights are. The following questions
and issues will be raised and addressed, without pre-arrangement or tedious debate or even any need to pause.
Who are the Circle knights, in moral terms? Are they a beacon of hope or a gang? Are they resolving social ills
and personal crises, or are they bringing fear and pain? They begin scarred and driven, but how psycho are they?
What events turn them from more-or-less welcome guests into killers? What might they sacrifice, and for whom?
These questions are yours to discover and see at their dramatic peaks.
Your characters are obviously of the setting, knowing little beyond its values and its cultural vocabulary. They
present a vivid portrait of its regions, its customs, and its social ranks, as well as most especially the immediacy
of force in all things.
However, they also profoundly affect the setting. By definition, your player-characters are the veteran core of the
Circle. When you play this game, you are not playing in the same setting as anyone else when they play, because
their knights are that core in their game. That means the Circle is a completely different entity in every single game,
defined by your choices during character creation and most especially by your actions during play. Therefore you,
far more than I, become the setting authors when you play.
This effect jumps front and center because the Circle also presents a social shock to its own culture. Without planning to do so, its members have re-interpreted the meaning of social rank, overturned and replaced the politics
in one region, and invented a completely revolutionary magic. They are literally a new power in the Crescent
Land, and because they are almost as new to these novel ideas as anyone they encounter, they are literally, if
inadvertently, the founders of a new social value system. Even if they dont exemplify it, they will prompt it, or
struggles about it.
The backdrop is good fuel because Ive deliberately put in much tension between its sensibilities and our own. By
pulling out its most engaging details for yourself and getting them into the situations, by playing scenes in those
situations with color and verve, youll give that backdrop purpose and an imagined force it could never have had
on the pages of a book. You and no one else will ultimately define this setting. All this stuff you just read in this
chapter is there to be mined or invoked toward that end.

41

Chapter

3F

orging Steel

This is about the situation of play: specifying the content and putting together the tools for playing your game.

BACKDROP

Maps and regions

Ecology
Culture
History
The magical war
Technology
Values
Ethnicities
Creatures

SITUATION

Location and time

Immediate geography
Immediate history
The people present
Cultural details in force
The creatures present
The played characters

SCENES
A particular spot
A time of day or night
Whos there
What just happened
Actions and responses
Crises and threats
Opportunities
Consequences

Who are the Circle knights? Where have they traveled, and which ones? What is happening there?
Its also about how people get together to arrange for play: a group including three to six people, one of whom
will serve as game master (GM) throughout the course of play. A venture is typically begun and completed in
a single session, from two-and-a-half to four hours depending on its complexity and the events developed in the
moment. The design also assumes multiple play-sessions with the same people, preferably at least as many as
there are participants.
The group prepares in two ways:
They first meet to create the Circle knights who will serve as a
common pool to draw upon when the ventures begin.
Everyone, GM included, creates two knights.
The GM prepares the venture for each session.
Each player chooses a Circle knight from the common pool
to play in this venture.

Forget nearly everything you know

about the word knight. There are
no squires, no chivalry, no flowery
language, no feudalism, no kingdoms,
no castles, no code of honor, no plate
armor, no heraldry on shields or anywhere else, no jousting, no warhorses,
no Crusades, and no Catholicism.

CREATING THE CIRCLE

The player-characters are veteran Circle knights, not
recruits or newcomers. They are experienced and committed, the core. The Circle includes others but none so
proven, and those others are not identified or played.
If youre organizing the game, pass out the absolute
rundown from Chapter 1, available at the website.
Everyone including the GM makes two knights to
form this veteran inner core of your games Circle.
The characters are first built through individual work,
Illus. Phillip Simpson

then combined into a group for some final changes.

In the first venture, you play one of the characters
you made up. Thereafter, per venture, you play any
one of them, created by anyone, of your choice. Player
ownership of characters is complete within this venture, but otherwise absent. The GM never plays any
members of the Circle.
If youre the person organizing play, do not fail to
stress the italicized point above to everybody.

43

Circle of Hands
Do the initial individual work on scratch paper. The
required features are, in order:

Attributes
Homeland
Traits
Professions
Social Rank
Sex
Magic
Details
Name
Arming
Key Event

Then combine the characters for the finishing group

adjustments, and after that, write them into the
sheets. These are divided into two sides: all the stuff
that stays unchanged on the left, and all the stuff that
can change on the right.

ATTRIBUTES AND TRAITS

Actions in the game are treated by the direct use

of four attributes. They are Brawn the exertion of
force and motion, Quickness reactivity of the body
and mind, Wits logic, memory, and the making of
mental connections, and Charm emotional presence and influence upon others behavior.
All of them are both mental and physical, e.g., Brawn
is the will to push through pain and fatigue as well
as simple muscle; Quickness applies to attention to
changing circumstances as well as to physical speed;
and so on. If you want to be really Schopenhauer
about it, think of all four as actually manifestations
of Will.
The ordinary human undistinguished value for an
attribute is 4. Player-characters values are determined
by d6 + 1. Player-character Brawn, however, is always
treated as if the die came up 5, so roll only for the
other three. Use three six-sided dice, one black, one
white, and one red. Roll and assign the black value to
Quickness, the white value to Wits, and the red value
to Charm. Again, all the rolls including the imaginary
one that yielded 5 for Brawn, are added to 1.
Time to make the first of two characters. Brawn = 6
by default. I roll black 3, white 3, red 3, resulting in
Quickness =1+3, Wits =1+3, Charm =1+3.

44

The resulting values are then finalized by choosing

two of the following traits.
Brave (+2 Quickness): retreat is not the first
option
Cunning (+2 Wits): surprise and deception,
every time
Romantic (+2 Charm): the delusion of narrative,
for oneself and others (this trait has nothing to
do with love)
Ambitious (+1 Quickness +1 Wits): toward
achieving the social rank just above ones own
Brutal (+1 Brawn +1 Charm): at home with physical and emotional pain
Given an even spread of rolled values like this,
nothing immediately suggests itself for shoring up
or optimizing. Out of sheer enjoyment of the Trait
descriptions, I choose Brutal and Brave, adding +2
Quickness, +1 Brawn, +1 Charm, for final values of
Brawn 7, Quickness 6, Wits 4, and Charm 5.
Traits are not synonyms for or merely extreme
versions of attributes; they represent a characters primary context for making decisions, habits of thought,
and well-earned reputation among others. The traits
set some expectations for play: not quite a thespian
lockdown, but definitely a player commitment in
terms of attitude. A Circle knight may act outside
his or her traits, but not without complaining or
otherwise expressing discontent that such behavior
is necessary.
Similarly, not having a trait does not designate its
opposite, but rather that doing or not doing stuff
along those lines is not emotionally reflexive for the
character. Anyone can be brave, for instance, but the
trait designates who is unthinkingly brave.

HOMELAND

If Brawn is highest, youre from Tamaryon, whose

people have broad backs.
If Quickness is highest, youre from Famberge, where
people fight to live.
If Wits is highest, youre from Spurr, where treachery
is trust.
If Charm is highest, or if the highest score is shared
by one or more attributes, then youre from Rolke,
because it rounds things out.

Forging Steel
This character is from Tamaryon. Looking over the
descriptions in the text, I think of a farming society
constantly subverted by white magic from the overhanging cloud citadels, with a steadfast people and
well-established priesthood.

PROFESSIONS AND SOCIAL RANK

A Circle knight has a maximum of one profession per

4 Wits or fraction thereof, but you may choose less if
you prefer, to a minimum of one. Wizard cannot be
the sole profession.
Artisan (specific)
Some applications: valuable crafts (smithying, leatherworking, stonemasonry,
shipwright, brewing), assessment of materials, repair, invention
Entertainer (low)
Some applications: rope-walking, juggling,
exhibitionist dancing, improvisational humor,
dirty fighting, drumming, crowd-pleasing
One cannot be both a high and a low entertainer
Entertainer (high) literacy, history
Some applications: literacy, highly technical
singing and dancing, playing a rare musical instrument, knowledge of poetry, high
drama, and literature
One cannot be both a high and a low entertainer
Fisherman
Some applications: boat construction and
use, practical natural history such as tidal
action, ropes and nets, survival at sea
Farmer
Some applications: agriculture, draft and
meat animals, field medicine, practical
natural history
Martial (low)
Some applications: camping, hard labor,
pragmatic animal care, very basic first aid,
looting
A person may be trained in high martial or
low martial, but not both
Martial (high)
Some applications: command organization,
battle-relevant decision-making, care and
management of horses, signaling, negotiating

A person may be trained in high martial or

low martial, but not both
Merchant
Some applications: literacy, finances,
trade-relevant geography, varying customs,
practical languages, appraisal of merchandise, people management
Outdoorsman
Some applications: hunting, living with
minimal shelter, practical geography, swimming, knowledge of animals and plants,
horses and dogs
Priest
Some applications: liturgical literacy, theology, symbology, doctrinal history, counseling,
leading discussions, preparation and use of
cannabis resin
To be a Circle knight, one has broken with
the traditional priesthood and to some, is
effectively a heretic
Sailor
Some applications: shipboard tasks, navigation and practical geography, organized
leadership and teamwork, survival at sea
Surprisingly, many sailors cannot swim,
although Circle knights with this background may be considered among the
exceptions
Scholar
Some applications: genuine literacy, philosophy, languages, textual history, map-based
geography, natural history
Wizard
Some applications: magical sensing, knowledge (other wizards, magical creatures,
Rbaja and Amboriyon in general)
Wizard cannot be a characters sole profession.
Social rank is set by the characters lowest profession
according to the following list.
Peasant: Farmer, Fisherman, Entertainer (low)
Freeman: Outdoorsman, Sailor, Martial (low),
Priest
Professional: Scholar, Artisan, Merchant, Entertainer (high)
Gentry: Martial (high)

45

Circle of Hands
Social rank is a critical feature of the setting, so review
their meanings as described in Chapter 2.

If one of the characters Traits is Ambitious, consider

choosing Professions from adjacent social ranks. You
might be interested to know that changing rank is not
possible for the player-characters, so an Ambitious
character is doomed to remain unsatisfied.
My characters Wits of 4 means a single profession.
Although I know knight doesnt mean the usual
imagery, I still want someone who matches it as
close as the setting allows, so I choose martial (high).
Given Martial (high) as the sole profession, this character is a member of the gentry, which in Tamaryon,
means a network of relatives whose members consistently serve as local chiefs and organizers of multiple
communities in times of need. Slow-simmering feuds
punctuate their history in the region, and hilltop
forts mark the centers of power.
Social rank is highly relevant to play. It is instantly
and accurately perceived by any and all members of
the culture. It cant be faked except through Entertainer skills or magical deception.
A few points of interest: professionals can have
Martial (high), such as mercenaries or others whove
led others in fights, and gentry who can do anything
other than fight are clearly not real gentry. Also,
wizardry is neither a fixed social status nor a leveler.

SEX

The rules do not distinguish between men and

women. Anyone who joins the Circle are either
already or become outstanding physical specimens,
and the Circle subculture is such that commitment
comes first, all else second.
In general the Crescent Land is a highly gendered
culture, with little open inclusion of non-traditional
options about sexual preference and gender roles, but
all human variations are in fact present. The Circle
knights are less intolerant than most people, not due to
modern ideals so much as to fire-forged bonds of defying a common enemy, both in pre-Circle experience
and shared venture since. Therefore you may define
your characters gender identity, intimate history, and
sexual preferences without concern for reactions.
It strikes me as interesting for this character to be a
woman who gains martial respect in an unforgiving
society. Perhaps in the past she even disguised herself as a man to fight. For whatever reason, I begin
thinking in terms of widowhood.

46

MAGIC

Eighty-four spells are listed in the magic section.

They are rated from one to three points and are either
black or white magic.
Wizards know and are capable of casting all the
spells. Playing a wizard is for people who like the idea
of knowing all that stuff and enjoy having a whole
constellation of options. People who get analysisparalyzed dont enjoy it as much, although I think
some might in later ventures.
Non-wizards are trained by the wizards of the Circle,
so they begin with points of spells equal to Wits,
which must include both black and white magic
Her Wits = 4, so thats four spells. My eyes light
upon Seem (black, 1 point), and I say Ah ha, my
thoughts on disguise becoming more concrete. I also
choose Blank (white, 1 point) and Glamor (white, 2
points), the latter because I like the idea of this character inspiring groups.
Sometimes a set of spells jumps out at you as just
right for a character, but its also possible to get stuck
on too many possibilities. See Chapter 6 for details
about the spells.

Willow Palecek suggested providing starting

packages for non-wizards, so here are some
which you can tune to a characters Wits score.
Magic sword: Blade, Envenom, Righteousness (5 points)
Flesh shaping: Balm, Scar, Itch (4 points)
Working with things: Ruin, Repair, Master,
Noxify (5 points)
Crowd control: Throng, Hate (5 points)
Master of the dead: Walk, White Light, Black
Speech (5 points)
Forest walking: Vine, Trailtwister, Forward (6
points)
Combat control: Haze, Confuse, Step, Shining ( 5 points)
All-purpose: Bless, Curse (4 points)
Minor magic mastery: Stop, Store, Reflect (5
points)

Forging Steel
DETAILS

The three details are Demeanor, Feature, and Name.

Roll the black, white, and red dice again.
Demeanor: add the black dies result to Charm.
3-4 Shy even if everyone else has spoken once
already, or stepped forward to be noticed
5-6 Friendly a bit distrusted in this culture in
the absence of shared hardship

13-14 Facial scar at least two inches long

15-16 Well-groomed notably clean, combed,
and kempt, a practice introduced by travelers
from foreign lands
Each list is presented in ascending value of cultural
favor, which should give you an idea of the values
uncritically held by most people. For example, a
scar of this kind merits respect and is not considered
disfigurement.

7-8 Blunt not vicious or insulting, merely lacking in graces

9-10 Formal not bowing and scraping, merely
according closely to clear class-based social
boundaries
11-12 Fierce not hostile or angry, but clearly
ready for action
13-14 Stoic not silent or self-effacing, but rather
undemonstrative and rock-steady, an acquired
virtue from foreign lands
15-16 Serene an unmistakable sense of place
and presence, wherever he or she is, without
any specific expression or need to establish it
In play, Demeanor is definitely a thespian instruction, but see the notes to understand their precise
meanings, and especially consider that they are the
characters habits, not utterly locked-in obligations.
Feature: add the white dies result to Charm.
3 Tattooing non-representative, a lot of nested
circles and spirals; a leftover, absorbed detail
from Pananthuri culture
4 Slender build a genetic remnant of the Pananthuri
5 Mismatched eyes a common genetic quirk
6 Distinctive and permanent work-related
injury scars of specific sorts, minor amputation
7 One piece of bright clothing not necessarily
always the same one
8 Metal ornament worn at the wrist, biceps, or
throat made of gold, silver, or copper
9 Blaze a lighter-pigmented streak in ones
hair, another common genetic quirk
10-12 Emblem a circular cloth patch worn at
the chest, indicating such information as family,
region of birth, or a profession; this is in addition to the Circle emblem ordinarily worn by
the player-characters
Illus. Sandy Jacobs-Tolle

47

Circle of Hands

Forging Steel

Name: consult the red die result without reference to Charm, and consult the names list accordingly.
1: grim, crush, edge, a weapon, or anything similarly harsh or violent
2: bright, brave, soft, beauty, happy, or anything similarly uplifting
3: any of the god or blessed meanings, which are cultural vestiges of Pananthuri culture
4: one syllable

6: three or more syllables

Peasants use a single name, always in the diminutive form (the bulleted entries).
Freeman have a full name but are often called the diminutive form, if available, with no real distinction
between the uses. Some freemen use their region or a descriptive nickname as a surname.
Professionals use names similarly to freemen, but always use a surname as well, whether a parents name, a
husbands, the profession, or some adjective related to the profession.
Gentry only use full names, not diminutives, as well as a surname derived from the least recent family
member associated with power typically a couple of generations back. The surname is used in a general
way toward buildings and symbols of power in the local area, and gentry might address one another by
surname in the context of local authority.
This detail may seem a bit trivial or over-formal, but I saw one too many people struggle with the naming step
during playtesting, and a little prompt or constraint overcame that problem very nicely.
Male names

ADALWULF adal noble wulf

BRUNO brun brown

raven

BJRN bear

ALWIN

BURKHARD burg protection

hard brave, hardy

ANSELM ans god helm helmet,

protection

DETLEFeud people leib

heritage

ANSGAR ans god gar spear

DIETER eud people hari

warrior

ARTUR
BALDUR bald bold
BARTHOLOMUS
BERNHARD bern bear
BENNO
BERND
BERTHOLD beraht bright wald

rule
BERTRAM beraht bright hramn

DIDI
DIETRICH, DIETERIK eud

people ric power
DIRK, DIERK
TILL, TILLO
DIETFRIEDeud people frid
peace, protection

DIETHELM eud people helm

helmet, protection
DIETMAReud people meri
famous

EBERHARD eber wild boar
EBBE

48

HEINRICH

KUNIBERTkuni clan, family

beraht bright

FRIEDHELM frid peace helm

helmet, protection

GEBHARD geb gift

hard brave, hardy
GEBBERT
GERD, GERT
GEORG
JRG
JRGEN
GERALD, GERHOLD ger spear
wald rule

GERO
GERFRIED ger spear frid peace
GERHARDT

ADALBERT adal noble beraht

bright

ARNE

FRIEDEMANN frid peace man

man

FRITZ

Apply the appropriate constraint from social rank:

ARNDT

KURT

FRIEDRICH frid peace ric

power

Single-vowel syllables are voiced, so Silke is two syllables, not one.

ARNOLD arn eagle wald power

HEINO

FRIEDHOLD frid peace wald

rule

5: two syllables

ALBRECHT

FREJ

ECKBERT edge of sword, bright

EC K H A R D, EC K E H A R D,
ECKART, ECKHART ekka edge

hard brave, hardy
EDMUND ead rich, blessed

mund protector
EDUARD
EGON eg, edge of a sword
ELMO
EMMERICH ric meaning power

GEERT
GERNOT ger spear hnod crush.
GERULF ger spear wulf wolf.
GILBERTgisil pledge, hostage

beraht bright
GISBERT beraht bright
GREGOR
GNTER gund war hari

warrior

ERDMANN

GUNTRAM gund war hramn

raven

ERHARD, EVERARD era honor,

respect hard brave, hardy

HAGAN

EVERT
ERICH, ERIK
ERNST
ERWIN hari army win friend
EWALD ewa law, custom wald
rule
FALK falcon
FILIBERT filu much beraht

bright

GUSTAF
HARALD
HARTMANNhard brave, hardy

man
HARTMUT hard brave, hardy

muot mind, spirit.
HARTWIG hard brave, hardy

wig battle
HARTWINhard brave, hardy
win friend

HENRIK
HEINER
HEIKE, HEIKO
HEINZ
HEILAGR holy, blessed
HELGE
HELM helm helmet
ELMO
HELMFRIED, HELFRIED helm
helmet frid peace
HELMUT, HELMOLD helm
helmet muot spirit, mind
MALTE, MALTHE
HENDRIK
HENNING
HERBERT, HERIBERThari army

beraht bright
HERMANN
HERMENEGILD
HILBERT, HILDEBERT hild

battle beraht bright
HILDEBRAND hild battle

brand sword
HORST wood, thicket
HUBERThug heart, mind
beraht bright
HUPPERT
INGO
INGE
INGOLF, INGULF ing god
lfr wolf

ISIDOR
IVO iv yew
KAI
KARL, KARLMANN
KASPAR
KNUT kntr knot
KOLOMAN
KONRAD kuoni brave
rad counsel
KORD

KUNO
LAMBERT, LAMPRECHT land

land beraht bright
LAMMERT
LANZO
LEBERECHTlebe live

recht right
LEOPOLD leud people

bald bold

LOTHAR hlud fame hari army

LUDOLF hlud fame wolf wolf.
LUDWIG hlud fame
wig warrior

LUTZ
WIEBE
LUITGER ger spear
LUDGER
MANFRIED magan strength
frid peace

MARWIN
MEINARD, MEINHARDmagan
strength
MEINE, MEINO
MENNO
MEINRAD magan strength,

might rad counsel
ORTWIN ort point win friend
OSKAR
OSWALD os god weald rule
OTMAR, OTTMAR, OTTOMAR

od wealth, fortune
ODO, OTTO
RAGIN advice, counsel
REIN
RAIMUND, REIMUND
RAINER, REINER
RALF
RAMBERT hram raven

beraht bright
ROBERT
RUPRECHT

49

Circle of Hands
RODOLF, HRODOLF
ROLF
RUDI, RUEDI
ROGER, RUDIGER hrod fame

ger spear
ROLAND hrod fame land

SIEG sigu victory

SIGI
SIEGBERT sigu victory

beraht bright
SIEGFRIED

Forging Steel

SIEGHARD, SIEGWARD sigu

victory hard brave, hardy

VEIT

KORA

ORTRUN ort point rn secret

SIGISMUND

VOLKER folk people hari army

RAIMUNDE

WERNER warin guard

hari army

KRIMHILDE grim mask

hild battle

SREN

WERTHER wert worthy

hari army

TORBEN

WIELAND wela skill land

LINDA

ULRICH uodal heritage

ric power

WULFGANG

LUITGARD, LUTGARD leud

people gard enclosure

SIGISWALD sigis victory

wald rule

UTZ

WULF
WOLFRAM wulf wolf

hramn raven

UWE

Female names
ERMENTRUD

HELGA, HELLA

ERNA

HENRIKE

FRAUKE little lady

HERMINE

ADELINA, ALINA

FREJA

HERTA, HERTHA

ALEIDA, ALIDA

F R I E DA ,

ADELA, ADELE
ADA
ADELHEID

ALEIT
ELKE
HEIDA, HEIDI
AGATHE
ALFREDA
ASTRID
AVA avi, desired
BERTA, BERTHA beraht bright,

famous
BRIGITTA, BRIGITTE
GITTA,GITTE
B R U N H I L D b r u n a r m o r,

protection hild battle
DAGMARdagr day mr maid
DIETLINDE eud people linde

soft, tender
EBBA
EDITH

ead rich, blessed

gy war

EMMA, IRMA ermen whole or

universal
IMKE, IMMA
ERIKA

50

FRIEDE fried,
frid peace

FRIEDERIKE
FRITZI
GERDA

HILDA, HILDE hild battle

HILDEGARD hild battle gard

enclosure
HILTRAUD, HILTRUD hild

battle ru strength

GERHILD ger spear hild battle

HULDA hulda hiding, secrecy

GERLINDE ger spear linde

soft, tender

IDA id work, labor

INA

G E RT R AU D, G E RT RU D

ger spear ru strength

INGE, INGA

TRUDI

INGEBORG ing god bjrg

protection, help

GISELA

INGRIDing god frr beautiful

GISA

IRMENTRUD, IRMTRUD ermen

whole, all ru strength

GU D RU N g u go d r n

secret lore
GUNDULA gund war
GUNDA
HEDWIG hadu battle, combat

wig war
HEDY .

IRMHILD ermen whole, all

hild battle
IRMINGARD ermen whole, all

gard enclosure
IRMGARD
ISOLDE

HEILWIG heil happy, hearty,

healthy wig war

JESSIKA

HEINRIKE

KATJA

HEIKE

KARLA
KLARA

KUNIGUNDE kuni clan, family

gund war
KINGE

LULU
MARTHE

TABITHA
TABEA

ROSWITHAhrod fame
swin strength
SABINE

THERESE
ULRIKA, ULRIKE
RIKE

SASKIA
SIEGHILD sigu victory

hild battle.
SIEGLINDE sigu victory and

linde gentle, soft
SIGI

MATHILDE, MECHTILDE

SILKE

ODA

SWANHILD swan and hild battle

UTE
VILMA
VERENA
VRENI
WA L B U R G A w a l d r u l e

burg fortress
WA LT R AU D w a l d r u l e

ru strength

I roll 6, 5, and 1 for the three dice in order. This knights Charm is 5, so her details are Fierce (6 + 5 = 10), Emblem (5 +
5 = 10), and for her name, something brutal.
As gentry, she does not answer to any diminutive versions, and I note that Krimhilde means mask and battle
which is her past to the letter. As gentry, she uses a surname based on a recent ancestor, and I choose Falk. Other
gentry and people inclined toward formality might call her Baron Falk.
Start some notes on the knights physical description
at this point, if you havent already. The Iron Folks
most common features are thin-stranded straight
hair, blonde or light brown hair color, blue or gray
eyes, light skin color, high cheekbones, and epicanthic folds. However, much darker curled hair, dark
brown or black hair color, dark brown eye color,
medium to dark brown skin color, a wider range of
facial structure, and no epicanthic folds are also evident, usually as a couple of these features at a time.

Freemen are familiar with the staff and with

weapons pertaining to their jobs. An outdoorsman is necessarily skilled with the sling, bow,
and hand axe, carrying whatever is needed that
day.

ARMING

A professional without either martial profession

is unskilled in fighting, but player-characters
receive Circle training (see below).

Establish what weapons and armor the character

knows how to use. This isnt whats literally worn or
held, but rather detailing his or her knowledge base
and what is available during the course of a venture.
If the characters were not Circle knights, then their
fighting skills and arms would be derived strictly
from professions, as follows:
Other social ranks do not react well to peasants with obvious weapons. A low entertainer
typically carries a concealed knife and can fight
with a staff as well. A farmer uses the knife and
hatchet in working tasks.
Fishermen and sailors are handy with knives
and club-like implements such as belaying pins
and crowbars.

Every character with martial (low) can use the

staff, hand axe, sling, spear (on foot), bow, and
crossbow. He or she is armored with the round
shield. Such characters from Tamaryon are also
familiar with the francisca.

A professional character skilled with martial

(high) can use any shield and fight on foot or
mounted, using the spear in either case, as well
as the bow and crossbow. Armor adds the cone
helmet and in Rolke, the option for gambeson
alone. Hailing from Tamaryon adds the great
axe and francisca; from Spurr, the chained
mace.
Gentry necessarily have martial (high). They
are armored with mail, spangenhelm, and
whatever shield they want; they are skilled
both on foot and mounted with sword, spear,
and bow, as well as relevant weapons from their
home region however, they do not fight with
staff, sling, crossbow, or hand axe.

51

Circle of Hands

However, Circle knights have received training independently of their individual backgrounds. First, determine
from the list above what kind of arms or fighting is
appropriate for the persons profession prior to joining
the Circle. If he or she has no martial background, then
add a single professional or gentry weapon, usable
either on foot or mounted. If in doubt or if you dont
care, choose the spear. Such characters are also trained
in the use of mail, cone helmet, and shield.
As gentry with martial (high), Krimhilde is already
skilled with the spear, sword, and bow; she is
armored with the kite shield, mail including a
gambeson, and spangenhelm; coming from Tamaryon also grants the great axe and francisca; and like
everyone she has a personal knife. She doesnt carry
around all this stuff personally, but rather chooses
whatever she likes from this list at any given point.
During a venture, the knights are accompanied by
a small functioning support staff, such as horse and
mule handlers, haulers, financiers, hunters, or guides.
Therefore itemizing ordinary equipment such as lanterns or bedrolls by character is not necessary.

KEY EVENT

Look this person over and consider exactly when and

why he or she would have become completely committed to the Circle. Dont describe it philosophically
or in the abstract. Describe the scene in 150 words or
less. Do not include summaries or directives of the
characters current behavior.

It comes together quickly in my mind for Krimhilde.

The sleek raiding ship from Spurr had terrorized the
river towns for weeks, appearing without warning,
its raiders mysteriously killing every child at each
strike, and vanishing. Now, though, it burned to the
waterline, and the chieftain of the rivers defenders
hacked its demonic captain apart, axe against axe.
She was equally afire with wrath as her husband
had been lost when the ship had first appeared, and
the spell that had disguised her as him finally slipped
away as her oath to avenge him was fulfilled as
the captain slipped to his knees, she beheaded him a
spray of corrupted blood, the helm rolling away, and
she realized even as she hoisted her foes head high,
that it was her husbands. Krimhildes exulted cry,
and the answer of those who followed her, shriveled
into silence.
It may be tempting to conclude the Key Event description with a motivational or summarizing statement.
Resist this. Describe the scene, and thats all.
Like everyone else at the table, I also make up a
second character.
My dice rolls are black 4, white 4, red 5, resulting
in B = 1+5, Q=1+4, W=1+4, C=1+5.
This is quite a good roll. In this case, I decide the
two lower scores need some help, and it strikes
me that I could optimize one of the higher scores
as well. Therefore I choose Romantic and Ambitious for Traits, adding +1 Q, +1 W, +2 C, for final
values of B 6, Q 6, W 6, C 8. The character is
from Rolke, meaning that he or she probably
participated in helping the young king to power.

Gethyn Edwards provides a good summary of the most effective content:

Forging Steel
The character gets two professions, and thinking that it works well to have two from adjacent
social ranks for an Ambitious character, I choose
Priest and Scholar. I recall that all characters
will be competent fighters, and also that to be
a Circle member, a priest needs to have become
heretical regarding magic.
The characters social rank is Freeman, with a
strong desire to be Professional.
I decide that he is male; the character begins to
take form in my mind.
For his six points of spells, I choose Demon 1,
Black Speech, Stimulant, Repair, and Perfection.
For Demeanor, I get 2 + 8 = 10 Formal; for Feature,
4 + 8 = 12 Emblem; and 5 on the red die, for two
syllables for his name. He is Meinrad Good, with
the surname arising from his priestly background.
The character clicks together in my mind: of
course, hes formal, he cares about the niceties
of social rank; of course he wears an emblem
showing off his scholarship, as that profession
goes with the social rank he desires.
He has no prior martial background, so his
combat skills were trained entirely by the
Circle, resulting in a spear, round shield, cone
helm, mail (gambeson underneath), and a
personal knife. He also still has
his pipe, tools for preparing
cannabis resin, and
hat from his
priestly
background.

Something happened to your character which was a Key Event for them. As a direct result of that event something
within them broke, such that joining the Circle was suddenly the only choice which made sense thereafter.
The event involved one or more of:
Community

Status, power and authority

Family

Ideology (religious or magical)

Gender

The use and effects of Rbaja and/or Amboriyon

The event will typically have had unpleasant qualities such as abuse, defeat, cruelty, helplessness, manipulation,
death, failure, betrayal, ruin; it could have been caused by your characters actions or by anothers; those actions
could just as easily have been ill-intentioned or well-intentioned; the event could have been focused on your
character alone or extended to others they care about.
Whatever the details, this event crystallized for your character into the fixed memory of a single, vivid moment which could equally have been before, during, or after the event itself.

52

FINALIZING THE WHOLE CIRCLE

Divide the knights into the half with higher total

scores and the half with lower total scores. Each of
the latter gets +1 to any score the player chooses (this
doesnt affect homeland, professions, details, or anything else). The single character with the lowest total
scores gets a Gift of the players choice (see Chapter 6).
Ties are easy: both get whatever that value gets.
Assuming a GM and three players, our Circle is
composed of eight player-characters, including
Krimhilde and Meinrad Good. The rolled and Traitmodified totals for the six other characters are 29,
21, 24, 18, 27, and 24. Putting them in order with our
two makes 18, 21, 22 (Krimhilde), 24, 24, 26 (Meinrad), 27, and 29. The lower half is 18-24, with both
characters with 24 included due to the tie. These
characters each get +1 to be placed as desired, and
I increase Krimhildes C to 6. The lowest-scoring
character with a total 18, now 19, also gets a Gift
of the players choice. As Meinrad is included in the
higher half of scores, his numbers do not change.

A LOOK AT
THE CHARACTER SHEET

Social rank

Describe that vividly remembered moment in 150 words or less.

His Key Event: He could see the valkyries flying

overhead, through the little remaining of the
longhouse roof. Most of the thatch had been
blasted away and the rafters smoldered, not
quite burned through. His friends, his people
who had trusted him, all lay about him, twisted
in the final moments of agony, and the wizard,
the one whod warned him that the snow-haired
women from the clouds could not be trusted,
the one whod spoken of a circle, lay dying in
his arms, a spear transfixing his lower body ...
even now, the man tried to speak, and Meinrad
understood. He placed his lips against the others
blood-smeared mouth, and the powerful syllables
of both cosmic forces blasted into his mind even
as the man died. When the valkyries landed,
Meinrad waited in a blaze of white light, his
friends standing beside him, their eyes now black
voids, their claws ready.

Illus. Sandy Jacobs-Tolle

One side is permanent stuff: Name, Homeland, Sex,

Social Rank, Traits, Demeanor, Feature, Arming,
Gifts, and the Key Event. The other side is stuff which
changes value either during play or between ventures
or both, as well as some tools for mechanics in play.
These include Attributes, rules details for current
armor and weapons, points for Rbaja and Amboriyon, oaths, tracks for injuries and other changes to
Attributes, and tools for managing options in combat.

53

Circle of Hands
PREPARING A VENTURE
If youre the GM, come to a play session with a prepared venture in hand. It might be described as zeroing in on a
single place in the backdrop, with its own pocket of emergent conflict, and its most definitely a matter of personal
choice and responsibility. A lot of the preparation is determined by dice, but a lot isnt, most especially those things
skirt along the Lines.

SITUATION, NOT SCENES

As in many role-playing games, the GM prepares the

location and situation, independently of the players.
However, the Circle of Hands GM is not the story manager or even the primary entertainer. His or her role is
merely one part of the division of labor among people
whove gathered to play together.
This point is nowhere more apparent than here in the
rules for the preparation for play. Playtesters often
found themselves feeling like Im not sure where this
is going to go, or Is this really enough, which are
good things during preparation in this game, not to
be corrected by locking down prepared events and
plot outcomes.
The operating principle is strictly to prepare the
situation, but not the scenes to be played, leaving
undetermined how any person in the fiction will
think, react, and judge. The GM doesnt even and
shouldnt know which Circle knights will be chosen
for play. The players will choose them only in the
context of specific, limited details.

LOCATION

Roll 3d6, black, white, and red just as in character creation. If they display all different numbers, then the
location is in Rolke, the most likely place for Circle
knights to be running around doing things. If any
two or all three match, then the location is as follows,
based on the value of the matched dice:
1-2: Tamaryon
3-4: Famberge
5-6: Spurr
I roll my three dice, resulting in black 4, white 1, and
red 3. This venture takes place in Rolke.
Now specify a little bit more on pure personal interest, first by indicating a spot on the map within the
region. Think about how ordinary life there might
look: what work goes on there, what do they eat, how
much force and violence is exerted daily, what gets
traded around at the larger scale, how are the dead
handled, how explicit is the religion, how does the
local liquor taste, what are the animals, what are the
local details of clothing

54

Arrive at a place-name for the venture. Start with

either:
A persons name
alternately, one of the root-words for names
Or a feature of the land or community
Geography: -ach, -au, -bek, river or stream;
-furt, ford; -ey, -wert, island; -bhl, hill; -berg,
mountain; -tal, valley; -wald, forest; -hagen,
wood or hedged field; -halde, hillside
Community: -roth, -rode, clearing; -brck,
bridge; -feld, field; -um, home; -hof, farmhouses; -hut, guard; -burg, keep, fortress;
or area associated with it; -stedt, steading;
-dorf, village
Historical: -wend, historically evocative of
the Pananthuri
If its a name, a feature can become a suffix (Karlach,
Karl River), or it may have the suffix -ing, indicating
a personal legacy (Karling, where Karl lived and did
whatever he did).
Prefixes are used to tell similar place-names apart,
either attached or standing alone.
Comparative: alt-, hoh-, high; nieder-, low;
gross-, ober-, greater; ltten-, unter-, lesser;
nien-, new
Descriptive: lichten-, open, grun-, green, schn, good or nice

Forging Steel
COMPONENTS

Dont roll again, but assess the very same results to

arrive at one to three of the following components,
selected by writing down the black result, then adding
the white result to it, and finally adding the red result
to the previous sum. Ignore all results higher than 7
and apply the numbers that are left from the following list.

1Humanitarian crisis
Massacre, battles, natural disaster, famine,
ethnic cleansing, oppression as bad as one
may imagine, given the standards for this
venture
Focus on human agency in either perpetration or in response.
Circle knights try to solve obvious problems
to garner good will

2Social rank tensions at a crisis point

Economics, local history, and brewing group
violence; and as a group, no social rank is a
pushover
Local war is an excellent example, but for
less atrocious circumstances, ordinary economic tension can drive people to equally
extreme acts
Circle knights are themselves demolishers
of social rank and recognize an opportunity
to extend it, even if they cant explain it
Circle knights from this region have some
insight into the history of the situation once
they get there

3Opportunity for Rolke

A chance for peace, trade, cooperation of
any kind

Its perfectly all right to be completely literal. Most

exotic-sounding names world-wide dont mean much
more than Bobs Town or Rocky Hill anyway.

All else being equal, this seems easy, a nice

chance for trade or friendship, but its also
easy to screw it up

I look at Rolke and decide upon the mountains,

thinking about a fortress. The civil war has shattered the long-standing gentry there, but it but it still
has their name. I go with Magan- (strength) and
burg (fortress).

Circle knights try to secure clear possible

advantages for Rolke

4Knowledge
A piece of foreign technology, a historical
fact, an informational document like a map,
or something similar
It may or may not be obviously present, but
if this is the lowest-numbered component,

then it should be easy to observe or know

about
Its not just sitting there, but in use or in contention, or with strong potential for either
Circle knights try to secure clear possible
advantages for Rolke

5Monster or similarly dangerous specific threat

Beast, monster, avatar, or undead
Its more than a wumpus to hunt; its fixated
on or related to the local community in some
way
Circle knights try to solve obvious problems
to garner good will

6Rbaja interference, covert or overt

Pure horror, nightmare fuel
An Rbaja wizard, a demon, an enchantment,
or an Rbaja zone
Circle knights are at war with Rbaja

7Amboriyon interference, covert or overt

The light which blinds
An Amboriyon wizard, an eidolon, an
enchantment, or an Amboriyon zone
Circle knights are at war with Amboriyon
By design, neither a humanitarian crisis nor Amboriyon interference occurs by itself.
My results yield 4, 4 + 1 = 5, and 5 + 3 = 8. That gives
me usable results of 4 and 5, so the components of
this venture are knowledge and a monster.
For comparison, 3 6 6 would yield 3 9 15 for opportunity in Spurr, and 2 3 2 would yield 2 5 7, for social
rank tensions, monster, and Amboriyon interference
in Tamaryon.
Consult the red die from your roll again to set the
tone and certain content for the venture, at least in
your mind as you prepare.
1-2: Harsh travails, tough decisions, personal
sorrow
3-4: Grim injustice, tragedy, open trauma,
desperation
5-6: Squick agony, atrocity, dehumanization,
repulsion
My red die showed a 3: this is going to be grim. I
start thinking about really bad things people might
do when ordinary choices no longer apply, and
about Lines of my own.

55

Circle of Hands
REFINING THE COMPONENTS

Each component must include the following:

One to three named characters with deeply-felt

grievances or goals if one component, then
three; if two, then two each; if three, then one
each

Confusing and potentially dangerous locations

this is what the little maps are for
Tripwire conditions which provoke extreme
actions or an event

WITHIN EACH COMPONENT

Its time to decide what exactly each component is,
simply and quickly. First, think of the precise location, to get an idea of the kind of thing youd like to
see for that component in that region.
Then look over the dice roll again and count the
number of dice with matched values:
None: A single phenomenon for each component, using the open circles above as the lists
for phenomena
Two: A doubled phenomenon for the highestnumbered component, e.g. two demons, or a
demon and a wizard
For #2, this result means three social ranks
in conflict
Three: A tripled phenomenon for the highestnumbered component, e.g., three demons, or a
demon and two wizards, or a demon, a wizard,
and a zone
For #2, this result means all four social ranks
in conflict
This effect is biased toward somewhat less intensity
for ventures in Rolke, the logic being that the Circle
has already been somewhat effective toward various
ills there; and also toward higher intensity for the
higher-value components, as such things tend to
escalate
Consult Chapters 2 and 7 freely for anything that
strikes you as appropriately harsh, grim, or squicky,
as well as geographically and culturally sound, and
basically, whatever you find personally compelling.
As with all ventures in Rolke, there are no matches,
so theres just one phenomenon in each component.
For comparison, the 3 6 6 roll mentioned earlier
would yield two phenomena involved in the opportunity, even though its still only a single component.

56

The knowledge: Im thinking about a famous map,

one of the best in the Crescent Land, probably
prepared by a scholar familiar with foreign texts
probably big, like a tapestry, hung up on the wall.
Its whereabouts since the scattering of the Magan
gentry are unknown, as one assumes that anything
valuable there has long since been re-distributed.
The monster: I feel like going all-out and bring in a
wyrm, partly because I like the idea of one of these
curled up in a beat-up fortress. Its just an animal,
but once in go mode, its a shocking threat.
As this is a grim venture, both components begin
soaked in blood people had been especially unhappy with the Magans and probably butchered them
and their supporters; the wyrm has already laid
waste to some considerable amount of the area.
Whichever component(s) youre using, stay with them
alone. This is a really tempting creep: some playtesters wound up piling four or five components into
their preparation when theyd rolled just one or two,
because they were distracted by some of the details in
Chapter 7 that are intended for in-scene rules. Thats
not a situation-preparation concern; you dont have to
say, if there are draugr, then there must be a wizard,
then throw one in or make up an elaborate back-story
to explain why not. Get what you get and use it alone.
That goes double for #2. Unless that number came up,
dont put social rank tensions in there and keep the
hassles among the named people nice and personal.
In this case, the crisis between the gentry and everyone else is long over. If one of my components were
#2, you can bet itd still be hot and fierce, but without
that component, its a dead issue, now merely part of
the back-story.

AMONG THE COMPONENTS

If you have more than one, yes, theyre in the same

spot and potentially affect one another. However, do
not go down that road during preparation. Its tempting to weave them together instantly. Stop and dont
do that at all.
In this case, I decided against the knowledge being
a metal object, because that would unavoidably
tie this component and the wyrm together. Such a
tie isnt always a bad thing but in this case, given
the description of the wyrm in Chapter 7, itd be so
strong that the whole venture would wrap around
just these two things.
In another example from play, the roll was 2, 5, 4,
yielding social tensions (2) and Amboriyon interfer-

Forging Steel
ence (7) in Rolke. In that case, the strife between
the merchants higher uphill and the freemen working the docks had no intrinsic connection with the
wizard who was in one of the ships offshore, and
during preparation, no connection or pull needed
to be invented.
The procedures of play and the decisions made by
characters open plenty of doors for elements across
the components to become connected, and to ignite
new conflicts. Front-loading it during preparation
only gums up those procedures.

NAMED PEOPLE
Make up named people according to the number of
components:
One: three named people, for a total of three
Two: two for each component, for a total of four
Three: one each, for a total of three
And later during preparation, if you want, add
one more named person to the venture
The basic, rather pure concept of soap opera is
intrinsic to the people for each component. Period.
Never dont have soap opera, because its what the
people are for. Theyre already itched out of their
comfort zones, in the grip of strong emotions, and
full of definite opinions, already near to the point of
acting, or as you might see it, acting out. When more
than one person is involved in a given component,
then they may be strongly tied together or strongly
opposed.
Do not double-dip anyone across the components; make separate ones for each. They dont
even have to know one another.
Always conceive of them relative to the components and be sure to give them names.
Think in terms of the Crescent land values:
social class, relative wealth, kinship, social
authority and reputation.
Brainstorm a bit about special interests, past
history, problems, strong emotional attachments; just one or two thoughts are fine at this
point.
Add one more named person to a given component if you think it needs a little more casting.
So, two people for each component, each pair
involved in some kind of emotional situation.
For the map, I instantly conceive of a survivor from
the butchery at Maganburg, whos managed to pre-

serve it. An actual son of the gentry is tempting, but

social rank isnt concealable and its safe to say all of
them were killed, especially since Im staying grim.
This guy was left for dead under a pile of corpses but
survived after all: perhaps a low-martial person with
a scholarly bent. He might even be maimed by these
events, despairing of his future, but clearly hes not
happy about the people who ruined his life, killed his
friends and patrons, and probably destroyed most of
the irreplaceable knowledge at the fortress. I choose a
simple, blunt name that masks his intelligence, Wulf.
For another character, I think of the person who
tends to him, effectively his wife, twenty years
younger, loving him dearly but much more fierce
about their prospects, to the point of taking serious
risks, certainly willing to trade the map away if that
would help, which Wulf would never do. A smart
guy like him has a smart partner to match she is
Vreni, a low entertainer whos probably traveled
more than anyone else in the area, and knows what
a map like this can be worth.
For the wyrm, I start with its rubric in Chapter 7,
which looks like this:
Young and/or newly arrived in an area
Singles out individuals with such an item, kills
everyone else, and slithers off with this person,
or part of him or her, to bring the thing it wants
to a lair.
Older and having lived in an area for a while
It has a hoard of four or five such things and
prefers to sleep and contemplate them.
It can recognize people who bring it such things,
and sometimes bargains are struck, if the person
is clever enough. Like a horse or dog, it readily
understands that if it does a desired thing, it will
get what it wants in return. It cannot speak, but
more so than a horse or dog, it can recognize finedetailed things about locations and understand
concepts like kill the people who pass by here,
or attack when I wave this banner. It also takes
betrayal of such bargains most personally.
Ill go with the later step, because I like the idea of
someone whos allied with the wyrm, supplies it
periodically with neat items, and uses it against
enemies. Im also thinking about Rolke following or
in the late stages of its civil war, and that anyone
like this should be in a remote area, ungoverned
by the allied communities who support the king,
which means far off in the mountains. This person
would also have to be a considerable bad-ass, and
Im thinking about a freeman whos fought in many,

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many battles for others, and is now a scarred, cynical, older chief, with a community of perhaps two
hundred people in and around Maganburg who look
to him for leadership. His name is Eckhart; he preys
upon a trade route, not entirely to kill or to loot, but
for rare valuables which he gives to the wyrm (once
every six months or year is enough), at the very least
to keep it off his small communitys neck.
Although Eckharts tough and obviously cruel
toward those outside his sphere of leadership, his
son is his real problem: a young man who envies
his fathers toughness and respect, and who dreams
of laying waste to anyone who offends him with
the power of the wyrm. This would be Ivo, already
called Eckhart-Son, which he dislikes.
At this point, set their scores, using 8 5 4 2. The only
relevant mechanics lie in Brawn and Quickness, but
assign the other two to help you develop your sense
of the person. Choose one person to have a sum of
scores equal to that of the highest-sum Circle knight
currently in play. Also write down their professions
and social rank explicitly.
Wulf: Brawn 5, Quickness 2, Wits 8, Charm 4; low
martial + scholar, freeman. He is missing part of one
leg and has some neurological damage too, hence the
low Quickness.
Vreni: Brawn 2, Quickness 4, Wits 5, Charm 8; outdoorsman + low entertainer, peasant.
Eckhardt: using Meinrad Good as the presumed
highest-score Circle knight in play, that gives me 26
points, distributed as Brawn 6, Quickness 8, Wits 5,
Charm 7. I can visualize him easily; he uses mail that
once belonged to the former ruler of the area, whom
he probably killed. His professions are low martial +
merchant, freeman.
Ivo: Brawn 5, Quickness 8, Wits 2, Charm 4; low
martial + outdoorsman, freeman. A dangerous
man with a spear and with his equally hot-headed
friends, and he knows the area inside and out, but
lacking his fathers life-experience and caution.
If the people in the preparation include a wizard,
then he or she has Gifts equal to the number of
knights in the venture, as rolled in the relevant section of Chapter 6.
In the case of a single component, you have three
named people to enmesh in some kind of awful soap
opera, so mix it up with some verve.

Forging Steel

tion with his or her social rank, and youre all set,
especially when the game mechanic called ascension
gets going, as explained in Chapter 4.

Famberge: Church In The Woods

Circle knights do not arrive to solve anyones personal problem, they are not responding to a call for
help, they do not have to be restoring order and civic
decency to a community, and they do not have to root
out a specific source of evil. Therefore engineering
your named charcters as mechanisms to get to those
things is unnecessary. My and others best Circle
games so far have been extremely lightly prepared in
these terms.
The named people merely live there, thats all, and
they have specific actions and agendas wrapped up
with the overall component concept theyre built
with. Come up with individuals who exemplify these
things, and put them into cross-purposes or difficult
circumstances concerning what they want. Expunge
all thoughts of whether they are right or will work
or character flags or anything like that. Anyone who
strikes you as caught up with that specified component, with any degree of soap opera, will do.

MAPS AND LOCATIONS

I dont draw a map of the local area. I recommend
that people do it if it helps, but I prefer to build a
rather strong picture of it in my mind, and describe
it extremely closely to what the characters are seeing
and otherwise sensing. Ive done a lot of rough camping and have good skills for keeping the overview in
my mind, but staying with the characters immediate
view in the descriptions. Others may do better with a
sketchy local map.
The cool little maps are the dangerous locations. I
recommend having a real map for these, and during
play, you might show it briefly, just to convey its basic
character.
Im thinking of the terrifying maze-map in Ursula
K. LeGuins The Tombs of Atuan. If I were to show the
players that map for a few seconds and say, Yeah,
thats what youre groping around in, blindly, it
helps a lot. However, escaping or getting somewhere
specific in there would depend more on rolls than on
left-right-right-left statements and map-checking.
Here are some for you!

In the case of three components, you have only one

named person for each, so how does that soap opera
work? Put each person into a situation of dissatisfac-

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Circle of Hands

Forging Steel
Spurr: Lich Citadel

Famberge: Mountain Lake

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Circle of Hands

Forging Steel

Spurr: Spurr Proper

Rolke: Mountain Fortress

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Circle of Hands

Forging Steel

Rolke: Coastal Town

Tamaryon: River Cut

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Circle of Hands
I also use any of the many little maps available online from a hundred sites, with a bit of effort to stay
consistent with the Crescent Land setting (there are
no multi-level underground complexes).

For the in-game location associated with the map

component, I own the Forest Village set from
Heroic Maps by S. Bilton & J. Bilton, which is perfect. It features simple huts, confusing pathways and
dense forest. Wulf lives here.
For the location associated with the wyrm, no problem here I seize upon the mountain pass flanked
by a fortress including a rampart spanning the pass
presented in this book (Rolke: Mountain Fortress).
Its in crap shape, but it could be restored. It seems
a fine thing to have Eckhart and his immediate
followers utilize the complex on the right, with its
better access to the outlying areas, and for the wyrm
to be laired right there across the rampart (!), in the
scarier, more isolated section. Damn, these people
freaking practically live with the thing good thing
it sleeps most of the time.

Forging Steel

in play boils over into more explicit, uncompromising form. The effect is, simply, a drastic and striking
change in the situation. Whatever visual or other
sensory details you might imagine, say to yourself,
Thats not enough, and turn it up another notch.
A tripwire and its effects are prepared, but not planned.
It may or may not be triggered, completely left up to
the events of play.
If Wulf is harmed in any way. Triggering this
tripwire means that Vreni mobilizes a considerable
number of local people against the culprit.
If the wyrms private lair is disturbed. Triggering
this tripwire means that the wyrm goes wild with
rage. This doesnt mean the wyrm is irrelevant until
that happens, because it could act on its own, or
Eckhart could exploit his alliance with it, at any time
Im still honoring the point that nothing should necessarily combine any details of the two components,
in that neither tripwire includes both the map and
the wyrm.
Tripwires arent there to be either goals or as hidden
traps, so the GM isnt obliged to drive toward them or
manipulate players into them. Similarly, the players
dont know what they are, so no one will be seeking
or avoiding one.
Theyre merely there. Waiting patiently.

sustainable commerce with anyone else. Illness,

deprivation, and exposure claim a lot of infant lives,
and people do not have the leisure for festivals or
community identity. Quarrels quickly become lethal
fights, whose only social accounting is resolved with
threats of further violence.
No ones hands are clean here. Eckhart has massacred neighboring communities with the wyrm at
least once. Ivos little band of friends is well on its
way to becoming a gang of unaccountable thugs,
with a solid list of bad acts building up resentments.
Wulf has friends who also survived the sack of
Maganburg and share his resentments. Vreni has
already defended the otherwise helpless Wulf with
lethal force.

A BIT AT SEA?

Good! Your preparation is not a puzzle or a problem,

so dont solve it by imagining what anyone will do after
play begins. There are plenty of in-play game mechanics that will take care of all the peoples and creatures
responses and reactions and what to do next. To let
these mechanics do their job, prep needs to be dialed
way down from what is apparently expected. The
Circle knights dont have to find anything out, or to
complete an assigned task, or to stop any of the people
there from doing what theyre doing.
Not one of those named people is inclined simply to
give them the map. Yet every one of them is potentially interested in what the knights can do for him
or her. Theres tons of room for judgments and decisions about any of these to arise in play or based on
what particular characters think. A knight may be
disinclined to let Eckhart keep plundering travelers
of their coolest stuff, or maybe none of them care as
far as deals with wyrms go, its a pretty benign one
after all.

Think viscerally and sympathetically with the peoples priorities, and understand why they are the way
they are. Even if they are cruel, vicious, selfish, violent
people, dont make them psychopaths.
Its grim yes, but not insane. No one is a serial killer,
the wyrm is not a rampaging horror why? Because
a venture is about moral difficulty, not about designated kill-eligible foes. Anyone might be friendly to
one or more Circle knights and be reasonable at least
in the context of his or her priorities. Theres plenty of
danger here, but exactly what sort, and from whom,
and why, is left to the events of play.

Beware habits of story-making!

Again, my treacherous mind instantly suggests that
I tie Ivo to Vreni, making them siblings or enemies
or whatever. Dont do that, I admonish myself. Each
component is nice and solid, and all these people are
living in the same place, so all is well.

REVIEW THE CHECKLIST

My roll was 4 1 3, yielding 4 5 8, for knowledge and

a monster in Rolke. I chose and named a location.
Per component, I have characters, check; locations,
check; and tripwires, check.

HUTS IN THE FOREST

WULF IS KILLED

ECKHART & IVO

ECKHARTS
FORTRESS

THE WYRMS LAIR IS

DISTURBED

Review the standard for tone, adding briefly-described

events, groups, and back-story to drive it home.
Illus. Dyson Logos

TRIPWIRES

A tripwire is a specific event with a loud, shocking,

uncompromising consequence.
If play triggers a tripwire, then the inherent tension
in that component whatever it currently looks like

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I look it all over, remembering that the ordinary

harshness of Iron Folk life is considerably worse here.
This isnt a very functional community. The social
upheavals havent settled into a viable farming,
hunting, and trade structure yet, and Eckhardts
use of the wyrm has worked in the short term, but
certainly hasnt contributed to better relations or

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Component 2

WULF & VRENI

Component 1

Tripwire

(the wyrm)

Location

(the map)

When I prepare and play, I use index cards in a

diagrammatic technique. For each component, I lay
three cards in a row, for a maximum of three-by-three.
The first card for each component lists the named
characters and scores, the second describes the location and any key words to help me remember its
features, and the third states the tripwire. An example
diagram is on the next page.

Named People

Circle of Hands
Its rather nice not to worry about story control, with no need to rehearse upcoming play events. I dont have to
pre-plan named characters reactions to the Circle knights; those will come directly out of the player-characters
actions and the players rolls. I dont have to think about a climactic scene or designate a bad guy or final boss.
Dont worry about how hard it is. A given venture is not supposed to be hard, medium, or easy in mechanics terms.
Its merely interesting and thats all.

Dont worry about how good it is. These prep tools Im providing are spot-on perfect for generating exactly what
you need for play, and the only thing you need worry about being good is play itself, for your part alone.

PLAY GETS GOING

JUST BEFORE STARTING

The GM tells everyone else these things only:

Which region
The ventures approximate location within
that region, at the coast, or along a main
river, without further detail
The lowest-numbered component
Few or no details, although with some indication of its intensity
No details about how they heard about
it, especially no content or implication of
anyone calling for help
For the groups first venture, each player chooses one
of the two knights he or she made up. For all ventures
after that, each player chooses any knight from the
Circle, made up by anyone, with the only limitation
that the same player may not play a given knight
twice in a row. If two people want to play the same
knight, then the player who has never done so gets it;
if both have played that knight before, they compare
1d6 rolls until one is higher than the other, and that
person gets it.
For Circle knights who are not wizards, the player
who chooses one may change the spells known, as
long as they include both white and black spells and
their points do not exceed the knights Wits value.
Play does not begin at the Circles home in Rolke or
is there any sort of role-playing about this location.
Instead, as soon as the players choose which knights
they want, play begins some days travel along the road.

PLAYING MY CHARACTER

When you choose one of the Circle to play, its yours.

You dont have to consult the person who initially made
him or her up for approval, or any written or spoken
generalizations about the character. All you need to
consider are the sheet, his or her past history in play,
and your own sense of engagement during play.

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Gethyn wrote these ideas to express

a knights commitment to the Circle:
The Circle recognises deeds above all else. In
the eyes of the young king, who you were - your
homeland, community, family, gender, social
rank, ideology, status, wealth - counts for
nothing. Once you commit to the Circle, you
are defined only by what you do in its name.
The Circle rejects the extremes of Rbaja and Amboriyon alike. Both leave death and misery in their
wake. Both must be opposed if neither is to triumph.
From the sheet, here are the relevant items:
The knights homeland provides a distinct
accent (no need to role-play it, but the characters hear it), recognizable minor details of
dress and grooming, regional familiarity, and
minor expected stereotyping by others, e.g., that
people from Spurr are greedy, or people from
Rolke are a bunch of wild-eyed revolutionaries.
Each area also connotes a particular range and
type of influences from Amboriyon and Rbaja.

Forging Steel
The Key Event is unique to the character. It
really changed him or her, leading to total commitment to the Circle. It may be over and done
with, or it may be an open psychological wound
which a venture may expose. Look over that
Event and remember that to this person, this is
now who he or she really is.
Although all Iron Folk are identifiable in terms of
homeland, social rank, and often profession, Circle
knights are a bit different in their own way. For one
thing, they are competently armed and armored in
ways that such socially diverse individuals would
never otherwise be. They all wear the emblem of the
Circle. They may display evidence of both white and
black magic, again, not only unfamiliar but actually
unbelievable to those versed in the matter.
By definition, social tensions or contradictions among
Circle members are treated as secondary to their
shared commitments and are not built to be automatic sources of conflict between player-characters.
They may be either expressed as given during ordinary interaction, or openly set aside and ignored due
to genuine respect, or whatever else arises organically
from play.

From past play, here are the things to consider.

Honor whats been played for this person
already. The default is to continue with the aims
and details as previously displayed.
However, you are also empowered to consider
the limits of these aims and details as provoked
by events, as you see fit, in the moment.
Morality: these characters are here for you to
develop and express, not merely as moving
parts of some fictional place. Consider what
you think he or she struggles with personally, or
conversely, what his or her blind spots may be.
You may or may not feel the need for some group
discussion before the fiction launches into imagery
and action. I kept records for some of the topics that
served well in playtesting.
I like to mention a few other things too:
A Circle knight is not assigned to a venture or
given a mission-oriented goal in it; instead, he
or she has heard about it and decided to go
there with some companions.
A Circle knight likely suffers from one or more
of these, mildly: headaches, sleep disorders, and
sudden onsets of strong emotions.
A Circle knight profoundly understands both
the reluctance and the willingness to kill.

Social rank + Professions are probably the most

important. They comprise the bulk of everyones learned values, skills, social connections,
wealth, and even the literal perspective of the
moment when they look at anything, what
they see is couched in the variables of these two
things. Again, social rank cannot be faked without magic. Changing the way you play based on
which Circle knight you pick comes right out of
this combination.
Traits + Details are fun for playing his or her
habitual way of dealing with things. Circumstances might lead to them acting differently,
but if they do, people will notice that its a big
shift for them.

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Chapter

4C

ircle of Steel

The backdrops in place, and the situations productive components are prepared, both for the Circle knights and
the location. Now its time to discuss the real layer if you will: putting time and consequence into the fiction,
making stuff happen, using resolution mechanics, seeing stuff happen, accepting and developing immediate
threat/actions for characters in a word, playing scenes.

BACKDROP

Maps and regions

Ecology
Culture
History
The magical war
Technology
Values
Ethnicities
Creatures

SCENES
SITUATION

Location and time

Immediate geography
Immediate history
The people present
Cultural details in force
The creatures present
The played characters

A particular spot
A time of day or night
Whos there
What just happened
Actions and responses
Crises and threats
Opportunities
Consequences

This is where it gets personal. Something may be in the backdrop, and when alls said and done thats mere words
on paper, but this-right-here is what your character is seeing, and whats happening to him or her, and thats one
little social and imaginative step away from it happening to you.
I Will Not Abandon You is the riskier, harder-hitting social contract about the fictional content. Its when you play
not to protect one another, but to stay with one another through it. I dont mind saying Ive been doing this for a
long damn time, and here are the ways the only ways this works.
Start with Veils
Pull them aside when it strikes you, without
planning

Set your own damn Lines!!

Dont set Lines to protect other people

Set them in place when you need to think

of it as editing

Remember that no one knows when its

a Line for you, so you must say so, and be
ready to walk along it

And when someone else sets a Veil in place,

listen to them and let that edit stand

And when someone else sets a Line, listen to

them and dont cross it
Dont forget a couple are baked-in (those are
mine)

Scenes move a situation through time and consequences, changing it. The transformed situation becomes a piece
of history, finally bringing time to the backdrop, making it solid at last. Make sure those scenes are exciting for
you, a little tough, a little disturbing, and trust those people at the table to stay with you, as your Crescent Land
finally earns its label as a setting.
All right, now on to it.

Illus. Phillip Simpson

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Circle of Steel

TALKING
You are not conveying the setting from an original
source in order to play, you are making it by the act
of playing.

Describe whats happening naturalistically, but not

elaborately. Think for a moment about role-playing
together. Whatever else it may be like, the minimum
purpose is to keep everyone oriented, not wondering what someone is like or whether a thing is over
there or where ones character is standing. Talk about
space, peoples positions in it, and their motion.
I think imagery beyond that function is great, but its
about invocation, not bloviating you are not replacing or sending messages into others imaginations,
you are fueling them to be more active on their own.
So long windy descriptions are the wrong way to go,
in favor of clear, powerful details which inspire others
to fill in whatever is needed to hold them together.
When each person does this a little, everyone imagines a lot.

WHAT IS THE GM
Our hobby language dichotomizes the terms GM
and player, and I dont think any re-terming is going
to change that. I can only say here that in playing Circle
of Hands, the term doesnt mean a social organizer or
a rules-referee, but one of the players who attends to
certain tasks: preparing the venture, and during
play, mostly about starting and stopping scenes. When it comes

to playing within scenes, the only real difference is

playing multiple people and creatures. I dont even
recommend anyone holding the role of conductor,
such as managing who gets to talk.

than enough motivated action to play with during a

scene. Its Mitchs fractal concept again: running the
same preparation mechanics over and over reveals,
enriches, compares, and illuminates both the Circle
knights and the features of the setting.

WHAT THE PLAYERS DO

Here are the GM tasks in detail:

Prepare only what Chapter 3 instructs
Start and stop scenes, or play back-and-forth
between them if more than one is happening
Describe things briefly and to orient characters relative positions

A couple of playtesters were concerned that eliminating permanent character ownership would decrease
peoples commitment to play. However, the result was
always just the opposite. In a way, youre wonderfully
free: you get to ask and answer who am I? for this

Cross, cross, cross as described below

Use outcomes of these mechanics to prompt

your characters new actions
Nothing else
Decisions about what to do arent very hard in
GMing Circle of Hands. The preparation mechanics
ensure that every combination of components is
unique, and even the same combinations differ by
region and by what customized choices you
make. Since every single one
is riddled with personal
strife, theres more

GETTING INTO IT

Start in the middle of traveling to the venture location, with no play back home at all, no briefing scene
or anything of the sort. Play begins well out of the
main citadel in Rolke, into areas beyond its immediate reach. Descriptions begin with the transition into
these areas, continue with further travel, and end
with the transition into the destination. The GMs
job at this time is landscape and scenery celebration,
establishing the integrity of the imagined geography
and providing the players with a sense of what its
like to travel in these lands. I recommend describing
whatever details of ecology, animals, and food seem
most informative and fun.
Circle knights travel with what might be called a
support staff, mainly people who tend the animals,
pack supplies along, scout ahead, hunt or fish,
arrange lodgings with communities, and similar
activities. They always include a couple of outdoorsmen. Theyre almost all local people at any point in
the journey, cycling in and out of the traveling group
as it moves through the ordinary personal traveling
ranges of multiple communities. They arent servants or lackeys and cant be ordered around, nor are
the Circle knights responsible for their safety. This
shifting-cast group is assumed to be around throughout the venture, but they are not named or explicitly
played, and if circumstances are such that the GM
absolutely has to threaten them, he or she treats them
as a single target.

ARRIVAL

Ordinary scene-based play does not begin until the

Circle knights arrive at the location of the venture.
Play consists of interactions, statements of observa-

72

Illus. Rachel Kahn

Youre not there to discover the GMs story, nor do

you get through a venture by winkling out the backstory or by working through a sequence of fights. This
really is about the person youre playing and what
you choose to have him or her do under stress. That
means you can play, and not obey anybody about
anything. You can embrace and enjoy the Traits and
Details, and apply your own interpretation of the Key
Event.

THE BIG PICTURE

Pay attention to the explicit moving parts of the

system
Social dynamics within the components,
tripwires, fighting and deaths, magic and
Gifts

Circle knight, without being married to him or her

every single session, and without the spectre of death
as negative reinforcement for playing a certain way.

tion or purpose, and general movement throughout

the immediate area, sometimes punctuated with
scene transitions.
The arriving knights social rank and profession
shape events immensely, beginning with cultural
viewpoints in both directions. People from different
social ranks perceive things differently, as if they were
looking at different worlds. A peasant instantly sees
whether the peasants and freemen of an area are content, miserable, or considering killing the outsiders
in their beds. A member of the gentry wont notice
anything about that, but sees without thinking about
it whether battles have been fought here, or whether
the current arrangements at the longhouse are welcoming or suspicious.
Their social ranks and professions also set up what
happens when they arrive, which is essentially the
same in every venture. Heres my vision of what you,
you as in the characters, do when you show up
somewhere:
Abandon the notion of an anonymous arrival.
Word has traveled ahead of you, and people are
already mentally fitting you into their community. You dont have to look for a place to stay.
When you say your name, its confirmatory
rather than introductory.
This isnt visiting, but more like moving in for a
while. People in this culture have expectations
for what youll do in their home community,
and theyll be watching to see whether you meet
them.
Remember, there isnt any money you dont pay for
stuff like lodging or food, it comes to you as the people

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Circle of Hands
accept your social activity. They assume youre going
to provide it: butchering, hunting, farming, smithying, religious work, and whatever else is implied by
a persons social rank and profession. Do it, and your
needs get folded into everyone elses, such as that may
be in this particular spot. Bluntly, failing to provide
that social activity is the mark of a psychopath, as far
as everyone in this culture is concerned.

So its axiomatic, unspoken, as present as the air you

breathe, that when you arrive somewhere, you do
what you socially know how to do, based on your profession and social rank, as it applies to the immediate
and normal situation.
If you dont do that, you dont get anywhere to sleep
or eat, you dont get clean water, you dont get talked
to, and if youre vulnerable, you can get killed and
everyone is vulnerable sooner or later. So you have to
do it, and your character not only knows that, he or
she doesnt see it any other way.
Ah a crucial detail, perhaps: there are no such things
as inns, taverns, or for that matter, brothels. This is
about hospitality, not paid service. When you stay
somewhere, you sleep in a bed in someones cottage
or longhouse, and not even necessarily a spare bed.
All a player has to do is get used to the characters
social rank, profession, traits, and details. All the GM
has to do is say exactly where the characters are, who
is there, and what everyone is doing, and equally
flatly, at some point, shifting in space and time to do
the same thing again, later and somewhere else.
See, its not stressful its normal and about ordinary
people acting like they do. Theres no need to go lurking about, or to provide hasty excuses for being there,
or to seek hints or hidden meanings in basic dialogue,
or to stay alert for something strange. Theres no
need to play in a defensive crouch. On the contrary,
playing the opening of an venture in this way generates a sense of your character being a person who
knows how to live in a place, not an avatar in a canned
and planned scenario.

John Willson wrote about this in his playtesting: It

turns a location into a community, an interrogation
into a conversation, an NPC into a person.

Circle of Steel
AS EVENTS PROCEED

GMing continues: describing the actions and

responses of all characters except the Circle knights,
and staying on top of when the resolution system is
supposed to be used. The GM and everyone else goes
with what people say their characters do. That might
necessitate a shift in scene, it might imply that nothing changes in this scene and therefore a new one is
called for, or it might develop the events in this scene
into any number of outcomes requiring resolution
with dice.
The pace of events in fictional time is not fixed. Sometimes, the venture occurs in only hours of fictional
time; other times, months. Go with whatever makes
most sense based on what has just been said and done.
You may notice that a task often associated with
GMing is absent from these rules: story management.
In this game, driven character action and system outcomes are the only determinants of plot. No set-pieces,
confrontations, or revelations should be planned in
any way, and techniques which assume investigation
of back-stories and big-boss climactic fights with designated villains are not compatible with the system.
To the Circle of Hands GM, I recommend taping these
points to your mirror:
You do not direct. There is no trail to follow, no
designated boss to fight.
You do not conduct. The players are responsible
for their characters actions, not you, so dont
manage how and when others talk.
You do not protect. If they all die, then they all
die. If they completely bork the Circles potential gains during this venture, then they do.
Good enough for what you dont do. So how do you
do it?

ALL ABOUT THE PEOPLE

Here, my advice for the GM is pretty much the same

as for everyone else: its time to play characters. You
already have several named people created for the
components of preparation, so bring them into play
as members of the social ranks and professions which
the Circle knights necessarily encounter in the opening scenes. For these people, consider these:
Special interests, past history, problems, strong
emotional attachments
Social class, relative wealth, kinship, degree of
social authority and reputation

74

By definition all non-Circle wizards are in this category, as they only come into play via the preparation
components. These people are incredibly powerful
and are certainly affecting the lives of every other
person in the situation, or are about to. Even more
named people come into view via ascension, which
turns incidental or background individuals into consequential and active characters.

do badly with the locals, they hate you, and they try
to kill you, lets see if you get out of there, and never
mind the elaborate back-story with the butchers
daughter, her panther friend, and the lurking lich.

ACTION DOESNT WAIT

What then? It began with those Charm rolls and the

specific actions taken, but it goes on with the explicit
moving parts of the system: each components social
The Circle of Hands GM should develop a certain brudynamics, fighting, and the use of magic. These
tality of thought in playing the people in the venture,
things have consequences like changes in behavior,
in that they expect certain behaviors, mostly based on
injury, death, and acquiring Gifts. Embrace these outsocial rank, and they either want things to stay as they
comes to prompt your characters new actions, none
are, or they want things to change in specific ways. In
of which need to be subtle or
this culture, such views are not
half-hearted.
necessarily held privately, and
P
eople react to perceived
At its heart, Im talking about
if a person feels that he or she
threats and seize upon solupeople in this situation as
is acting with social backing,
tions with a great deal of
characters, not corridors to
that person may be startlingly
social and physical force.
set-pieces, or walls blockaggressive about it.
ing actions or insights. The
The second half of this chapconsequences keep on going, because the people
ter provides very specific mechanics toward these
youre playing may change their minds, but regardends, based on the Wits and Charm attributes. For
ing their concerns and priorities, they do not merely
now, know that Charm is huge. If a newly-arrived
cave because a Circle knight or a planned plot-point
person succeeds with it, then he or she is welcomed
is supposed to be important. Crucially, successful
and trusted as a favored cousin. This is a deeply
Charm rolls dont make people obedient, but rather
trust-based culture, so even violent or otherwise
proactive in expecting the Circle knights help.
questionable behaviors can be accepted at this status.
Since the Circle of Hands GM isnt responsible for a
Wits is a bit more about orienting and context-buildstory, only for playing the next scene, enjoy the lack
ing, not so much specific clues as setting up for more
of a plan and your freedom in that scene to hit back
effective action later.
with the people you play as hard as they might want
Therefore, fail that Charm roll and the Circle knight
you to.
has an enemy: as that person sees it, his or her goals,
fears, and even sense of identity are all threatened.
CROSSES!
Enemies in the Crescent Land use their best and most
All right, think about starting a scene. If youve ever
effective resources available to solve such problems.
been a GM in any role-playing game, youve done
Fail that Wits roll and the direct consequences may
this. Here it is, a scene-in-action with characters
not be so severe, but a bunch of later rolls may well
being played and doing stuff, and then as part of
get penalized.
the described location, perhaps well in the backUse these mechanics for every single named person
ground, you describe something that happens which
a Circle knight interacts with, without fail, and conresulted from some previous scene. Thats a Cross, as
sider the results to be always emergent and binding.
in crossing paths.
This is why planning how GM-played characters
I described Crosses, along with Bobs and Weaves, in
react can never, ever be planned. Doing it during play
Sex & Sorcery, as a set of GM actions to go with Bangs.
completely replaces all the preparation-and-rehearsCircle of Hands, unlike Sorcerer, is not a Bang-y game,
al techniques for GM-character behavior which are
but rather a Cross-y one, and thats the primary skill
employed in many other games.
one needs to bring to GMing it.
A venture doesnt have to turn out to be focused on
Crosses do not demand action and do not have
the most exotic preparation components. Borked
unavoidable effects. Most Crosses provide Color into
rolls during interactions can easily turn it into a you

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Circle of Hands
play, basically a more vivid experience, and that in
itself is a good thing, but it doesnt do much necessarily. As I keep saying, though, this is a violent
society. People react to perceived threats and seize
upon solutions with a great deal of social and physical force. Crosses provide the opportunity to show
this happening, with the following two effects.

The shared understanding of fiction at the table

is better reinforced, especially in the crucial
gaps among players whose characters may not
have been involved equally in all the activities
to date.
Opportunities are presented for players to be
proactive about things which arent immediately
shoved in their face. They can do this with or
without character-knowledge, injecting constructive coincidence into play just as easily as
acting upon ones character realizing something.
Only some, perhaps even a few get acted upon, i.e.,
spark action as decided entirely by the player of the
moment. No one knows which Cross will spark like
this and which wont.
Theyre superior to Bangs in a game like Circle of
Hands, because Bangs are too easily interpreted as
cues for specific actions and set-pieces, and players
wait for them to come along, whereas Crosses merely
open windows onto everything thats going on. They
also cant be prepared before play , as they simply
arise from whatever just happened.

TRIPWIRES

These are the only prepared Bangs in the game. The

only criterion for them is that visually, theyre something
the special-effects team would work really hard on.
Although a tripwire is neither guaranteed to happen
nor planned in terms of its final effects, its definitely a
big change in whats going on: a game-changer, dealbreaker, whatever phrase works for you. A different
situation.
Since play up to that point could have resulted in any
arrangement of bad and good interactions, hitting the
tripwire is not necessarily bad for the knights. The
result of a tripwire might be a catastrophe, it might be
sort-of one or limited to a certain group, or it might
not be catastrophic at all. Making the situation more
dangerous is a good feature, and given whatevers
happened so far, that might well be the case, but if
you start with that as the criterion, then all you get is
a disaster youre trying to railroad into play.

76

Circle of Steel

Having one or more tripwires in your preparation

is wonderfully empowering in terms of what might
happen, and counter-intuitively, not requiring you
as GM to force it to happen. You dont need to steer
toward or away from them, and you dont have to play
hot and cold with the players. Do the tripwires have
to happen? Nope! And if they happen, does it matter
when? Nope! Do the players know about them? Nope!
Do you know what the post-tripwire fights and conflicts will be? Nope! But are they great fun when they
happen? They sure are! And if something else happens which is totally nowhere near a tripwire but is
even bigger and flashier than it, then thats all right too.

ENDING THE VENTURE

A venture ends not because a designated villain has

been defeated, or because a given set of the landscape
has been thoroughly explored, but because play has
reached a crisis point with sufficiently exciting content and with a satisfying look at the Circle knights
personalities and abilities. Since a venture isnt a
mission with a pre-set objective, its end arises from
two or more related sources of tension intersecting
and requiring mechanical resolution during a scene.
A crisis point of this kind is necessarily unplanned
and emergent, so the point is not to make it happen,
but to realize when it just did.
Lets work backwards to see how these things come
about.

Rather than working with specific milestones like

when they find the blue book with the forbidden
text, or at about an hour and a half into play, with
specific planned effects like then the village elders
conduct the ritual, instead pay attention to the kinds
of decisions which turn into consequential actions
and reactions. Whatever fights or confrontations
emerge from those, well, it might be the crisis point
that would make a fine and satisfying finish.
Sometimes its an easy finish. A well-placed Charm
roll or a particular interaction nails a component to
the wall, and even the others if any are looking likely
to be resolved fast. Or maybe a specific killing or a big
fight does indeed qualify, and if so, theres nothing
wrong with that.
But maybe it isnt so simple, especially when different
people want a lot of different things, and when the
Circle knights stay in an area for a good long while.
This opens up new alliances, new developments, and
new goals for people. In that case, maybe the crisis
point comes about as a series of events rather than
just one.
A venture ends with some wrapping-up and perhaps
the Circle knights departure, meaning that you can
play out some of the aftermath of the impressive or
exciting events, and then stop. Certain situations

and problems may still be occurring, and make sure

you dont cut off a Circle knight from some intended
action but play doesnt have to run down every last
detail once something like this has happened.

AFTERMATH

Finish the session by describing the long-term consequences of the venture for the young king and Rolke.
By default, it turns out well. Even if the place was left
a smoking ruin, or even if all the Circle knights died
horribly, or even if the depraved Rbaja wizard was
left ruling supreme, the outcome still works out well
for the long-term arc of the halting, not-especiallydirected social changes that began with the cultural
revolution in Rolke.
Theres no need to justify or explain how that happens. Dont try to nail the long-term outcome down
either in its own details or as a direct consequence
of the events in the venture. You dont even have to
try to tie it all together with the results of hitting the
tripwire during play. At the very least, word of how
the members of the Circle did their best eventually
has some effect, and such things are culturally diffuse
and cant really be controlled or directly attributed to
single events. You can look at it as an arc of justice if
you like, for which even unlikely events such as massacres or disasters can rebound in positive ways.

A killing is preceded by the decision to kill on

someones part.
Drastic effects of magic like Gifts or massive
destruction are preceded by the decision to use
particular spells or oaths toward certain ends.
Arguments and their breakdown into more
extreme action are preceded by the decision to
like or dislike someone or his or her goals, or by
the decision to let ones past be triggered (like a
Key Event).
You can see the pattern. If a fight, for instance, is not
caused by a dedicated in-play decision to kill, either
by a Circle knight toward someone or the other way
around, then its not a crisis point in enjoyable fictional terms, its merely a set-piece. Such decisions come
about in dozens of possible ways: a failed Wits roll in
a dangerous location, failed Charm rolls and escalations from there, straightforward moral disgust at a
persons actions or views, and more. The mechanics
of play are built specifically to open the door to such
decisions without having to program them.

Illus. Rachel Kahn

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Circle of Hands
The only way for this long-term effect not to happen
is for the Circle knights to hit all the tripwires during
a venture. In that case, well, it wasnt a good day for
the Circle or for the king, and whatever the longer
arc of Rolke and the Crescent Land may be, the aftermath of this venture would be one of the grimmer
moments of adversity for it.
Single-component ventures offer the interesting
combination of being less complex, but also of an
all-or-nothing tripwire in this effect.

You can see, I hope, that theres no real way for the
people playing the Circle knights to work toward
or against these outcomes. They dont know what
the tripwires are during the venture, so cant try to
avoid them. You cant really say the possible negative
outcome is all their fault, at least not in terms of
direct blame. The defeat is a more abstract, longterm, post-venture, non-play issue, about the venture
but not necessarily anything that happens in the
venture in play-terms, including the details of the
tripwire. Tying it to the tripwire(s) only serves as a
useful signal.

SOME THOUGHTS
FROM PLAYTESTING
Learning a game and teaching a game typically
happen at the same time, so all the textual verbiage in
the world like this chapter falls at the wayside when
people sit together with fixed tropes and procedures
in mind. Circle of Hands is its own thing, in play, and
assuming we know how to play a fantasy game or

the setting is merely a skin will trip you right up.

Theres a learning curve involved for everyone: certainly about the mechanics of magic or fighting, but
more importantly, about the interplay between what
is prepped and known, and what is left to emerge
during play.
Most people who playtested entered into a venture
with a what do I do mentality, looking for the GM to
situate and cue them into answering that question.
I found that getting into the more appropriate who
am I mind-set cant be forced, but rather treated as a
process. Some points which might help include:
The knights are self-directed. Theyre not
policemen or special agents with an assigned
mission.
Theres a back-story, and they may or may not
learn some or any of it.
Many people in the venture will have strong
words, responses, actions, and reactions.
There isnt anything about a matched-in-power
challenge.
In the long-term, the whole situation is probably going to resolve well but it also might not,
and theres not much they can do about that.
Its definitely educational for everyone to see a Circle
knight die and for play to continue.
I think it takes a couple of ventures to get the feel for
all of this and also to see the point of playing different
characters each time.

BETWEEN VENTURES
Circle knights who survived a venture have a chance to improve their attributes. Choose a single attribute currently at 9 or less, and roll 2d6. If the result is higher than its current value, improve its value by 1. Regardless of
the result, no other attributes may be tested this way at this time.

NEW VENTURES
For the second venture and all thereafter, the GM briefly describes one of the components of the upcoming
venture and says what region its in. You pick any of the Circle knights you want excepting the one you played
last time. When you choose the new one, if he or she is not a wizard, you may trade out the spells as you like,
maintaining points equal to Wits, always both white and black.
Ventures can re-visit locations. If the people playing the Circle knights all want to go somewhere in a previous
venture, they can. The GM prepares as usual but if necessary, overrides the rolled location. Alternately the GM
may say, upon rolling, to say, Hey, this result would be perfect back at that location we played before, and to
override the rolled location in order to use the components at the preferred spot.
When revisiting a location, the GM should make up new named people associated with the component or components for this new venture. The named people the characters already know from the previous venture can
certainly still be there and still be played, but they arent associated with the preparation components.

78

Circle of Steel
NEW PLAYERS AND MISSING PLAYERS

I do want this: lots and lots of sessions with a venture

apiece, with long-term individual participation, a lot
What happens if initial Circle creation is disrupted in
of accumulated fictional material, and plenty of local
some way? What happens if some people cant play
and personal changes brought about through play.
following initial Circle creation? What happens if
But achieving this is a real-world, real-people phepeople join the game later with new characters?
nomenon. You do not get a grand campaign merely
Ideally, I wish none of these would ever happen, to
by saying that your game at the table will be one, or by
the point where Id even suggest telling the players,
claiming that your game design is supposed to be one.
Sorry, no. But I know that I need a more pragmatic
You dont get it by making social promises that itll
solution.
happen, nor by designing
and publishing reams and
The best thing for the first
the only real payoff is internal in
reams
of setting or story-arc
is to wait until all the chareach one: moments of pure charmaterial.
acter expression in action and at
acter creation prior to the
risk, ending in triumph or disaster.
half-and-half comparison
The only thing that can
is done, before assigning
m a ke l o n g - t e r m p l ay
the extra points. In other words, take everyone up
happen is that people are not only getting value out
to the Key Events, and then merely wait until all the
of playing this game together, they see that more and
new kinds of value arise from playing together again.
characters are ready, then go ahead and finish. The
last bits are pretty easy and could even be done over
I look at tables out there where it works, and they tell
email, or just before playing the first venture when
me what matters: the increasing depth and shared
you gather again.
enjoyment of the individual characters, in this case,
the Circle knights themselves.
For the second, go ahead and play, but keep the
characters made by the non-participants out of the
Thats why my vision of play does not require the
loop for re-play. When and if they want to join in,
ventures outcomes to change the setting directly.
they have to play one of the characters they made to
My thinking is that the new regime and new ideas in
jump-start them into the available circle. But after a
Rolke are strengthened by the Circle, by and large,
venture or two, enough is enough if someone hasnt
and that this is best taken as a given in the settings
been able to join in by then, then the characters they
long-term history and isnt modeled or monitored
made fade out of play.
in play. Thats why play maintains a certain distance

For the third, retaining the initial cutoff value is the

best plan, with new characters simply added to that
list and taking the +1 (or not) as its prior-assigned
boundary dictates. What I do not recommend is permitting a player to sit down at the table and choose
from the Circle without bringing anything to it. He
or she should bring two characters just like everyone
else did, and play one of those for that players first
time at the table, just like they did as well.
I also wish that no one would miss a session of play,
because observing how each Circle knight is played,
each time, by different people, is a key mechanic of
the game.

LONG-TERM PLAY

Playing Circle of Hands isnt about building a grand

campaign, but it is about playing many sessions. And
yes, I know thats confusing. It breaks the dichotomy
of campaign, implying big changes in the characters and/or setting, vs. one-shot, implying a single
session.

from the king and his holdings, too, such that ventures set in Rolke still require a fair amount of travel.

Since there is no resulting arc of setting-level accomplishment from a string of ventures, the only real
payoff is internal in each one: moments of pure
character expression in action and at risk, ending in
triumph or disaster.
Achieving that result is enough for me, without a
larger arc to embed it in. Therefore play should end
primarily because everyone playing thinks that the
dramatic outcomes within ventures have hit a high
point, serving as an intrinsic climax.

BIGGER ISSUES

The larger story of the Crescent land over time, specifically the fate of Rolke, is not itself a play mechanic
or even an expected feature of play. Whatever that
saga is, yes, to the characters, the Circle is instrumental
in the outcome. But play and we as people dont make
it happen through our actions and ideas at the table,
i.e., not as a direct effect of the ventures we play.

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Circle of Hands
A lot of playtesters were interested in getting a bigger perspective, broadening the scope, thinking about the larger
setting, and considering the resolution of the magical war. The trouble is, up-scaling our attention to these makes
the drama of an individual Circle knight smaller. Thats my main concern in practice. Im prioritizing emergent
story for individuals, much as the fictional development and personal fates of Batiatus or Gannicus or any other
important character in the recent Stars Spartacus series was the emergent story, not the fate of the slave rebellion.
Even a larger map is unknown. Im dealing with a Nordic-German Dark Ages analogue culture in a region which
combines the geography of the Levant and the Baltic, with the ecology of the northern California coast. Where in
the world is this? Near the equator, near a pole? What is that crescent bay, half of an inland sea or the coast of an
ocean? What isolates it from the surrounding areas, where are the trade routes of other human populations located?
What is this world? Is it a world, in the sense of a planet going around a star? Is it an other-dimensional Earth? Or
is it something completely different, like a ... dare I say, like a lozenge?

What are the overall weather patterns (into which the described seasons fit), how long is a year? In fact, whats the
whole sky like? Is the sun a sun? Is there a moon, like our moon, and does it do the same things, visually?
Is the magical war more broadly fought over continents, perhaps even globally?
I dont know and I dont want to know. To a great extent Im letting the regions isolation do the work for me staying close to the cultures limited knowledge level lets me play stupid about world-building, and for this games
character-centric focus, thats the way I like it. For example, the sun, moon, and stars of the Crescent Land are
either just as we know them, or so close that the peoples experience of them cant be distinguished from ours,
without explaining (or knowing) why.
Im thinking about the early presentation of Glorantha, which originally encompassed a pretty small area, with
implied more stuff out there, but with a lot of mythic and magic history concentrated in that small area. More
recently, the game Shadows of Esteren does a nice job of the same thing. The logic is, sure, there may be more of
the world, but whats happening here is powerful and moving, so lets stay right here.
Or maybe Im merely too close to it at present. Maybe Ill conceive of more world one day, or maybe someone
else will generate great ideas through play.

RESOLUTION: ROLLING DICE

Inside the scenes at last! All of the following material is integrated with the character options and the components
of the venture, so you may want to cross-reference with Chapter 3 as you go.
First rule: in all the situations in which dice can be
rolled for resolution, then they are indeed rolled. Its
not supposed to be a choice by the GM or by anyone
else. The various situations in which dice arent
used are explicitly called out so otherwise, useem.
The ordinary roll to achieve something is 2d6 + the
relevant attribute. The target number is 12: if your
sum is 12 or higher, then the character succeeds.
This resolution is wholly binary; it either works or it
doesnt. There are no fumbles, no criticals, and except
in situations involving injury, no degrees of effect.
Second rule: when a Circle knight is involved in
the action, then restrict the resolution to the Circle
knights rolls. Dont roll Charm or Wits or anything
similar for any people or creatures who arent
Circle knights. Their actions are always professionappropriate and succeed unless a Circle knight stops

80

or pre-empts them, which is what the roll is for. The

exception concerns violence among named characters and certain creatures, as discussed in Chapter 5.
Extra difficulty is represented by less dice, typically
a single die. These difficulties are not imposed by
whim but by specific details called out in the rules.
If situational and magic modifiers take a character to
no dice, then the character is now out of his or her
league with this task and no roll can be made.
Bonus dice are not assigned for advantages in
ordinary tasks, but magic may provide them, and
theres an advantage die intrinsic to the combat rules
described in Chapter 5. If the character is acting with
such an advantage, and if its not a fight, then forget
the roll, he or she does whatever it is automatically.

Circle of Steel
WHAT THE ATTRIBUTES DO

Brawn exerts physical force upon the world. Its primarily used for delivering damage and dealing with
injury, and hypothetically for some kind of strength
or lift action, although I never saw the latter in a
playtest.
Quickness is about reactivity of all kinds, both physical reflexes or alertness of attention. Its the primary
attribute for combat effectiveness. It does not refer to
raw speed, which is less important than the ability to
move quickly without falling down or forgetting that
somethings in the way.

Rolling to notice isnt relevant to this game because

such concerns are always wrapped up in some other,
more concrete problem, like getting bludgeoned or
falling into a trap. Since every attribute is mental
and emotional as well as physical, the basic roll to
deal with the problem necessarily includes whatever
noticing would be involved.

Wits orients a person in difficult or vague circumstances, including geography, social dynamics, and
connections among known details. It does not refer
to memory capacity or education.

This means you dont get to sneak past guards. There

arent any jobs in the modern sense, so if someones
guarding somewhere, then he or she really means it,
and so they see you. Youre effectively dealing with
a fight situation in which excellent evasive success
means you get past, and if not, youre embroiled in the
fight mechanics. Theres no sneaky guy profession
which means they stand there scratching themselves,
so forget it.

Charm is about establishing relationships and winning

social trust. The term is a lot broader than its modern
use, including both lying and telling the truth, and
social regard of all kinds. A person uses this attribute
practically all the time, whether intending to or not.

There are no individually-designated skills in the

game. Instead, a persons professions define the scope
of his or her deliberate actions, and the relevant attribute is used for the required dice roll.

At all times, rolling with an attribute uses its current value, which is often reduced by injury or other
problems.
It is possible for a Circle knight to have one attribute
at 10, which given a 2d6 roll and a target of 12, seems
like automatic success. And in optimal circumstances,
it is, which is awesome, dont get me wrong. However,
the aforementioned reduction is still a possibility, as
is rolling with a single die under many circumstances.

HELPING

People may cooperate in two ways:

If the action could be done by one of them, but
the others help is relevant or makes it easier,
then dice are rolled for both, and if either succeeds, the job is accomplished.
If the action is only possible because they are
cooperating, then dice are rolled for both, and
both must succeed for the job to be done.

NOTICING

Outside of a fight, noticing things is automatic per

profession. At first that sounds great: if a person
doesnt have a relevant profession, then theyre terrible noticers, and whoever is trying to do something
gets away with it. It also means that if one is, for
instance, a scholar, then finding the right book or
noticing which one looks funny requires no roll.

PROFESSIONS RULES

There is no general education in the culture. Life is

tough people dont have time or opportunities for
side hobbies and developing skills outside of their
demanding daily tasks. Therefore if your Circle
knight doesnt have a profession relevant to an
intended action, he or she effectively cant do it.
This is one of the more obvious differences between
characters in this game and modern people. We
receive general education, we can observe other
social classes in action, and we have adapted many
professional tasks into leisure activities, so we consider many things subject to common sense which
in this setting are indeed profession-specific. Rolling
a big rock aside requires practical knowledge of rocks,
soil, and brute force, none of which is a feature of
the gentry (who are quite limited in professions), for
example, or a merchant. An outdoorsman, farmer, or
arguably a low-martially trained person would know
what to do.
This goes double for weaponry. Without one of the
two martial professions, people are extremely limited
in their fighting ability, often to the point of being
entirely incapable. There are a few exceptions, such as
stabbing someone in a brawl, an outdoorsmans skill
with a bow, and the quarterstaff, justly famous as the
all mans weapon. (See Chapter 5 for combat rules.)

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Circle of Hands
Keep other exceptions extremely rare. Exceptions
would be the most basic unskilled human actions,
which require a roll only under very adverse conditions, and in which case the relevant attribute score
may be used. In my playtesting, no such roll has yet
been employed.

DEALING WITH PEOPLE

To review: the initially-prepared named people have

scores 8 5 4 2 allocated to the four attributes, and for
the single most problematic individual, his or her
sum of scores is equal to the sum of the highest-sum
Circle knight currently in play. Ascended characters
are similar, once given a stronger identity during
play; they have scores 4 4 4 4, although the GM may
re-distribute the points if the fictional circumstances
call for it (e.g. we know the character is the toughest
man available).
As mentioned earlier, these peoples scores are rarely
if ever directly rolled outside of combat or in reference
to certain spell effects that call for it. As with other,
unnamed people, most action is resolved through
the Circle knights vs. 12 rolls. See Chapters 5 and 6
for more nuanced processes concerning combat and
magic.
If a player-character wants to stop or change what any
of these people is doing, that requires a vs. 12 roll. If
successful, this is a completely effective action.

Circle of Steel

However, dont under-estimate people. Circle knight

or not, youre usually on their turf, and going straight
up to them and using an attribute against them will
only employ a single die. You can get the full two
dice if you do something appropriate to social rank
or indisputably effective first, or after you manage to
make a penalized Charm roll, perhaps with magical
help. This applies even to I kill him rolls dont
think you can kill a person that easily on terrain
theyve worked all their life. The helpless peasant
youre chasing down on horseback knows where the
woodchuck holes are.

CHARM IS EVERYTHING

At the community level, a stranger is afforded nearneutral hospitality for a reasonable time on the
conditions that he or she pitches in with community
work, behaves in a reassuring social rank-specific way,
and eventually moves the hell on down the road. It
may be taken as given that when the Circle knights
arrive and if no one simply starts killing people or
zapping spells from the first minute, theyll be made
welcome by the various social and professional
groupings in the admittedly taciturn, grim, practical
way of the Crescent Land.
The named people in the venture are more opinionated. To them, these newcomers must stay or leave,
help or be squelched, fight for them or get killed, or

anything like these and more besides. They act on

these expectations and desires, they do not skulk
around in hopes the Circle knights wont notice and
will go away.

rolls, a Circle knight can get away with blatant murder

or other anti-social acts. Thats what life in the Crescent Land is like, and the knights, like everyone else,
think this is normal.

The rule is: every single Circle knight gets his or

her own Charm vs. 12 roll upon interacting with
any named person in the venture. It doesnt matter
whether the Circle knight is trying to charm that
person at all. This moment of resolution is not only
automatic, its hugely consequential for that person.
He or she responds to that particular Circle knights
presence one way or the other, and not mildly either.

One may try to overcome a prior impression with a

new Charm roll. This may be attempted in a later
scene from the initial roll, after some resolution
requiring dice has been occurred regarding the
person in question. Such a re-try only as announced
by the person playing the knight; it cannot be brought
into play by the GM.

A failed roll means this person doesnt trust

you (meaning the Circle knight), thinks youre
either intrinsically dangerous to the community
or inimical to his or her interests or both. They
will in fact enlist their social network to expel
or kill you, openly if they feel secure about it or
treacherously if they dont.
A successful roll means this person not only
thinks youre pretty all right to have in the community, but personally trusts you even when
you make harsh decisions and commit extreme
acts. He or she has, effectively, adopted you as
kin and also expects you to commit similarly
to his or her problems and goals.
All appeals, discussions, and agreements with this
person are subject to the Charm results, per Circle
knight.
It might seem odd that a given named person may
extremely like one Circle knight and loathe another,
when the two of them rode into the village together
wearing the same emblem. Think of it this way:
people holding these strong views often assume that
others are of the same mind, a very strong assumption that easily overlooks observational facts.
Heres the tough news: sometimes this roll is made
with only a single die. If the Circle knight is socially
and professionally completely out of his or her
element in this interaction, and if he or she hasnt
demonstrated such activity in the community, then
the rolls reduced to this woeful status. Be aware:
show up, fit in, do some work, be socially and professionally who you are, because otherwise, you get a
measly single die and your life is on the line.
Yes, given a rash of failed Charm rolls, the Circle
knights biggest problem may simply be a mass
attempt to murder them. Yes, given successful Charm

82

Illus. Rachel Kahn

WITS AND KNOWLEDGE

Wits rolls are going to be a potential problem for players and GMs who are used to a trail of bread-crumb
clues in their games.
Fortunately, a lot of things are perceived without Wits
rolls, simply through social rank and profession. If
theres a village in the mountains and everyone has
iron heads on their spears, then you dont need to use
Wits to find the smith, or to find that hes a couple
of villages away. The GM does well to throw tons of
this kind of information at the players so they can feel
secure that their characters soak up a lot of information simply through their own life-experience and
membership in the culture.
Wits rolls most concrete applications are to get familiar with locations and to pick up quickly on intimate
social ties like kin and romance. To keep this from
getting confusing, reserve these rolls for proactive
analyses of whats just been said during play.
A couple of people interact in some way which
implies a relationship, and a player calls for a
Wits roll to see if his or her Circle knight gets a
social-emotional insight into what it might be.
A local person walks the knights through a
confusing system of gorges and gullies to get to
a lake, and a player calls for a Wits roll to see if
his or her Circle knight stays oriented during
the traverse.
These rolls are also good for helping shape ascensions of NPCs. Use a Wits roll to find someone whos
good at midwifery, or an old person, or whatever, even just the guy who makes wagon-wheels and
knows how to fix or make shields all of those are
key to seeing lots more named NPCs appear who are
not standoffish toward your character, and the Wits
rolls pave the way.

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Circle of Hands
They are not, however, not lie-detectors, clue-finders,
or a tool to work your way through the story. The
positive side of that is that a failed roll is not a block or
stall-out. Its consequential because a character might
not get out of the single-die hole for particular things,
or because the worst features of a dangerous location
might descend upon him or her, or because the social
environment of the venture changes. As with Charm
rolls, rolling vs. Wits usually establishes context for
quite a bit of later resolution.

Its also helpful to lock down whats known to whom

at the start of a venture.
The knights know:
The lowest-numbered component of the
venture, in the barest possible detail, as
available through rumor and intermediate
parties.
If one or more came from that region, they
know enough cultural details, creatures,
and some history to be useful during travel
and in arriving, but not about the ventures
prepared people or circumstances.
Most people who live there know:
About the Circle, but extremely vaguely, and
without much automatic judgment, preferring to see how these particular people
behave.
About magic, but mainly as a mystery or
threat; most people are mildly religious and
have been told magic is bad, but in practice
they stray to favor white magic instead of
shunning it because it seems so helpful.
Specialized individuals know:
Priests understand the long-term implications of both kinds of magic. How a person
chooses to act on that knowledge is definitely an individual decision.
Wizards definitely understand the colors of
magic and hold strong opinions about it, but
how well-informed they are, or how sensible
the opinions may be, varies greatly.
The specific region provides some tweaks for all these
things:
Famberge is so torn by local raids and petty
wars that people cling to any sort of power that
might protect them, or perhaps more accurately, which is aimed at something besides
themselves.

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Circle of Steel

People of Tamaryon generally understand avatars and eidolons better than in other regions, to
the extent of organizing socially against them,
but also succumbing to them all the harder.

other information with those who can understand it.

Not doing this is considered bad citizenship, for lack
of a better term, and such a person will find that word
travels well ahead of him or her on the road.

Spurr is shot through and through with the

magic of Rbaja, leading to a strong general
understanding of its details like Black Speech,
but also more hidden hostility waiting to retaliate. Practicing Rbaja wizards are rare there for
this reason, whereas knowledgeable scholars
are more common.

Freemen simply provide all of what they do directly,

first to their families and kin and fellow participants,
and then to their immediate communities. Its not
really exchange, but effectively, if someone works
for and with you, then they end up being fed and
sheltered just like you are, and considered worthy
of some attention and consideration from everyone
around.

Rolke is more complex:

People know well of the Circle and its
support of the young king, and personal
histories about the social events run very hot
in either direction.
People are at least aware that gray magic
can be practiced, whether they like or hate
the idea, and priests explicitly support one
side or the other to the point of violence.

WEALTH, GOODS, AND SERVICES

Members of the gentry are never expected to provide

anything or make restitution for services like food
and a place to sleep. Its merely the way that when
they go places, other people make their lives liveable.
This assumption carries interesting consequences
sometimes, as when a peasant family cuts the guys
throat and butchers his horse for food for the village,
but most of the time it plays out as expected without
coercion and without resentment.
The Circle knights are equipped and serviced much
like gentry, and their Circle emblem is coded as such.
Although their non-gentry personal backgrounds are
blatantly obvious, people they meet arent stupid and
realize that theyre dealing with scary people who
can back up their social claim, odd as that claim may
be. Individuals may comment upon the perceived
contradiction or choose to offer resources according
to the evident social rank rather than the claim, but
it doesnt prompt automatic hostility by default. If
youre looking to justify a failed Charm roll, though,
thats a pretty good way.
Professionals pay and get paid in very similar currency a combination of food, shelter, general social
care, and respect, sometimes effectively permanent
but on a basis of pure service. They can do things
others cant and therefore, such things will have to be
done. A traveling professional is expected to put in a
little work or if possible, to exchange techniques and

Peasants are surprisingly similar to gentry in being

included and taken for granted, in a grubbier, less
comfortable way. Theyre in service to everyone else,
all the time, for jobs that unskilled, too grubby to
want to do, or both. In return, they receive necessary
if minimal resources in a social arrangement which
is never commented upon. They dont travel much
unless seasonal work takes them along familiar
routes, and they are allowed to live and to eat insofar
as they keep to themselves, without anyone hesitating
to put out a bucket of food or failing to keep a lot of
straw in the outlying huts of the community. Its more
or less a civic task to make sure that the peasants of
the area have such resources available, even if no one
troubles to find out their names or ask their opinion
about anything.
Its hard to imagine how unconstructed most of this is.
There are no servants, there are no inns, there are no
retailers, there are no markets, although commerce
does occur wains of iron ore are pulled from the
mining village as far around and about as is practical,
and people in big or well-traveled communities set up
stalls full of food or to offer services. But quantified
currency and paying for services arent part of the
culture at all; characters arent carrying wallets and
counting their change. As long as one is operating
in the context of social rank, then typically, everyone
else understands and accepts that context.
When named people are involved, the required
Charm vs. 12 rolls dictate how they personally deviate
from these social standards, for good or ill.

ASCENDING INDIVIDUALS

Unnamed people can be ascended to named status

during play through several means, usually prompted by players attention to them. One good indicator
is when a player-character asks someone in a crowd

or otherwise known only in terms of group membership, Whats your name? When this happens, grab
a name from the list in Chapter 3.
Other slightly subtler bits of play always do it too:
A Circle knight might seek an individual
implied by previous activity: I go find that guy
we talked to earlier, or similarly, the GM might
do the same: Its the same guy you talked to
earlier. Doing this requires a Wits vs. 12 roll.
A Circle knight seek an individual previously
unknown, but reasonably inferred to be in a
current group: Send me your toughest man!
or I look for one of the scholars who seems like
he knows what hes doing, or Which guy looks
like he might be in charge? Doing this requires
a Wits vs. 12 roll.
Some spells automatically ascend unnamed
characters theyre cast upon, as indicated in the
spell descriptions in Chapter 6.
An ascended person has Brawn, Quickness, Wits,
and Charm of 4 each by default, and the GM has the
option to rearrange this total in any way that seems
suitable for whatevers been established about him or
her so far. He or she also has the relevant professions
and social rank as established already in play, with no
need to adjust them to the limits of character creation
in Chapter 3.
All of the rules concerning Charm rolls apply to justascended people; nothing about ascending someone
establishes a relationship that supercedes the Charm
vs. 12 roll. Ascending unnamed characters but following up with failed Charm rolls essentially means the
Circle knight is going around irritating the hell out
of people.

GENDER AND SEXUALITY

Individual matters among the Circle knights are their

business and need not lead to conflicts during play.
A female Circle knight can expect to encounter
some confusion, compounded by the more general
uncertainty people feel about Circle knights social
status, especially since each ones social rank of origin
is evident. However, she is not subject to social censure differently from male Circle knights and does
not encounter automatic mechanical adversity. As
with the men, once they earn local respect in any
way, people will accept their presence and decisionmaking power without qualms thereafter.

85

Circle of Hands
The example character in Chapter 3, Krimhilde,
doesnt encounter any problem at all, as she is obvious
gentry. Even for non-gentry women knights, the social
semiotics of their arms and armor are actually in
their favor: no one says, Why is the silly little woman
wearing armor, they say instead, accurately, Oh shit,
that woman must know exactly what shes doing.

at best snap play into a degree of clarity that does not

serve this end well.
Sexual assault and similar topics are present in the
backdrop in Chapter 2 because they are great evils
and the Crescent Land is not absolved of any imaginable evil. But they are not obliged to be present in the
situation (Chapter 3s material) for any person in the
venture, and therefore are present only as a deliberate
choice. In considering it, do not fail to consider the
following points.

A local community in the Crescent land is tied together tightly by kin, economic necessity, and shared
history, much of it violent. Therefore sexual activity
is a big deal; everyone cares about whos doing what
Whether the experience is to include this
with whom. As outsiders, Circle knights actions are
content, which should model the best literary
under scrutiny and judgment. They are plot-armored
and cinematic examples rather than gore-porn,
regarding romantic commitment and pregnancy, such
misery porn, or exploitation.
that players can choose what happens either way. A
If present, the degree of explicit presence in
Circle knight could well end up married during or
the imagined material is its own variable to be
following an venture, for example. The events leadjudged by anyone and everyone playing.
ing up to it, though, may well incur individual and
There is no right answer,
community responses which
because its a specific issue for
would have been a big part of
the venture.
A local community in the the table. A flat no to the first
Crescent land is tied togeth- is just as good a way to play
Rape is a reality of the Crescent
this game as any other. And be
er tightly by kin, economic
Land in the range of 10-15%
careful: there are bad ways to
necessity, and shared history,
of women, somewhat less for
include it, and its presence in
much of it violent.
men. In a war-raid or other
the backdrop isnt license for
circumstances of social and
crossing Lines in scenes.
physical disempowerment, some of the men commit
rape, toward men and women, sometimes horrifiRELIGION
cally, sometimes including murder. This culture has
Community religious practice is always an effective
no over-arching rule of law: in those times and places
venue for organizing and political power, and a lot of
when raw force is the prevailing power, then rape is
individual and group actions may take on the local
both available and unaccountable. It fits right into the
religious vocabulary. Priests, when present, prompt
use of cruelty and intimidation as social order.
even more social action than gentry or other more
overtly-powerful people, because their opinions
The result is not a rape is OK culture, far from it. Its
spread invisibly through groups. Since interacting
a constant fear, not an accepted norm most people
with them is subject to Charm rolls just like everyone
hate it at a knowledgeable, visceral level. That means
else, screwing that up carries its own special problems.
that unaccountable, above, can be overcome. Any
degree of social support for the targeted persons
Aside from basic issues of scarcity or violence, the
can prompt both prevention and retaliation. Group
main thing religious feeling will be directed toward is
action may well ensue, and not even gentry status
the open use of magic. Doctrinally, the religion of the
helps against that. Even the most powerful person,
Crescent Land is opposed to it, but people dont really
who counters group retaliation with group action of
practice doctrine so much as adopt its terms to their
his or her own, can expect a knife in the dark sooner
own daily use. The general populace of the Crescent
or later.
Land isnt well-informed about Circle knights use of
both types of magic, and religious views toward magic
Circle knights are plot-armored against rape; it does
are locally various enough to prevent a consistent
not happen to them for whatever in-fiction justificaresponse to it. Most people are scared of magic, but
tion may be imposed. My reasoning is that the game
theyre going to be pretty pragmatic about judging its
revolves around morally murky problems for the
use to be good or bad.
knights, and that rape directed toward them would

86

Circle of Steel
ALL SORTS OF ADVERSITY
GROUPS AND SCALE

For purposes of interaction outside of combat, a

group is about six people or more, taking action with
a common purpose or with a common identifier such
as social rank.
Affecting or stopping a group is out of the range of
what an individual Circle knight can do. It cannot be
reasoned with, appealed to, threatened, intimidated,
or easily evaded. Nor can its actions be stopped. For
fighting a group, see Chapter 5 its basically not possible without a lot of strategy or magic or both.
Therefore group action is a serious consideration
during play. It behooves the Circle knight to find and
become close to key individuals in the community, to
buffer the consequences of pissing off a whole sector
of society. Identifying such people is a good candidate
for a Wits vs. 12 roll.

GETTING LOST

This is not a map culture. Only scholars even know

what maps are, and the few they have made are
extremely limited in scope. Locals know their regions
exquisitely well; outsiders need local help or risk getting lost.
Every venture includes at least one tough location,
notable for specific dangers, confusing passages or
obstacles, or both. This is another situation in which
Wits is the key attribute, whether to orient or to
understand or to anticipate. Failing the roll leads to
any number of things as specified for that location,
whether ambushes from lurking creatures, being
lost until someone finds you, or whatever else makes
sense for that particular venture.
Getting lost away from a community in an unfamiliar
area is very bad news; unless one is or is with an outdoorsman, getting un-lost is practically impossible,
and no one else knows how to catch game or which
berries to eat any better than a modern person.
Hunger and thirst: after one day, roll Brawn vs.
12 using two dice; if it fails, suffer loss of Brawn
equal to the difference from 12. If the deprivation persists another day, roll again using
current Brawn and a single die with the same
effect. On the third day, reduce Brawn by the
difference between its current level and Brawn,
and do the same for every day thereafter. At 0
Brawn, the person is helpless and effectively

immobilized, and dies about a week from the

start of the deprivation, or at about three days if
water isnt available.
Weather and exposure are a constant danger, never
far from anyones mind, as a freezing rain can kill a
person out in the open as surely as a spear-thrust.
When a person is caught in such conditions, roll
Brawn vs. 12 using two dice; if it fails, suffer loss
of Brawn equal to the difference from 12, as well
as a Wits vs. 12 roll using two dice or a single die
if an outdoorsman is not present. Failing that
roll repeats the cycle using a single die for all
rolls. Particularly harsh weather or deprived
conditions like little or no clothing puts these
hourly rather than daily.
Similarly, running around at night is simple stupidity.
Even a sprained ankle is enough to threaten ones life
in the wrong place or in the wrong weather.
Doing this at all requires an immediate Wits vs.
12 roll using two dice, or one if no outdoorsman
is present. Failure means getting disoriented,
which then requires a Quickness vs. 12 roll using
a single die. If thats failed, then Quickness is
reduced by the difference from 12. This roll is
repeated as long as the person keeps trying to
move around; when Quickness is brought to 0,
then he or she is immobilized.
All the above effects are additive, so try not to get lost
without food or water in bad weather at night.

BREAKING PHYSICAL OBJECTS

Nothing is necessarily crappy about crafted items

in the Crescent land, but they arent modern industrial grade either. Clothing, horse trappings, pens,
shoes, and anything else the characters might use,
all get beaten up over time. For purposes of play, this
may remain completely incidental, although as an
opening for interaction, it makes perfect sense for
someone to stop by a leatherworkers workplace and
inquire about a new belt.
What does matter during play are weapons and
armor. Not only can they break during combat (see
Chapter 5), but they will always be battered enough
after combat to become worthless unless they are
tended to. Relevant professions will do the job, such
as low martial or artisan, as will the Repair spell.
Shields and gambesons: fix after a fight, or
theyre automatically ruined

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Circle of Hands
Cone helm, mail, and most weapons: tend after
a fight, or negate the advantage die in further use
Steel arms and spangenhelm are effectively
invulnerable as long as they receive routine
care, which doesnt have to be role-played, and
as long as they are not targeted by magic such
as the Ruin spell.

DROWNING, FALLING, AND FIRE

Never mind all that Hollywood splashing about and

calling for help real drowning is silent and above all,
quick. Outdoorsmen know how to swim, and players
may decree that their characters have some experience with water, enough to paddle around and to stay
oriented if submerged. Anyone else, bluntly, tries to
breathe, fills their lungs, and dies.
Mail is no good either. Even a swimmer is shit out of
luck if he or she goes into deep water unexpectedly
wearing mail. Anyone in this situation needs friends
help, fast.
Fighting in water? Forget anything but the knife or
if you have at least some chance to stand, the spear.
Against an aquatic creature, guess who has the
advantage.
I dont know if youve ever fallen off a horse, but I
have. Its not good for you. It happens when a horse
is wounded or if its bolted across anything but the
most forgiving terrain.
Drop everything youre holding and roll Quickness vs. 12, for which failure means being put
right out of action for the rest of the scene, with
Quickness reduced to 0. Low entertainers and
people with the high martial profession can roll
two dice, but everyone else gets only one.
Higher falls that arent instantly lethal require the
same roll for anyone not wearing mail, and for the
people who are well, thats an instant take-down
to Quickness 0. And if you didnt know already, at
heights that do kill, water is just as lethal as a solid
surface.
Fire doesnt do relevant damage at brief exposure, but
contact for more than a couple of seconds reduces
both Brawn and Quickness by 1, with no defenses
possible. This occurs when a fire is big and theres no
option except to go through it. Typically a persons
reflexes protect his or her eyes.
A person trapped in a burning structure, or restrained
and unable to protect himself or herself from ongo-

88

ing fire damage, typically dies of suffocation from

the smoke and from the low oxygen content of the
surrounding air. Barring magic, there is no defense
or possibility of survival.

ANIMALS

As with much else, this is matter of profession. A

person who tries to handle an animal without the
right background is simply asking for an injury,
which will result from a failed Wits vs. 12 roll and
even success on that roll doesnt mean the animal is
obedient.
Given the right profession, animal handling is still a
tough business:
A tamed animal, for ordinary things it does,
does not require a roll
A tamed animal, for things they dont want to
do, requires an ordinary Wits vs. 12 roll; a failed
roll turns it hostile
An untamed, defensive animal requires an ordinary Wits vs. 12 roll

Circle of Steel
they seek to escape and will strike fiercely to do
it.
Snakes are treated as domestic pets in Spurr,
and they are similar to cats in the Crescent
Land: they just do their own thing around the
place and avoid anything unfamiliar, becoming
dangerous only if cornered or restrained.
Animals ascend to beast status as soon as they have a
roll directed at them individually which differs from
ordinary domestic practice (see Chapter 7).

DRUGS AND ALCOHOL

Cannabis is universally if infrequently smoked using

wide clay bowls. It is not very potent by modern standards.
When smoking socially, any participant may
roll Charm vs. 12 with two dice to revise a prior
Charm roll result with anyone present.
Quickness rolls are made with a single die
during the rest of the scene.

And untamed, hostile or hungry animal

requires a Wits vs. 12 roll penalized to a single
die

The Crescent land culture has no vocabulary for

post-traumatic stress syndrome, and most Circle
knights probably have it. Mild cannabis is an effective
medication.

Different species have slightly different standards or

values concerning people:

The resinous extract prepared by priests is another

story.

Horses respond well to formal and familiar

behavior even from people they dont know, but
they are easily spooked or bothered, and bolt or
fight upon a failed roll.

Smoking a little bit restricts Quickness and Wits

rolls to a single die for a couple of hours

Dogs dont; by modern standards, dogs in the

Crescent Land are pretty mean and are perfectly
willing to savage people they dont know. A successful roll results merely in not being bitten at
this particular time.

A priest is expected to manage others use judiciously, and those who dont, as well as those
who themselves display the signs of over-use and
addiction, tend to lose reputation rapidly. One
factor that keeps these problems rare is that the
stuff is not especially common and is not distributed
in an organized way.

Wrackers, the huge draft lizards of Tamaryon,

respond well to knowledgeable human handling as long as theyre in familiar surroundings;
a failed roll means they simply dont obey, and
theyre dangerous only if taken somewhere they
dont know.
Oxen dont give a hoot about people and either
follow their habits of work as they are yoked or
driven, or wander freely; they are not dangerous
unless cornered, or incidentally so if theyre in
a group.
Hawks are barely tame and only respond well
at all to a skilled and familiar person; otherwise

die in both Wits and Charm regardless of his or

her current intoxication level even completely
sober.
Caffeine is not known in the Crescent Land.
Plant-derived opiates are at present unknown, but
then again, theres the dried paste derived from the
exudate of the red pode. This stuff is most often
smoked as well, but can also be moistened and
rubbed onto ones gums for a similar effect.
The resulting rather intense high begins with
heightened Wits for about an hour, then settles
into a long lazy phase. The characteristic,
easily-recognized drawl during this phase is a
frequently imitated standby for humor or reference to an over-indulgent personality. In this
state, a person either misses a scene in which he
or she would presumably be present, or if present, he or she is reduced to a single die for both
Wits and Charm and unaware of the penalty,
of course.

Smoking a lot takes a person completely out of

action for about a day.

All sorts of infused high-alcohol concoctions are

available, everywhere, along with mead and beer.
When alcohol is indulged among a group in
relatively small amounts, the participants
are subject to automatic success at Charm
rolls but this effect is not permanent.
Booze in quantity impairs a person pretty
thoroughly, restricting rolls to single die for
all actions for at least a day.
An alcoholic is typically penalized to a single
Illus. Amos Orion Sterns

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Circle of Hands
If a person indulges in the red podes unique
listening ability, then he or she rolls Wits vs.
12, for which failure means addiction; this roll
is repeated with each experience. A pode addict
experiences no long-term mechanical effects
but see the description in Chapter 7 for certain
other considerations.

MEDICINE AND DISEASE

Medical knowledge is minimal to absent in the

Crescent Land culture. People know about applying
pressure to bleeding and splinting bones, but unfortunately, nothing about shock. No one really knows why
one bandaged person is found dead in the morning
and another isnt. There are absolutely no anesthetics:
alcohol isnt one, and there are no opiates.
Circle knights are plot-armored against death by
shock, due to luck alone. Other people brought to
Brawn or Quickness 0 (see Chapter 5) are killed by it
as the GM sees fit.

and personal conflicts within components, but not as

explicit content for scenes. Similarly, the outcomes of
pregnancy for Circle knights are left to their players,
not to GM judgment or dice mechanics.
My reasoning for the Lines in this section is that in a
low-tech culture like the Crescent Land, the vagaries
of infection or other drastic medical problems are
much like lightning strikes: inexplicable in cause,
easily tagged as some kind of judgment or consequence but not with certainty that it cant happen
to oneself. Whereas to modern people, these things
may be seen as pure statistics, untethered to personal
acts and responsibility. Neither the fictional peoples
ignorance nor modern knowledge of medical realities work toward the moral difficulty, except as social
aftermath. Therefore the aftermath is recommended
as a source of strife, but the event in terms of battling
or preventing it is not.

TORTURE

The main killer is infection of injuries by environmental bacteria. The people know nothing of
disinfection or sterile technique, and a person with
an infected wound either survives, perhaps with
a permanently-disabled limb, or dies of gangrene.
Almost all puncture wounds into a body cavity are
fatal. This is one of the primary reasons influences
from Amboriyon get welcomed into communities.

When torture is employed to make a person more

compliant or to instill enough fear in them to change
their actions, then it has debilitating effects, but can
be recovered from. Such things include waterboarding (a very old technique, well-known to the Crescent
land), sleep deprivation, regular simple beatings such
as kicking someone in the ribs ten or twelve times at
a given time of day, and forced isolation.

Circle knights are also plot-armored against infected

injuries. Other injured people may die in the long
term as the GM sees fit.

A person subjected to this treatment becomes

dazed and cooperative after a few days, but
really isnt very good for doing anything competently, to the extent that any task he or she
attempts is failed outright. Given time and
better treatment, the person recovers both their
competence and volition; there is no way to
render a person hyper-suggestible and competent at the same time.

The only dedicated medical practice in the culture

specializes in euthanasia and its associated family
and community counseling. Their technique is
simple: brewing hemlock and administering it in
specific doses and specific intervals so that a person
dies over the course of three or four days. All but the
final dose can be recovered from, as such, although
typically this is done for a person who is dying of
something that would be longer and/or agonizing, so
the final dose is not withheld.
Pregnancy and birth are not considered medical
emergencies, and people skilled in midwifery are
disproportionately better prepared than other medical equivalents, but there still isnt any anesthetic
and certain problems have no solution. If a labor
seems likely to meet problems, or if problems suddenly arrive, such situations are best used as part
of the backdrop and as a good candidate for family

90

More severe treatment such as closely confining a

person for extended periods, providing unhealthy
food and drink, withholding care for illness, or taking
any of the above techniques to the point of injury,
results in ruining a persons health.
A person treated this way is reduced to Brawn 2
and Quickness 2, possibly permanently, and may
well suffer any of a number of behavioral disorders as well, decreasing Charm by two points.
Other, more brutal things to do to people are
merely ways to kill them. No one survives crucifixion or the pole.

Circle of Steel
DIRECT CONTACT WITH
AMBORIYON AND RBAJA

In an Amboriyon zone, natural disease or infection

cannot persist. Given the right social conditions for
avatars, they appear spontaneously and begin their
individual programs. An eidolon is easily summoned
without knowledge of magic, although it still costs
Brawn as per the Eidolon spell, and only one eidolon
is ever active in a given venture (see Chapter 6).

destroying everything but itself.

In this Rbaja periphery, people may effectively Curse

one another without knowing the spell, but it still
costs Brawn (see Chapter 6). Doing so draws the
attention of imps, who fly from the zone to whisper
to the people whove already made use of the darkness in this way, teaching them the Demon spells (see
Chapter 6).

No one knows if theres even a real war at all, in

terms of metaphysical entities with goals. For all we
know, the whole thing is not a goal, but merely the
long-term effect of human wizards seeking advantage
and ideological triumphs over one another, without
regard for the ultimate result. Certainly only the wizWhen Rbaja is literally present, it manifests as
ards provide a voice to the principles; as far as their
charred, stained, and generally blasted-looking
literal manifestations are concerned, they are not
wastelands, and just outside the boundary, the land
conspiracies or plans,
is notably foul: rotten
they do not scheme or
things are notably more
plot, they are not seekThese physical instances or moments pustulent or oozing,
of intrusion, transformation, and as a
ing advantages in human
ordinarily solid things
non-Circle wizard calls it, victory,
terms or footholds.
flake from their surfaces
are straightforwardly toxic to humanHuman wizards do these
and break easily under
ity or any other aspect of reality.
things with great energy
stress, the air is clotted
but the zones and creaand feels like breathing
tures do not.
grease, and water is nasty in a hundred different
ways. Even the microbial rot is short-lived, though,
In practice, the magical war ultimately destroys
giving way to entropic dispersal flaking, drying,
reality, leaving behind only essentialized Rbaja
crumbling, and coming apart. These effects prefigure
and essentialized Amboriyon a metaverse of pure
the gradual expansion of Rbaja across the landscape,
abstraction. Winning that war would be a matter of
usually too slow to notice, but sometimes quite rapid.
one side getting more than the other and ultimately
Both Amboriyon and Rbaja transform a local landscape, ultimately to remove some of it from reality.
Whether prompted by a spell (Wrath and Distort,
respectively) or through some other process, they
are visible, present, and tangible. These physical
instances or moments of intrusion, transformation,
and as a non-Circle wizard calls it, victory, are
straightforwardly toxic to humanity or any other
aspect of reality. Therefore being actually in Amboriyon, up in the clouds, or in Rbaja, within the stained
wastelands, is not possible in play.
More tangible are the zones of influence caused by
these phenomena. When Amboriyon is literally present in the clouds, visible as translucent or gleaming
white battlements and complex edifices, the land
beneath is directly affected: substances of all kinds
and even the air take on a streamy, silvery quality, and
objects details become distinct and clear to the point
of fascination. These effects prefigure events such as
the whole area becoming part of the clouds, or disintegrating into a smooth plain, or anything else which
removes it from ordinary reality in some beautiful but
abstract fashion.

The zones do appear spontaneously, but rarely; more

commonly they come into existence through the
casting of Wrath (which also kills a lot of people) and
Distort (which also prompts corpses in the vicinity to
become draugr (see Chapter 7).
In either kind of zone, spells of the other color cost an
additional point of Brawn (see Chapter 6).
A person who is Marked (Chapter 6) is vulnerable to
influences from these areas. Near a zone, he or she
may use any of the following benefits at will.
Charm rolls gain a bonus equal to the number
of relevant Marks.
Physical injury equal to the number of relevant
Marks returns as if it were fatigue.
Combat advantage is held against creatures of
the other color regardless of all other considerations (see Chapter 5).

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Circle of Hands
Each time a person makes use of any of these, he or she must make a Wits vs. 12 roll or simply disappear into the
clouds or the murk, permanently. The number of relevant Marks act as a penalty to Wits, and for this roll, this
number is not offset by Marks of the other color.
Circle knights must find ways to destroy zones if they can, more generally, to force a withdrawal of the Rbaja or
Amboriyon presence entirely. Ordinary magic doesnt work obviously toward these ends, for example casting
Distort or Wrath toward the other colors manifestation. Zones do not cancel out or balance, merely accelerating
each ones subornment of reality for each, and each gaining part of the territory in question. A variety of ways
remain to be discovered as the Circle gains knowledge and experiments with different ideas, which is left to
individual groups to develop in play.

Chapter

REALISM

I can tell you exactly what I mean by this term. Realism isnt what the mechanics do, but what you say
when you turn the mechanics into fictional narration.

Furthermore, dedicated for-sure killing isnt a goal

in such battles. Its a frequent consequence, but the
usual point is to break through a line of protection
to get to somewhere else, like the village or fields the
attackers plan to burn. In raids and especially in conflicts among gentry played out in the communities of
everyone else, the majority of the killing is carried out
on helpless people.

Granted, some mechanics can screw it up from

the start, by imposing nonsensical options like
Strike three times on your turn while everyone
else stands frozen in place, and stuff like that.
So point #1 is, dont use mechanics that screw
it up.

Such fights are also embedded in a core principle of

situations and preparation, which is that the GM has
not pre-designated any person as the one whos supposed to be killed. Dwell on that for a moment. There
is no big bad or boss in playing Circle of Hands.
That means the decision to kill belongs solely to
the player, when he or she says right out in front of
everyone that his or her character is doing it. It is a
deliberate and judgmental act arising from events
in play, especially social reactions to the character. It
cannot be planned, expected, or scheduled. Consider
as well that the fights outcome is necessarily a turning
point in the whole situation, generating new social
reactions. In practice, it jump-starts a whole new
preparation for the situation right there during play.

When a Circle knight says,

Its time to kill you, this
is how its done.
Illus. Phillip Simpson

illing

Whole battles arent a major part of playing Circle of

Hands. Genuine mass combat is rare in the Crescent
Land. Such details as cavalry strategy, prepared terrain such as bulwarks and pits, and shieldwalls occur
at a small scale of dozens of people, not horizoncovering armies. In play, these events are best played
as an environment, i.e., a situation, within which
scenes occur.

In the life of a Circle knight, battles are less prevalent

than fights: when its personal. This chapter is about
the dedicated, intended killing of another person: not
an abstract foe or faceless opponent, not an obstacle
who says argh and falls out of sight.

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5K

The precise dice and whatnot dont matter much. We

could be flipping a coin for the mechanics as long as
what everyone says matches whatever we want to call
realistic. Its that matching that matters.

But the moment of truth lies with whats said

when the numbers get established. The narration can come from two places:
Directly from the text, effectively read out
loud this what critical-hit tables are
As spoken by humans, inspired by text and
by the immediate fictional circumstances
Circle of Hands is designed to make both major points
work together, and within the second point, to focus
on the second option. My thinking is that a game text
cannot make people be realistic if theyre not inclined
that way. So Ive designed the game for the mechanics
and the descriptive procedure to work really well for
people who are so inclined. Its built to work well for
and greatly excite people who want it to be a certain
way, buy into making that happen, and will get it right
given the opportunity.
Therefore, extreme outcomes like decapitation or getting knocked off your feet are less influenced by whats
established before the dice are rolled although there
is one thing that does, as youll see and are instead
narrated based on the rolls outcomes. This feature
cuts way down on can I can I talk, because attempting something in a specific way is not subject to a raft
of subtle modifiers based on how you said it. In fact,
you dont have to say anything except how the action
begins. Attacks, for instance, should be stated as pretty
straightforward, as in, I throw my axe at him, and
then the effects get clarified based on the severity of
the damage Just clipped his helm, or Crunch!

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Killing

Heres a minor bit of advice based on playtesting: the scene-setting, non-player-character playing person doesnt
have to be the rules-savvy, procedural, and in this case weapon-geeky person too. Its quite liberating to take on
one of those roles without the other, and if two people do this at the table, everyone benefits greatly from both.

SETTING IT UP
POSITIONING

GM a moment to set up the physical circumstances as

indicated by anything that was known right then, and
anything he or she was personally imagining at that
moment. This setup is non-negotiable and does not
include the GM asking questions like where are you
or what are you doing. Similarly, its not a moment
of fictional play, so no one may shout I move over to
the left! or Im climbing up to the roof!

That means this known begins solely with the GM

describing the circumstances of the opening of the
fight. So if someone cries out I attack him, the group
doesnt move right into resolution, but rather gives the

Get this known snapshot into place without yacking and adjusting, and then the procedure gives you
all the time and opportunity you need for any such
actions.

FIGHTING NAMED CHARACTERS

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND TIMING

When two or more named characters all want to act at once, which certainly includes fights, begin with a communal announcement of what every character is just beginning to do, right at this moment. The best way to
think of it is that in the fiction, its all going to happen simultaneously, not in a string of stop-motion actions, and
therefore every character is launching at once. None of the characters are acting yet; its about intention rather
than narration. So people can announce in any order regardless of the characters relative speeds. Even if what you
describe is responding to what someone else is doing, thats fine the dice will let know you how well that goes.
Then the action kicks in hard. The initial
sequence for when the actions land is set by
current Quickness. If you see a Quickness tie,
roll a black die for one character and a white
die for the other, re-rolling ties until different
results occur, and the higher value goes first.

12:00

Play doesnt use a hex or grid table-map, but as youll

see, terrain, movement, and immediate circumstances
are primary factors in combat. The only way to make
this functional, without people shouting out positions to bully for advantage, is to work strictly from
whats known, from the perspective of one person at
the table.

3:00
Tokens
for each
character

Now you need a circle three or four inches

in diameter, and designate its orientation,
like a clock with 12:00 at the top. Get a little
token for each character in the fight, like a
glass bead counter or boardgame pawn or
whatever, as long as you know which one is
which character. Put the character who goes
first at 3:00, the next character at 2:00, and so
on, tracing back counterclockwise.
John Willson went and built a wooden circle
for this purpose for his playtesting, because

94

hes the kind of guy with a skillsaw and a lathe in his

garage, and he isnt even missing any fingers to date.
Me, I found that a table coaster and a few Parcheesitype game pawn pieces worked flawlessly.
So, start with the person at 3:00. Actions that arent
physical attacks are conducted as usual: rolls vs. 12,
automatic successes for ordinary professions-based
actions, and spells being cast. When your characters
action is resolved, move the counter clockwise around
the circle so that its at the end of the line and scoot
them all clockwise so the next person is now at 3:00.
Also, at the very end of the characters action, narrate
the bare beginnings of whatever it is he or she is planning to do next getting a spell ready, turning toward
an intended target, scouting out somewhere to run,
or whatever. This is called intent (the term provided
by Gethyn Edwards). Intent does not lock down your
characters next action, but it provides crucial information to everyone else.

this fight or re-set the order in any way except for the
above bullet points. There are no rounds or units of
time or action above the level of individual actions.
Play continues by seeing whos at 3:00, then wrapping
that token around to the end, and thats all.
A, B, and C are fighting D, E, and F. Here are the
announcements: A attacks D with a spell, B attacks
F with a spear, C attacks D with an axe, D is doing
something else requiring a vs. 12 roll, E attacks A
with a spear, and F attacks B with a spear.
Lets say their Quickness values follow the alphabetical sequence, with A being fastest.

D
C

12:00

Its really not much different from the textual damage-tables method as long as you have a strong idea of what such
a table, perfectly designed, would tell you under such-and-such conditions.

So, you go round and round, which would be boring,

except that a characters position in the sequence is
altered in three ways.

3:00

If its not currently your characters turn, you

can spend 1 Brawn and pop him or her to 3:00,
thereby taking the next action. Anyone can do
this at any time when no one is rolling dice.
Some attacks have a special status called a
clash, in which distinct offensive and defensive
numbers are generated. If one persons attacking another, the targeted person is pulled in to
the clash, and now has a choice: either to fight
back within it or to focus entirely on defense.
When the clash is resolved, if the targeted
person fought back, then theyll go to the
end of the line together, the puller first and
pullee second.

So, running it down, As spell goes off against D with

no hassles, and A goes to the end. B pulls F into a
clash, and F chooses to fight back, not merely defend,
so B goes to the end, and then F (last). C pulls D into
a clash (but D chooses merely to defend), so C goes
to the end. D rolls vs. 12 to do the thing he intended,
and goes to the end. E pulls A into a clash, and A
fights back, so E goes to the end and then A (last). At
this moment, the diagram looks like this:

But if the person who was pulled in only

defended, then he or she maintains his or
her current place in the order.
If youre injured and your Quickness is reduced,
you drop to the back of the order.
If both combatants in a clash are injured and
their Quicknesses reduced, they both go to
the end of the order, with the person who
was pulled in going last.

D
C

12:00

Circle of Hands

3:00

Quite soon, the order of the tokens may well not

reflect the Quickness values any more, and thats fine.
Never compare the Quickness values again during

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Circle of Hands
The above text assumes that all the characters survive
their various travails to perform their stated actions.
If D had been vaporized by As spell, he wouldnt have
been pulled into Cs clash. If D had been hurt in the
clash with C, then he would have gone to the back of
the order behind C. If F had injured B during their
clash, then B and F would still have wrapped to the
back of the order, but first F and then B.

Changing the order by spending Brawn is a big deal.

If C had done this right away to go to 3:00, then the
starting order would be C A B D E F, and after the
clash between C and D, then the order would be A
B D E F C.
At the moment of your characters turn, you may
choose to have him or her to do nothing. This affects
nothing else about the ordering sequence, so the
character simply goes to the end of the line without
doing anything.

NOTICING AND SURPRISE

You may have noticed above that no one ever gets

attacked without being able to defend. Does that
mean no one is ever surprised? Does everyone see
everything all the time?
No. The solution is that the existing possibility of
surprise is baked into the resolution system already,
such that I attack from surprise is a valid announcement, but its not privileged to sidestep the resolution
mechanics. The surprise attack is resolved ordinarily,
and the resolution mechanics will tell you how well
it worked.
Narration takes care of the realism. If the surprise
attack succeeds, especially if it succeeds very well,
the action is narrated as taking the target by surprise
which is no more nor less than what youd expect to
say. If it fails, then ipso facto, the target noticed in time
to defend effectively, and the narration includes the
attempted but failed surprise. If it barely succeeded,
then noticing barely-in-time might be said to have
played a role in that outcome.

INSIDE CLASHES

To review for a second, a clash occurs when a character attacks another with a weapon. The attacked
person is in the clash too, pulled in.
Each player rolls 2d6, black and white, and uses the
sum twice, once for offensive and once for defense.
The characters Quickness is added independently
to each, and the resulting offense and defense totals
are matched against the other characters defense and
offense, respectively.

96

COMMITMENT

Prior to the roll, a player-character, named character,

beast, or monster may reduce defense for offense,
or vice versa. This decision is called commitment
(thanks to John Willson and playtesters). The precise
division of points is called the split (thanks to Gethyn
Edwards and playtesters).
Krimhilde is in a clash, and its time to commit. Her
Quickness is 6, which means her default split is 6/6,
but I change it to 8/4, i.e., adjusting by two in favor
of offense. I roll 2d6 for a sum of 10 (yay, great roll!).
Therefore her offensive total is 10 + 8 = 18, and her
defensive total is 10 + 4 = 14.
Playtesting has shown that people have no problem
simply committing without silly games of peeking
at the other persons split. Jotting it down on scratch
paper is a good idea.
You may reduce one of the values all the way to 0, if
you want. If you reduce offense to 0, then the character is considered not to be attacking at all, and will do
no damage regardless of the rolls outcomes. If you
reduce defense to 0, then the character is still defending a little, using the rolled value alone.
If Krimhilde had thrown caution to the winds for an
all-out attack, then her split would have been 12/0,
and given a rolled total of 5, her offensive total is 17
and her defensive total is 5 (the naked roll).
If shed covered up entirely, or hurled herself aside,
then her split would have been 0/12, and given the
same roll, she has no offense, as she didnt attack,
and her defensive total is 17.
An attack succeeds if its value exceeds the defense
value. Successful attacks record the difference
between offense and defense. But before you try it,
you must know who has the advantage.
Some creatures always split evenly, as listed in their
descriptions in Chapter 7.

THE ADVANTAGE

There is no such thing as a fair fight, not ever, not

once. In every clash, there will and must be an advantage die assigned. Its a big red die rolled and added
up with the black and white ones, for one character
in the clash and not the other.
Krimhildes opponent has the advantage. She rolled
two dice for a total of 5 then added her split for
offense and defense totals, but the opponent rolls
three dice rather than two then adds his or her split.

Killing
The GM says who gets the advantage based on the
following criteria, in order of importance (highest to
lowest):

1What just happened? (shield bash, unexpected

francisca hit, spear-shaft through a horses legs)

Someone just took a bad hit, like shieldedge to the face, or an unexpected francisca
thrown at his or her back, or is otherwise
physically inconvenienced, as evidenced
by a failed Quickness roll when trying to do
something. This is a good way not to have the
advantage.

2What are the physical circumstances?

Mud pit, bedchamber, road in forest at twilight, narrow passage in an underground
barrow any number of things that interfere with sight and movement, as resolved
by Quickness or Wits rolls prior to the clash.
Heres where surprise matters mechanically.
You didnt think it was going to be completely
hand-waved away, did you?

3What are the weapons being employed?

Consider this especially in light of #2 a knife
gets the advantage against the great-axe when
youre both entangled in the bedsheets, a
great-axe gets it against the knife when youre
chasing him down the road.

4Who pulled whom into this clash?

If #1-3 dont indicate the advantage, then the
person who pulled the other into the clash
gets the advantage.
A player cannot in any way get the advantage just
before rolling by narrating some kind of action. You
cant say, Ill strike at his feet! or Ill jump off that
rock! or I throw sand! or anything like that, ever,
prior to rolling the dice, and expect the big red die to
be added to your roll. This is not that game.
Instead, the GM judges every clash from scratch
according to the four criteria (in order), every time.
Thats all there is to it. Are you the GM? No? Then
when your character is at 3:00, say what he or she is
doing and then zip it. Obviously, you want the advantage, and thats fine: to get it, do stuff which puts your
foe at a disadvantage if it succeeds. Nothing you can
say about your tactics of the moment will get you the
advantage before the roll. Ever.
Changing up how youre fighting does matter, but
again, based on outcomes.

You chased down the other guy on the road, and you
have the great-axe and he has the knife, so you were
assigned the advantage die in the opening clash. But
he tries a desperate tackle-and-stab on you, his roll
is amazing, but yours stinks even on three dice, so it
works. This clash is resolved with its damage, if any.
In the next clash, now you two are wrestling in the
mud, and he has the advantage, because there is no
way that great-axe is doing you a lick of good now.
So, you want to pull out your knife. Good enough
you have a Quickness vs. 12 roll to make on your
action (and if his action gets in there beforehand,
youll want to go double-Quickness on defense). If
you do, then on the next clash, the GM yet again, as
required, re-assesses the situation from scratch.
In a thrashing in the mud with knives situation, its
likely to matter most whos pulled whom into that
next clash, so if its not you, I suggest spending the
Brawn to make it that way.
All sorts of rolls vs. 12 can be played similarly to the
above example.
Youre caught in unfamiliar terrain, which the GM
considers to be making the key difference in the fight.
Do you have a profession thats relevant to this terrain? Then stay defensive in the clashes if you cant
avoid them, and go for a Wits vs. 12 roll to get oriented, which means subsequent advantages can be
determined by other criteria.
Surprises and reversals matter in the same way.
Lets say youre fighting a guy with a chained mace
who according to the GM has the advantage for
some aspect of the situation (could be anything,
dont argue). Youre scooting around on the defensive
while that terrible thing is rattling your head in its
helm, and wham! Your buddys thrown francisca
nails the son of a bitch from over there somewhere.
On the next clash, the GM says to himself, Look this
guy just took a freaking axe hit from an unexpected
direction that has to have wrecked his rhythm,
plus hes hurt, and in that guys next clash, probably
with you, assigns his opponent again, you the
advantage die now. Remember to thank your friend.
I know you want a huge matrix showing exactly
which weapon gets an advantage over another, per
terrain type. This is not that game either. In your
game, I am not the GM. I have harsh words for the
person who is. Ready?
The book wont do it for you, it is not a person and
all it will say is, you do it. Ive provided quite a lot of
food for thought about the weapons and fighting in
the setting. There are also a few, a very few mechanics

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Circle of Hands
associated with some of the weapons, listed in a brief
table. After that ... its up to you. Thats the GMs job.
You know the characters and the immediate terrain
and circumstances of their violent encounter. You
know the actions completed until now, the stated
intentions, and the current action at 3:00 to nail down
what everyone is doing, exactly, at every moment. So
with each and every clash, you go down that list and
choose the key detail which seems to you to assign the
advantage die.
Dont amass a huge list of minor advantages and
disadvantages per character. Instead, look at the situation and decide what single feature matters the most,
and to which character the advantage therefore falls.

Obviously, you arent going to do it the same way

as everyone or even anyone else. Maybe you have a
sword-fetish and cant help but privilege that weapon.
The GM in some other game will be traumatized by
my description of the chained mace and will privilege
it instead. Yet another will always favor the mounted
fighter over the footman, regardless of other things.
You are this GM at this table, not with any other, not
with me. The only way to be a good Circle of Hands
GM is to know your own mind about these things,
and stick to it.

MULTIPLE PARTICIPANTS

Several people may be attacking the same target

almost simultaneously, which is handled with the
ordinary sequence but should be assessed fairly for
advantage, meaning, very biased against the outnumbered person. Being flanked (hemmed in) by more
than one attacker typically gives them the advantage,
as does facing two or more people with weapons that
work well together. However, if the attackers are not
specifically working together and trying to stand in
the same place, they may lose the advantage by getting in one anothers way.
If someone is ganged up on by more than three opponents, then use the group rules. But sometimes two or
three people simultaneously jump on or at someone
or several someones, and the circumstances pile
them all in there, and thats called a scrum.
Scrums are nuts. The easiest to resolve them is simply
Quickness vs. 12 roll for everyone, considered simultaneous in the fiction. Per character, define that roll as
either trying to get out of the mix or staying in there.
Its almost the same as if one were fighting unnamed
characters including the rules for injury with the

98

only difference being, instead of adding 3 per combatant, add 6 if anyone in there is using a knife. Yes, your
knife is just as dangerous to you as to anyone else in
a scrum.
Do not shoot arrows or bolts into a scrum unless you
dislike everyone in it. If this happens, then assign a different number on a single die to each person in it, then
roll the die and that person is hit, taking 6 Damage.
Four people are in a scrum, all assholes and elbows,
as my dad used to say, and a person with a crossbow
shoots into the mix. The potential targets, which is
to say all of them, are each assigned a value, 1, 2, 3,
or 4. The GM rolls a die, resulting in a 2, and that
person takes the bolt. If the result were 5 or 6 then no
one would have been hit.
Dont forget that a bolt ignores mail and gambeson,
and that shields dont apply to a scrum situation.
When a character is confronted by four or more
people who genuinely want to hurt him or her, shift
to the rules for fighting groups.

GETTING OUT OF A FIGHT

ENGAGEMENT/DISENGAGING

Since every characters next intent is stated openly,

every person playing has a no-surprises snapshot
of the dynamic moment of action when a character
arrives at 3:00. This knowledge is crucial when you
would very much prefer your character not to be
where he or she is right now.
Sometimes, thats inside a clash.
If your foe intends to do something else besides
continue the clash, then go ahead and get out
of there, with no roll needed, and nothing stopping you from doing whatever it is you want.
But if he or she intends to continue clashing,
then youll have to make a Quickness vs. 12
roll to get out of immediate reach. Thats a full
action which isnt an attack and therefore poses
no danger to the foe.
If you succeed, then youre well away from that persons immediate reach, so that getting you back into
the clash requires dedicated action on their part, and
potentially the lack of advantage.
A consequence of this mechanic is that if two characters are in a clash, and both intend (as stated) to keep
clashing, then neither is considered to have pulled
the other in from that point forward, as theyre merely
in it already.

Killing
Another action of this sort is fleeing the whole fight, which is often perfectly reasonable. If youre in a clash, then
youll have to get out of that first. Assuming youre not in a clash, then then getting out of the immediate range
of anything else is an action of its own. If the immediate terrain poses trouble for you, for example if youre in a
forest and lack the Outdoorsman profession, then you must make a Wits vs. 12 roll using a single die. If you have
a relevant profession, or if the circumstances offer no particular adversity, then getting away entirely is merely a
matter of saying so when you get to 3:00.

RANGED ATTACKS AND CLASHES

If youre attacking at range, aiming at someone who is not able to strike back, and no ones attacking you right
now, then the action becomes a simple Quickness vs. 12 roll. Turkey shoot!
However, if your archer or weapon-thrower is targeted by another character, in any way, he or she is pulled into
a clash at the attackers turn.
You could give up the intended shot entirely and merely alter the intended bowshot (or thrown axe or whatever)
to target the attacker in the clash. A clash can be at range just as easily as in melee, if the weapons permit. So this
clash might be arrow-on-arrow, or arrow-on-charging sword strike.
Or if you really want to keep the original target, then you could throw your split into full defense to get through
this clash and take the intended shot when you get to 3:00.
Remember that stating intent lets everyone know youre about to shoot an arrow, so you can expect to people to
try to pull you into a clash before you let go of the bowstring if at all possible. If you dont want to risk a series of
fully-defensive splits, then spend Brawn to go to 3:00 right away.

THE KILLING
Against unnamed characters and groups, no further rules are needed for injury and death. The following rules
apply to named characters, beasts, and monsters.

INJURY

If a characters defense is lower than its opposing

offense, then that person is hurt. That may mean one,
neither, or both participant(s) in the clash. The only
way to pre-empt an opponent during a clash is to get
higher values on both offense and defense.
On a successful strike the difference between the
offense and defensive totals, plus the attackers current Brawn, is called Damage.
Where were we, or rather, where was Krimhilde? Ah
yes, with an offensive total of 18 and a defensive total
of 14, facing an opponent with the advantage who
is therefore rolling 3 dice. Lets say the opponents
Quickness was 6, the same as hers, and his or her
split was 6/6. The 3d6 roll comes up 11. So Krimhildes offense of 18 is up against a defense of 17, and
her defense of 14 is attacked by an offense of 17.
Krimhildes Damage to her opponent is calculated
as 18 17 + her Brawn of 7, for a total of 8, which
receives an additional 1 because shes using her greataxe, for a final total of 9. The Damage she receives is
17 14 + the opponents Brawn which is 6, for a total
of 9 as well. Notice that both opponents were injured
in this clash.

In calculating Damage, use the value for Brawn at

the start of the current clash, not after the immediate
damage within it. Whether the attacks hit at the precise same microsecond in-game is not the issue; they
dont have to, and it can be left entirely to narration.
Armor deducts from Damage. Protection is a bit
abstracted in the mechanics. Obviously not everything coming at you hits you on the head just because
youre wearing a helm, but go ahead and stop the
helms listed Damage anyway.
Fortunately Krimhilde is heavily armored with
mail, kite shield, and helm. It so happens this stops a
total of 13 points, so she emerges uninjured from this
moment in the fight.
Damage that gets through armor is divided evenly as
reductions to the losers Brawn and Quickness. In the
event of an odd-numbered total, the additional point
further reduces Quickness.
If Krimhilde had lacked armor entirely, then the
9 points of Damage received from the opponent
in the clash would be divided into 4 Brawn and 5
Quickness, reducing her to Brawn 3 (from 7) and
Quickness 1 (from 6).

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Circle of Hands
If she had been armored only with her helm, then it
would have stopped 3 points for a total of 6 Damage
received, divided into 3 Brawn and 3 Quickness,
reducing her to Brawn 4 and Quickness 3.
If either Brawn or Quickness is brought to 0, but the
other is positive, then the character is visibly fatigued
and battered, and if his or her Quickness is above 0,
must split either 0/all or all/0.
It so happens that Krimhildes opponent in the
clash was not as heavily armored, and his or her
protection stopped only 4 of the 9 received, so the
opponents Brawn and Quickness were reduced by 2
and 3 respectively.

And then it so happens that the francisca I mentioned earlier hits the opponent between the shoulder
blades, doing enough Damage to reduce his or her
Quickness to 0, although Brawn remains at 1.
Krimhilde comes up at 3:00 as the opponent was
shifted to the end of the order by the blow, and she
now has the advantage, and the opponent doesnt
even have any Quickness to commit with, protected
only with the naked 2d6 roll. Krimhilde reasonably
commits 12/0 for what will almost certainly be a
gruesomely fatal blow.

NARRATION AND
THE EXTENT OF DAMAGE
Heres that realism in action.

Killing

Brawn or Quickness makes the narrated effect more

real, and being killed lets us know that holy shit,
that spear-thrust back in the start of the fight was a
clincher from the very beginning.
This concept resolves all the hassles about well shit,
he rolled a crit so my foots cut off, vs. hit hit hit hit
hit no narration whats going on hit hit, oh now Im
dead, how did that happen.
Describe things consistently with the rules and with
whats just happened. Keep these ideas in mind:
All actions are interrupts. No one starts and
stops going based on turns or order of any
kind. The timing rules determine only what
lands first.
Everyones current actions in motion are known
through the intent statements made after a
rolled outcome is narrated.
Advantage isnt held from action to action, but
assessed from scratch for every clash.
Narrate the effects of injury and other effects in this
context, with the how it feels before you really
determine how bad it is, and you will discover the
effect is astonishingly vivid in play, to the point of
adrenalin-fueled nausea.

ARMOR

Consider where the inflicted damage places the

character. If Brawn and Quickness are both still above
0, the hit looks scary and feels horrible, but doesnt
necessarily do permanent damage.
Use Brawn and the weapon for Color.
Player-characters are plot-armored against instant
maiming. If your character takes a bad hit, then narrate what it seems like in the absence of permanent
fixation. So, Your shoulder feels dislocated, not,
Your shoulder is dislocated. The trick here is that
if the player-character makes it through the fight
mechanically speaking, then all those hits turn out
to be not so bad. But being taken down to 0 in either

As a general point, armor in this setting is not

designed literally to stop a weapon in its optimal
strike. The best available, mail, doesnt defend against
high-impact puncture anyway. Instead, mail, shields,
and helms do their best work in augmenting the
fighters defensive motions and posture, so that the
sliding sword-slash skates by, or if ones lean-back
almost evades the axe-heads arc, ones helm keeps
the last of it from opening ones scalp.
As with so much in the game, use the mechanics to
define your narration: a ton of Damage even after
armor can be described as a strike to unarmored
body parts this reverses the usual logic of calling
or determining the strikes target before the dice-roll.

Damage Stopped

Limitations

Penalty out of Combat

Gambeson

0 vs. spear charge or throw, 0 vs. bolts

-1

Mail (inc. gambeson)

0 vs. spear charge or throw, 0 vs. bolts

-3

Cone Helm

1 vs. flail

-1

Spangenhelm

1 vs. flail

-2

Round or Kite Shield

1 vs. flail, 0 when all-out attacking

-2

100

This is not an armored culture. For most people,

fighting against designated foes means grabbing a
spear and maybe a shield if you go somewhere to
do it, you have time to pick up a cone helm if any are
available. Outside of the Circle, the only people with
mail are the gentry and some professionals.
Pre-medieval mail is quite simple compared to most
historical armor. There are no shaped metal pieces
or articulations. It is nothing but a one-piece tube of
interlinked wrought-iron mesh, partly closed at the
top to hang on the shoulders, open at the bottom to
make a skirt almost to the knees, with loose sleeves to
the elbows and sometimes an attached hood, or coif.
Its worn over a similar garment made of heavy cloth,
called a gambeson. Contrary to some expectations, it
does not go cling-clang, but rather rustles, like shuffling through dry leaves. There are no gauntlets, no
cuirass, no gorget, no chausses, no mail-trousers, no
greaves, and no shoon.
In this setting, gambesons are usually made along
with the mail, so wearing the gambeson by itself is
not widely observed. However, freemen in Rolke
have recently taken to making and using the
gambeson this way,
and some
Circle knights have
adopted it
from them. Anywhere else, doing
so looks weird, as
if youd put on your
underwear but not your
pants. Soon, someone is going
to think of lining it with leather.
Neither mail nor gambeson protects
against a thrown or mounted, charging
spear, or from a crossbow bolt.
The shields in the Crescent Land are
all made of wood, typically a light
fibrous kind cut into planks. This
construction tends to crunch or
buckle locally, or lose some of its
edge, rather than split or shatter, so it stays usable even after
its been messed up. The most
common design is the round
shield. Its lighter and thinner
than you might think but also
bigger, minimally the size of a
trashcan lid and often bigger.
Some have metal hoops
Illus. Sandy Jacobs-Tolle

around the edges or bosses in the middle, but only

for those who fight as a way of life everyone elses
shield-rims are reinforced with leather.
When used from horseback, a shield is typically held
on with a shoulder strap. The newer, rarer sort of
shield in the Crescent Land is the kite, allowing a little
better use of the reins and shield at once. Its big too,
easily four feet in vertical length. However, both round
shield and kite are effective on foot or mounted.
A shield is not merely a little wall to hide behind,
although it can do that against arrows. Against handheld weapons, one deflects with it, sliding rather than
blocking flat, sometimes using the edge defensively
rather than the face. Spear-fighting, by far the most
common means of dedicated killing in the Crescent
Land, includes the basic tactic of sliding the foes point
past the shield, keeping its face on the shaft, then
sliding straight down it to close. Even its material has
useful properties, catching points briefly and throwing off the foes balance and timing. And it is no slouch
as a striking weapon on its own. Its primary defensive
limitations are that you must know about the
incoming attack, its not effective at
all when attacking all-out,
and its minimally effective against flails.
Shields are not decorated or
painted in this culture, and
there is no such thing as
heraldry.
The culture includes two
kinds of helms: the cone
helm, a simple but functional wrought-iron cap;
and the spangenhelm, a
framework of carburized
steel with wrought-iron
sheets inserted. Given the
technology, the latter is only found
among gentry. Helms are quite annoying and no one, but no one, wears one
unless they are about to enter a fight.
Ornamental facemasks are sometimes used by gentry in Famberge;
they dont actually do anything for defense,
but they do scare the shit out of people who
arent combat-hardened, and thats whom
the gentry in Famberge spend a lot of
time scaring and killing.

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Circle of Hands
WEARING ARMOR

Mail is a highly specialized garment. It does not impede combat motions, as that would defeat the purpose,
but it does make any other activity more annoying as shown in the table, and its too heavy to wear in any other
circumstances. One does not ride around in ones mail, but keeps it in the pack-horses luggage and pulls it on
in the knowledge of upcoming combat. For surprises, too bad grab your shield and go, just like everyone else.
This isnt like most fantasy role-playing situations. In circumstances of play that are not explicit preparations for
armed violence, the characters are presumed not to be wearing their mail. Its not difficult to put on, but it is a bit
unwieldy and typically people help one another do it, if they have the opportunity. Remember: having gone to
the effort to put it on is a serious social statement: that you intend to kill someone, right now.
John Willson asked about an intermediate situation, which arose in playtesting: the Circle knights were searching
for outlawed bandits through wild territory all day, likely to find a fight at some point, and some of them chose to
wear full armor. In this case, if and when a fight occurs, then accumulated fatigue and physical aggravation factor
into the advantage within clashes. Plenty of factors feed into advantage too in this case, most obviously possible
ambush by either side, but the downside of wearing armor that long would definitely be one of them.

FIGHTING UNNAMED PEOPLE AND GROUPS

UNNAMED PEOPLE

For a Circle knight, fighting up to three unnamed

people at once is mechanically pretty simple. You
dont have to set an order or state actions moment by
moment. Its merely a Quickness vs. 12 roll.
If youre being targeted from far away and have no
ranged attack of your own, then the roll is a matter
of avoiding injury before either escaping or closing
to melee range. If you succeed, you get either away
or right into it, whichever you prefer. If you fail, then
the difference between 12 and your total is Damage to
you, +3 per attacking unnamed character.
Again, mail protects against arrows but not against
bolts or thrown spears.
If its a circumstance in which you can do damage,
either hand-to-hand or at range, then a successful
roll means an opponent is removed from the fight.
Include a red die in the roll if you want your results to
be random, otherwise merely choose which happens
to one of them if you succeed:
1-2 Kill
3-4 Put down and maim
5-6 Put down with recoverable injury
Again, if you fail, then the difference is Damage to
you, +3 per character whos attacking.
For Damage delivered by unnamed characters, find
the difference between the rolled total and 12, then
add 3 for each such character currently attacking.

102

If Krimhilde were fighting two unnamed characters

and rolled poorly on her Quickness vs. 12 roll for a
value of 2, her total would be her Quickness 6 + 2, or
8. That means shed take 12 8 + 3 + 3 = 10 damage.
That seems easy, right? Well, the trouble is that by
default, these combats typically knock you down to
1d6 instead of two. Ouch!
Why is this? Simple: Circle knights are far from home
and this isnt their turf. Fights do not occur on a level
featureless plain, theres no such thing as going on
your turn, and weapons and training arent always
military-grade. When your character strides all
armored into that barn and a freeman or a peasant
is waiting in there to kill you, maybe with a friend or
two as I see it, he is in a lot of trouble. Its not his
barn. He can trip over an implement, get poked in the
back by some projection, get straw-bits in his eyes,
not know where the cow-stall is, suddenly step off a
three-foot ledge, and not know not only where the
other guy is, but where he could be.
Player-characters in this game are plot-armored
against a lot of plausible in-fiction things like maiming, but not against this thats why its antithetical to
many other designs, which are the opposite.
How do you solve this difficult problem?
Beforehand is better because it doesnt necessarily
involve rolling. Your character should go places and
observe them, interact with people and behave in
ways which dont upset them, and become involved
with the places and people before you start doing
things like striding into barns in combat mode.

Killing
This isnt investigation. Its merely ordinary life
and actions. If your character has been in the barn
before and looked it over with farmer or low-martial
eyes, then everything I just said about the turf doesnt
apply a bit, and you have two dice, not one. That even
works if he or she had been in any of the local barns,
not necessarily this specific one.
In the moment is the worse case, because bluntly,
doing this is either unlucky if you had no choice, or
simply stupid.
You can improve things by doing something which, if
successful, negates the advantage pretty well.
Attacking successfully will do the job. Lets say
your character is fighting two guys in there. By
hook or crook and luck, you kill one of them with
just your single die, so from that point forward
you can get two dice. Imagine it in pure fictional
terms and I think you can see how that would be.
If you have a relevant profession, e.g. farmer in
this case, then a successful Wits vs. 12 roll will
similarly orient him or her enough to use two
dice for fighting from that point forward.
More specific actions can play a similar role in
the fight, far too many to list and all highly situational. Off the top of my head, if your character
has a profession relevant to horses like Martial
(high) or Outdoorsman, and if theres a horse
or two in the barn, then he or she might hide
among them to strike from ambush, or spook
them to confuse and endanger the foes.
The other way to improve things is simply to cheat,
with magic, magic, and magic.
Various spells have direct effects, especially
against unnamed characters Blast, for instance,
simply vaporizes one of them, and you can bet
youll have both your dice for fighting after that.
Others are less drastic, providing extra dice like
Bless or Stimulant, or providing abilities that will
restore you to two dice in these circumstances
like Perfection or Cat.
Still others are even more drastic and can obliterate the lot of them, like Erupt or Wrath.
How about when you have a combination of named
and unnamed characters in a group? In this case,
fighting the unnamed characters is resolved right
before the Circle knight at 3:00, i.e., when he or she
gets there, theyre always there first, and you cant
spend B to jump ahead of them.

The moment these rules for unnamed characters

become unwieldy in play, or seem strangely out of
tune with the actions and interactions of named
characters, then its time to ascend and name the
unnamed ones and proceed accordingly.

GROUPS

These rules are the violent application of the group

rules described in Chapter 4. In a fight, a group is
defined as four or more people per knight, perhaps
adjusted up or down a bit depending on circumstances. You cant fight a group as if it were an individual,
nor do you get to fight it by concentrating on one
person at a time. If this many people are genuinely
determined to kill your character, and if he or she is
so foolish as to step forward and shout Ill take on
the lot of you, then they simply do no roll, no save,
no argument.
Ways to avoid that fate include:
Pumping Brawn to get ahead of the action and
then getting out of there, which itself is a Quickness vs. 12 roll. However, I hope youd taken
some time earlier to learn the lay of the land,
because if not, youre running around in an
unfamiliar spot, and that gives your Quickness
roll a single die.
Its valid to single out someone in the crowd as
a target for an ordinary Charm vs. 12 roll. Even
better if its someone you can identify a little
from what might have been a throwaway detail
in earlier play: That guy who saw me pet the
kitten this morning, like that. The GM has to
ascend this person into named status. If you can
make that roll, then this person can do a lot to
deconstruct the mob as a game-unit, so its not
acting as a group and therefore isnt a mob any
more even if some of them still want to kill you.
I recommend magic strongly.
Casting Throng or Hate, which is precisely
what theyre for.
Many other spells can make a big difference,
e.g., Forward solves the orientation problem
mentioned above. Very thoroughly, in fact,
because it takes maximum effect against a
group, you simply escape the whole chase
without a roll.
Theres always Erupt and Wrath, if someone
knows one of them, and if the mobs murderous intent is reciprocated.

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Circle of Hands

Killing

One of the unpleasant things about being killed by a mob is that its not fast. However, at least it does provide plenty
of time for the above tactics. They kill you before you can try anything isnt an issue. The GM only says Fine, they
kill you if youre stupid enough simply to try to fight them as if they were an individual.

TOOLS OF VIOLENCE
UNARMED COMBAT

Ill put this into two categories: battering or otherwise

brutalizing someone into submission, humiliation,
and helplessness; and killing them, but without
a weapon handy, therefore being forced to do the
former category first.

The game mechanics do not distinguish among striking, grappling, shoving, throwing, choking, and all
that stuff. The only mechanics feature is that damage
is accumulated normally, but being brought to Brawn
0 and Quickness 0 does not kill a person, but renders
them helpless. Such damage is healed exactly as an
injury.
Therefore, beating someone to death is an extremely
deliberate act. First you render them helpless and possibly in complete surrender, then you deliver enough
damage to do it all over again. For this second phase,
use the victims (no longer opponents) original B and
Q, but only as banks to compare with the inflicted
Damage. The victim has no points to allocate to
defense, so the mechanics lead to immense Damage.
This is how you kill someone with an elbow strike,
as requested by Keith Senkowski. It begins with any
kind of roughing-up, enough to reduce the person
to Brawn and Quickness of 0. The narration of the
Mechanics
Knife
Francisca

clashes until this point probably involved hitting,

kicking, throttling, and any of that sort of thing.
The losing person so far is still alive, but a barelyconscious rag, out on his or her feet.
Thats when the attacker has the advantage for sure,
and fearing little payback from the unmodified 2-dice
roll in opposition, splits for maximum offense. If the
result of the roll brings both Brawn and Quickness
down to 0 from baseline, then his or her elbow strike
not only breaks the victims jaw at the joint, but
drives his or her head into a corner or projection of
the nearby furniture hard enough to crack his skull.
Given one or two ruthless actions, bringing the victims B and Q banks both to 0 (again) will do the job.
Its a nasty, degrading thing to do, and few things are
more sickening to watch.
Some weapons use these rules as well in certain ways.
However, spear-butts, sword pommels, axe-handles,
and similar do not. These cannot be re-purposed as
stun weapons; hitting people with them breaks bones.

WEAPONS

The following text is intended for narrating the

effects of the combat mechanics, and especially to be
mined for assessing the advantage.

Advantage suggestions

+1 defense in a clash

Sword

+1 point in a clash

Spear

Thrown, mounted
charge ignore mail

Reach

Flail

Ignore shields

Option to entangle

Great Axe

Shield Slash

Opponent loses balance

+6 Damage not +B

Crossbow

Bolt ignores mail

104

Spears, swords, and axes do the job for wholesale

slaughter, especially in groups: ethnic cleansing,
raids (i.e. theft), or striking against other powerful
groups. But when you absolutely want to remove a
single specific person from the living, bring a knife,
the more ordinary, the better. And in this culture, as
mentioned above, everyone has one.

Damage exceeds
shield armor value

+1 Damage in a clash

Short Bow

Thats why, hands-down better than any other

weapon, the knife is ideal for murder. The way to
get killed by a battlefield weapon is to be on a battlefield or in the path of a raid; if youre not there, it
wont happen. Whereas knife-murder can happen
anywhere, planned or unplanned, delivered from
surprise or hidden in the middle of mass action. Ill
tell you why: because until antibiotics were invented
and quite a bit even since, body puncture is fatal:
an inch into the chest or abdomen and thats it, the
person is dead. If its in the chest, then in minutes by
pneumothorax; in the guts, in a week or so by unstoppable infection.

Damage is fully
stopped by armor

+1 Damage in a clash

Shield Strike

Its true, the knife is not a battlefield weapon, but

theres nothing like it in a spontaneous, personal
fight. If a knife is involved, you can bet that everyone
is going to be cut including its wielder, and often in
places where shallow slices do horrible damage: eyes,
wrists, the groin, the inside of the elbows, and the
sides of the neck.

In a brawl with everyone jostling and pushing, a knife

goes right into the solar plexus or delivers multiple
body stabs with nigh-insurmountable advantage. If
youve been wondering how it is a group always kills
an individual victim in this game, thats the main
reason and it only takes one person among them.

Thrown

Staff

The knife is a tool for eating and for small, daily tasks.
Its considered part of ones clothes much as modern
people think of their shoes. Its not very sturdy and only
sharp enough to be useful and therefore dangerous. It
varies a lot in length, but is typically about eight inches
because thats easiest to make. At its most weapon-like,
its over a foot long, similar to the Nordic sax. This form
is used mainly by raiders from Spurr, who prefer it as a
combined tool and weapon aboard ship. The Crescent
Land culture includes no daggers, poniards, dirks,
misericordes, or specialized throwing knives.

Breaking

Surprise, brawl, intimacy

Thrown

INCIDENTAL WEAPONS

Fleeing targets
Jams see text

Another tool easily adapted toward personal violence

is the quarterstaff, typically associated with daily
tasks of forestry and farming. Its longer than you
might think: eight or nine feet. Its just as good as any

other, more technologically specialized weapon for

purposes of defense, and often better if you dont
want someone to hit you, punch them in the center
of the body with one of these, and they cant. Handled
by an expert, its whipping tip can break the sound
barrier.
Killing with the staff uses the mechanics for unarmed
combat, in that the opponent is first rendered helpless,
but what goes unappreciated is just how agonizing
these horrible things can be. I dont care how tough
you think you are, if you take a whack from a staff
on the point of your elbow or the sciatic nerve along
your thigh, then immediately on the crown of your
head, and then the other end sweeps your feet, you
will hit the ground weeping and begging for the guy
to stop.
The staff is also one of the most versatile objects
around, so more direct killing is available to the imaginative fighter. Stick or toss one into the legs of a running
horse, and you have a half-ton of hysterical good-fornothing-but-food, and a rider with a broken neck.
Then there is the whip, present everywhere in this
leather-heavy culture. The most common version is
the stockwhip, rather un-dramatic with its four or
five-foot length and short handle. Its used mainly to
signal livestock and herd animals with its cracking
noise and light touches, not pain. The sadistic modification called the cat onine tails, with no purpose
but to inflict pain on humans, isnt well-known, but
its been independently developed here and there.
I have been lashed by a bullwhip. The pain is instant
and overwhelming, nothing at all like a knife-cut, a
solid punch, or a burn, for all of which the pain sets
in a moment or two later. It left a raised welt all along
the rolling breakpoint of contact, open at the top for
the latter half of its length. And that was right through
clothes they didnt stop a damn thing.
It cannot be used as a grabber or lasso at all, although
the shock of a strike might well act against a characters potential advantage in his or her next action,
especially if it was unexpected.
Whip damage is calculated as for the staff, although
the version in this setting cannot go on to killing
damage. Fortunately, the truly lethal whips like the
knout and blacksnake have not been invented.
People dont typically strike one another with burning items; it may look dramatic but isnt very effective.
Flesh isnt tinder and is not consumed by flame. Sus-

105

Circle of Hands
tained contact damages the tissue badly, but a person
does not go up in flame when struck by a torch or
upon falling into a campfire. Living people and beasts
receive only Quickness damage from a flame attack,
although if permanent injury is sustained (by Quickness reaching 0), it can be quite terrible. Undead
flesh is no different and also sustains no injury at all
because such a creature feels no pain. Animals are
sometimes afraid of fire but if you hit them with it,
they respond with murderous panic, so the whole
heroic imagery of holding off wolves with torches
doesnt apply too well.

FOR-KILLING WEAPONS

Skilled weapons combat in this culture has nothing

to do with which weapons can most effectively split a
stationary wooden post with a dummy head perched
on top. None is better than another; they all work
gruesomely well.
Fighting is not just standing there and chopping.
In all cases, striking with the weapon is integrated
with shoulder blocks, off-hand grabs or clotheslines,
elbows, and effective sweeps via foot placement. Full
swings are reserved for opening moves and when
the opponent is off balance. If it seems tactical and
chess-like, thats true, but its also done at full physical
effort in strength and speed, in microseconds, so its
as visceral and intuitive as anything can get.

Killing

overhand with or without shield. All else being equal,

it gains advantage in the initial clash with shorter
weapons. Thrown or employed in a mounted charge,
it ignores mail, in which case its also abandoned after
a successful strike because its gruesomely transfixing a corpse or near-corpse. Due to its reach, it is the
hands-down best option against bestial or monstrous
foes, who ignore arrows long enough to kill you. And
if you dont want to kill or maim someone outright, it
doubles as a quarterstaff.
Spears are easy to make and cheap. They are brought
to a fight in bundles, even wagonloads, so when you
break or throw your spear, or if its stuck in somebody,
you run over and get another, or grab one from the
ground, because after a bit the whole place looks like
spear pick-up sticks.
There is no greatsword, rapier, or shortsword in
this culture. Swords are at most a yard long including the hilt, used
either two-handed
(grasping the
crossbar and
pommel) or
one-handed
at the hilt;

However, that doesnt mean swords hack at one

another edge-to-edge. Instead, their flats slide on each
other a lot once the initial striking gets going, changing
angles with the combatants often close to one another.
Dont imagine big chops, but rather lightning slices,
with full body twists, more often than not from the
current position rather than from some dramatic pose.
So yes, the blades move in great big arcs, but typically
on the follow-through rather than prior to contact.
One can also seize the top part of ones blade at the
halfway point and use it like a bayonet; the small point
of impact can wind an opponent or even break bones.
Sword techniques are terrifying against lesser-skilled
opponents, unaccustomed to precision slices which
take them in the sides of knees, the sides of the neck,
and across the forearms. When a high-martial horsemans spear breaks or gets left behind in someone,
and when people finally bring down the horse, he or
she rolls off and rises with sword in hand and they
justifiably scatter.
The universal small axe is the hatchet, known to
farmers and outdoorsmen everywhere. People outside of Tamaryon dont typically carry their hatchets
to a fight, and the people there do, leading to a more
distinctive design, the francisca, with a longer haft
well-suited to throwing.

The shield is a melee weapon. It can deliver a reinforced shoulder-strike to take a foe off his feet, or
slash with the edge neither of which delivers mere
unarmed stun damage, either. These strikes are both
excellent means to make sure the foe does not have
the advantage for his or her next action. So is successfully all-out defending using a shield because there
really isnt any such thing as a mere block with it;
when you use it skillfully enough to protect yourself
that well, by definition youre wrecking the other
persons balance and momentum. Its also useful
for teamwork, in the right circumstances, for the
shield-wall tactic.

The great-axe is a big francisca. It is shorter than

popular fiction depicts, about a yard long, used twohanded or one-handed with a shield. The single head
looks like a woodsmans axe-head but is much thinner with a distinctive bearded lower point, weighing
at most three pounds.
Both sizes of axes are much faster to use than one
might think, since theyre used in a whipping motion,
not like a baseball bat, and stepping in the right direction and turning sets up almost all the torque one
needs for the next strike. Gentry in Tamaryon have
great-axes made with carburized steel, resulting in
weapons with reputations of their own. Very soon,
someone will get the idea to lengthen one into the
longer-handled halberd.

The primary weapon in the Crescent land

is the spear, about six feet long, the same
weapon used on foot or mounted, whether
tipped merely by sharpening the wood,
or with a cheap wrought-iron simple
point. The lance, the pike, and
ornately-tipped pole-arms do
not exist. A spear is a deadly
thing, easy to learn, held

106

they are sharpened on both edges but not at the tip.

Theyre quite flat and surprisingly light only about
three pounds. Sophisticated longsword techniques
have not been developed, nor are there schools of
swordsmanship.

In the absence of mass infantry tactics, no one has

yet combined features of spear and axe into glaives
or similar weapons.
Illus. Sandy Jacobs-Tolle

The chained mace, or flail, needs some special attention. You dont spin it like helicopter blades. Its held
with the chains dangling down, swinging back and
forth, and used like a handled whip, usually sidearm.
Therefore the haft is a bit short, the chains are pretty
long. Its a shield-weapon, saving overhand strikes
for the moment after feeding a foe the shield-edge or
taking him or her off-balance with a flat-on strike, so
never mind parrying. Its not about beaning people
with the heads at all, nor about penetrating armor
instead, its about whipping with the chains, which
doesnt miss and fucking hurts, rattling heads inside
their helms, ruining technique with other weapons,
or setting up for someone with a spear to nail the guy.
Thats why the heads are relatively small and blunt,
sometimes merely slightly-heavier rings, solely to
increase the chains momentum.

MOUNTED COMBAT

People often ride horses to fights, but the only people

who consistently fight from horseback are gentry and
small bands of people typically fighting for them.
Even in the largest battles of the Crescent Land,
which might number between 100 and 200 people,
only about ten percent are mounted.
Its hardly organized cavalry in the later historical
sense, but people skilled at this do work together
and have a good idea of what their horses can and
cannot do. Even when alone, a horseman has lots of
reasons for advantage: height, the horses own bulk
and considerable inertia, and the opportunity for
a mounted charge, which delivers terrifying, often
instantly-lethal damage.
The short instruction is, dont try it if you werent
trained to it, and dont even think of trying it with an
animal not accustomed to it. Fortunately both apply
for members of the Circle.
Defending against a horseman is hard without
massed infantry training and specialized weapons
like pikes. Working together with spears does well,
but theres no massed infantry training in the Crescent Land and getting this tactic organized takes a lot
of leadership and quick thinking in the moment.
The main strategy is therefore to attack the horses,
which is effective but difficult, usually working
against the animals advantage. Given some luck,
their legs are vulnerable, and people skilled with
horses can grab their reins or even tackle their necks
to bring them down, or open them up to multiple
spear attacks. Once four or five people get involved,

107

Circle of Hands
the horse may hurt a couple badly with bites and
kicks, but its going down eventually.
So you can see that all of this is hard on the horses,
who arent animal-friends or comrades in arms,
but rather more throwaway tech, like shields. In a
big battle, pound for pound, horsemen are welladvantaged against footmen, but such fighting will
certainly litter the ground with still-kicking, screaming animals with broken legs, or with three or four
spears transfixing their bellies. In smaller-scale
engagements, which way it goes depends very much
upon individual decisions and luck in the moment.

RANGED WEAPONS

The spear and francisca are greatly feared as thrown

weapons. For both, the throwing hold is exactly the
same as that for hand-to-hand fighting, so theres no
change-up necessary. The spear is typically thrown
with a running start, and with a center-hit, it kills a
person dead faster than anything else in this setting,
including decapitation.
The thrown francisca does not ignore mail like the
spear, but it is thrown without the running start and
with a wind-up similar to a baseball throw, as fast
as a modern pistol shot. You might dodge a thrown
spear, but you have only a split second to see a francisca coming, and an expert knows to throw it when
the target is looking at something else, like fighting
ones ally and you can get thirty or more feet of
accurate range out of it. It doesnt even have to hit
edge-on, because it caroms off things unpredictably
and endangers anyone nearby. Fighters in Tamaryon
work together to throw a lot of them at once, scattering bunched opponents and breaking up shieldwalls.
All small axes can be thrown, and an outdoorsman
from anywhere can nail you with a thrown hatchet.
Its maybe not as specialized as a francisca, but its still
a very bad thing to happen to you.
The problem with throwing things is not having your
weapon afterwards, which is why groups bring lots
and lots of weapons with them to a fight, and why the
weapons metal parts are relatively simple and made
of cheap wrought iron. For Circle knights, often traveling far from home, the francisca is harder to replace
than the spear, so if one favors the former, keeping
one of the latter around is a good idea.
The classic bow-and-arrow is mainly a hunting
weapon, constructed with a simple recurve and drawn
to the body, not the cheek there is no longbow in
this culture. Arrows may be shot quickly one after the

108

other, but they lack penetration, as their purpose in

hunting large game is not the instant kill but rather
disorienting the quarry through pain and making it
easier to run down due to eventual blood loss. As a
weapon against people, it is certainly effective, especially against unarmored targets, but tends to make
people scatter rather than killing them outright.
Archers get no love from anyone if someone catches
one of the guys whos been peppering them with
arrows, then the archer typically meets a very nasty
end. In group fights, the archers tend to loose a bunch
of arrows, then turn and run like hell.
Very simple crossbows exist, not much more than a
recurved bow on a stock, most requiring hand-drawn
action per shot. The resulting bolt attack is another
sure killer, ignoring mail. In Spurr, the revolving nut
mechanism has recently been invented or rediscovered, permitting the bow to be drawn and locked
into place. Its still a big pain to do it, but at least its
immediately ready for its first shot.
However, crossbows do not enter into many encounters. The strategic problem is construction, supply,
and organization. Remember, in this culture there
is no army, no command structure, no depot, no
training and supply centers, and no designated ranks
or division of (fighting) labor. Mass manufacturing,
provision, and training with a standardized weapon
simply doesnt happen yet; given the opportunity for
them, widespread crossbow employment might be
expected to develop in the next century or so.
So as it stands, one guy with a cool crossbow shoots
one bolt, and thats it for the crossbow drama in this
fight. On the plus side, that means a small fighting
group who know one another and do use crossbows
in habitual armed encounters are a formidable threat,
as they can lay down a coordinated bolt storm before
dropping the things and closing in. Such action is
found only among the professional social rank.
You can use a bow from horseback, but not a crossbow.
Defending against ranged attacks is less a matter
of precise dodging than of simply throwing oneself
aside or hitting the dirt. If youre trying to get something done at the same time, turn sideways, get that
shield up if you have one, and hope for the best.
Oh yes! Special pedant note: you loose, release, or
shoot an arrow or bolt.Fire is not the right word,
because there is no flame, which is why that verb is
reserved for weapons called fire-arms.

Killing
SOME THINGS WHICH DO NOT HAPPEN
Weapons cannot be poisoned.

As described above, people cant be set on fire by hitting them with a torch.
You cannot kill a person by grabbing their head and snapping their neck. The closest equivalent requires forcing
submission first as per the unarmed damage rules.

MISHAPS DEFINITELY HAPPEN

Fighting is a bad proposition all around. Not only is some other person trying to kill you, terrible accidents happen
all the time.
When both characters in an armed clash roll doubles, apply the following interesting things to both characters
as they apply:
Whoever succeeded in delivering Damage, stopped by armor or not, also sees his or her weapon break,
unless its constructed of steel (a sword or some great-axes).
Whoever was protected from Damage, in whole or in part, sees the relevant armor or shield break, unless
its constructed of steel (a Spangenhelm).
If unarmed Damage is delivered, then it is resolved as if it came from a lethal weapon.
If an attribute roll was involved, whether successful or failed, then the relevant tool or a crucial item of
clothing is ruined (a boot or shoe is always a good choice).
In practice, its no big deal to forget to apply these rules considering everything else thats going on, especially while
playing for the first time. But once you get used to the general procedures, start looking for the simultaneous doubles.
Fights with unnamed characters are considered mishap-free, or rather, mishaps are merely folded into narrations
for failed rolls.

INJURY, RECOVERY, AND DEATH

INJURIES

For physical injury, recovery occurs at one Damage

per day per missing Brawn.
Example: A character with Brawn 6 is reduced to
Brawn 2, so thats four missing Brawn points. He or
she recovers one point to both Brawn and Quickness
in four days, and is now missing three Brawn. So the
next point, or rather, one point for Brawn and one
for Quickness, come back after three more days. It
will take ten days (4 + 3 + 2 + 1) to get it all back.
If either Brawn or Quickness was taken down to 0,
then calculate the time this way and then double it
for each increment.
Brawn reduced by spellcasting or by jumping position in the fight order all comes back with any scene
transition, or if you want to look at it in fictional
terms, when the character gets a breather.
If Quickness is fully restored before Brawn, then continue just as before, replenishing Brawn according to
schedule. However, if the remaining injury is solely
Quickness, then it clears soon, just like fatigue.

Player-characters are plot-armored against the real

killers in the setting, which are internal hemorrhage
and non-magical infection.
However, they can indeed be maimed. If youre taken
down to 0 in either Brawn or Quickness by any means,
then roll (unhurt) Brawn vs. 12; if youre taken down to
0 in both and survive, then dont bother rolling. Given
the latter or a failed roll for the former, then consider
the precise weapons involved and the narrated events
of the fight to choose one of the following.
Loss of function in a sense organ, which must
be combat-relevant; can only be compensated
with magic.
Loss of some part of the body, which loses
function but depending on what, can be compensated with prosthetic or magic.
Impaired general function with some visual
evidence like a scar or neurologic effect; -1 to
either Brawn or Quickness.
If the character has been maimed, then recovery time
is effectively out of bounds. The character is laid up
for the rest of the venture unless he or she receives
magical help.

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Circle of Hands
DEATH

When a blow takes both scores down to 0 at once, the person playing the attacker has the option to state that the
effect is instantly or near-instantly lethal.
When a character is reduced to 0 Brawn and 0 Quickness, but not simultaneously, he or she is immobilized
through shock, stun, and fatigue. Clinical death happens later, and in this culture, once taken this far on that path,
theres typically no coming back, unless one receives help right away or is aided by magic.
One source of such help is the support staff associated with the knights during a venture. They arent a crack
medic squad who teleport where theyre needed, but if its at all plausible that they can get to a stricken knight
and get them out of immediate danger, then they will.
In either case, if the character does not die, then see the above rules regarding maiming.

WRAITHS

A Circle knight who is killed during an adventure becomes a wraith, a unique status for Circle knights due to their
command of both colors of magic. A wraith is not technically undead and has full mental faculties and volition
of the person when alive, rather than
the warped and color-specific caricatures produced by ordinary magic. The
character continues to participate in the
adventure, until it is finished, at which
point the character is gone forever.
A wraith is present in any played scene,
which permits a kind of scene not
otherwise observed in this game, with
no living player-characters present.
A wraith cannot take ordinary physical action, but it is not helpless at all.
Unmanifested, it can only be detected
by magic senses. It can manifest visibly
to anyone and in that form it can speak
to other Circle knights. It cannot be
affected by physical means, but can be
targeted as a person by magic.

6G

Magic wracks the body.

The power doesnt come from Rbaja or Amboriyon
or the ether. It comes solely from the practitioner,
draining energy, overloading nerves, straining bones,
and wrenching muscles. One overrides the pain and
nausea, masters it, and focuses it by nothing but pure
intention. The stereotype of the frail, intellectual
magic-wielder doesnt apply; the wizard of the Crescent Land must be among the toughest, most resilient
people alive or he or she will be killed.
It is no less drastic in connecting the practitioner with
Amboriyon or Rbaja. A magical act is either one or
the other, inhumanly pure or foul, uncompromising,
inscribing itself right into his or her body. The practitioner doesnt use one of the two principles, he or she
becomes it ever so slightly. Dedicated practice can turn
a person most inhuman indeed.

ray

Magic

There is no wizard vs. warrior dichotomy for Circle

knights. They all fight, and in addition, some memorize a little magic whereas others are full wizards. A
wizard Circle knight is a fighter who runs closer to
the edge of burnout in the action, both physically and
metaphysically. Its a powerful way to play, but also
more volatile.

METAPHYSICS
There is no out-of-game access to the principles of
Rbaja and Amboriyon. They cannot be said to want
something, or even to be about anything. In-game,
the various priests, wizards, and scholars of the Crescent Land offer a thousand and one explanations

Joshua Bearden mused upon Amboriyon and Rbaja during playtesting:

White magic is death, black is life.
White is the color of antisepsis and sterility. The cloud cities exist in a pure celestial vacuum. An Amboriyon zone borders earth by creating a desert of clear crystalline snow-like sand. Pure Amboriyon energy burns a blinding white hot
but leaves the earth ice cold. Passion, hunger, fear, all these impure emotions are purged from the soul that succumbs
to Amboriyon leaving only unambiguous, transparent, implacable intent.

A wraith casts spells as normal using the

characters ordinary Brawn, which exists
as a resource mainly toward this purpose. Its Quickness is used for ordering
when necessary, also as normal. Significantly, its Gifts all apply, even those
which were physical effects such as
silver dragon transformation or bestial
shape the effect manifests physically
for the current situation and permits
physical action, and unless it is killed in
that form, then the wraith reverts to its
insubstantial form.

Black magic is deadly because under its influence life multiplies uncontrollably. Rbaja is the magic of fertility and
fecundity. The swamp hisses with life. The darkness contains all color but releases none, it absorbs all light and all
warmth. Of course bodies rise from the grave. Under the influence of Rbaja, a body needs no animating soul, the wriggling flesh dances on its own. What is else is disease but an abundance of life?
White magic is attractive to humans who are horrified by the messiness of life, of sickness and bloody violence. It
offers freedom from all filth, even the dirt in ones own thoughts. A beloved child slain by disease, a husband stabbed
in the dark, or a wife who died in childbirth all are victims of the seething griminess of life. Amboriyon offers a pure
unsullied, memory of them. There are, in our world, companies who will for a fee, take the ashes of a deceased pet or
loved one and forge them into artificial gems. Amboriyon can turn any one of us into diamonds if we wish.
Black magic fills the void brought on by scarcity, loneliness, and loss of another kind. Why preserve the memory of
the dead when you could have them back, after a fashion. Why lie cold and alone when demon dolls willingly warm
your bed? Why starve when you can sustain yourself on blood? Why should any forego the blessing of conception?
The power of Rbaja, can make any one of us into a garden, albeit unweeded, and possessed by things rank and vile.

A wraith which goes to 0 Brawn through

spell use or magical damage dissipates
permanently.

110

Chapter

Illus. Phillip Simpson

Thats one way to look at it. In the Crescent Land, perhaps some hash-buoyed discussion at a religious ritual has
mused over such things. One participant might have gone further to suggest that Amboriyon and Rbaja are not
manifestations of life and death as we experience them, but idealizations, abstract and pure, which distort and
magnify the ordinary versions of these things, ultimately to the point of removing them from existence.

111

Circle of Hands
COLOR POINTS

On the character
sheet is a row of nine
Gethyn Edwards
entries, labeled Rbaja
arrived at the most
and Amboriyon at its
usable graphic for this.
two ends. When your
character uses magic during play, you draw in little
circles in these positions, to indicate the color points
the character has gained by using magic. The circles
starting at Rbaja should be filled in, and the ones
starting at Amboriyon should be open.

Points are added to the chart starting at each end

until all nine entries are filled. If these nine include
both black and white points, then gaining further
tokens changes the color of the tokens present, never
exceeding nine.
A character has three points in Rbaja and two in
Amboriyon.

He casts a black spell worth three points, so adds

three more to Rbaja, for a total of eight points.

Later, he swears a white oath and gains five white

points from it during a fight. One completes the
row for a total of nine points, so the remaining four
white points replace four of the black points. The
characters total is now two for Rbaja and seven for
Amboriyon.

He will continue to have nine points, no more nor

less. If he then casts a three-point black spell, three of
the white points become black, for a total of five for
Rbaja and four for Amboriyon.

If at any time, the entire lot of nine is a single color,

then the points are all removed and the character
gains a Gift and a Mark of the appropriate color. Gifts
indicate a profound shift in the characters being, as
he or she becomes more magical rather than merely
using magic. Marks are the physical manifestation of
that shift in the characters body.
If the spell which brings the diagram to nine points
of a single color is of a value that would exceed nine,
then the extra points are ignored.

112

Gray Magic

From the end of the last example, the character

has five points for Rbaja and four for Amboriyon.
He then casts two three-point black spells. The first
brings him to eight points for Rbaja and one for
Amboriyon;

The second turns the white point black with two

left over. The diagram is considered completed for a
Gift for Rbaja, all the color points are erased, and the
extra points are ignored.

5 When you speak the truth about a person, loca-

tion, or event and make a Charm vs. 12 roll, one

nearby person loses one die from all of his or her
dice rolls for the remainder of the scene
Requires a Charm vs. 12 roll

Upon a persons death nearby (including killing

them), a glowing, ethereal spirit-form emerges
from their body, under your control. It has the
personality of the dead person but not his or her
volition; it is a mere semblance or leftover. It dissipates at the end of the scene.
Requires expending 1 Brawn

and then,

A Circle knight can use magic judiciously to avoid filling up the chart with a single color, remaining free
of Gifts and Marks. Alternately, he or she may gain
Gifts of both colors to minimize the effects of Marks.
Or such are the ideals of the Circle, anyway. No one
has tried it before.

GIFTS AND MARKS

When a Circle knight gains a Gift, the controlling

player chooses it from the appropriate list. If any other
character does so, then the Gift is determined by rolling 2d6. In either case, that Gift is crossed off the list.
Using a Gift does not confer color points and requires
only what is listed in each description.
Amboriyon

2 Bestow instant recovery upon a person or beast

as per three meals and a nights rest, including

ordinary healing effects.
Requires a Brawn vs. 12 roll
A given person may benefit this way once per day
Failing the roll incurs Damage equal to the
difference from 12

3 Use Charm rolls toward a group

Requires expending 1 Brawn

4 Command the movement and intensity of nearby

fire and light at will

The effect doesnt include ignition and is
subject to fuel constraints
At its most extreme, the fuel is vaporized and
all persons and other creatures in its vicinity
roll Quickness vs. 12 or be knocked over by
the blast

The spirit-form cannot cast spells or talk; it

can only fight

7 Gain a pegasus companion

It does not begin with you in a venture but

must be called with a Charm vs. 12 roll during
a scene
It remains for the entire venture unless it is
killed or you gain a Gift of Rbaja
If it is killed during a venture, it will again be
available the next venture in which the character is played
It will not come if an Rbaja zone is present in
the venture

aA Restore undead to true death

Requires successfully harming the target

undead in combat
Requires a Charm vs. 12 roll

aB Demons are averted from you to some extent

Roll Charm vs. 12 to prevent a demon from

pulling you into a clash
A demons intent during a clash with you
must always be to disengage

When a person gains a Gift of Amboriyon during a

venture, roll Brawn vs. 12, using only 1d6. If the roll
fails, then he or she acquires a Mark, which begins
with a faint interior silvery glow.
The more the person is Marked by Amboriyon,
the more obvious the glow becomes when they are
injured or when body fluids are released. A single
such Mark renders him or her sterile and two remove
all sexual drives. At two Marks, the person also does
not need food and more than brief sleep. At three
Marks, at least half of his or her interior mass is
replaced by silvery light and the glow becomes evident in the mouth and eyes.

When killed, recover fully for the

next scene, once per venture
Requires a Brawn vs. 12 roll, using
full Brawn value

Convert a failed Charm roll into a

success once per venture

aJ

Shape-shift into a small silver

dragon, about three times the size of
a person, once per venture
+1 to both Brawn and Quickness,
Armor 6
Gain flight, the ability to fight
groups, and the ability to blast an
opponent with mystic fire at the
cost of 1 Brawn (a ranged attack)
Gain complete geographic
knowledge of the current venture
Clothes, armor, and carried
items disappear during the transformation but reappear when it
ends
The effect lasts for a single scene
Illus. Juan Ochoa

113

Circle of Hands
Rbaja

2 Gain +1d6 to Brawn rolls and +1 to Damage

People who share intimate contact with you

develop mild fevers and nausea

Disgorge vaporous snakes who make effective

spies regarding a stated location in the venture
Roll Wits vs. 12 to learn about others presence and actions in that location
The snakes cannot be detected without magic

Undead like you and respond positively to the

Black Speech spell without a Charm vs. 12 roll
You may raise corpses as draugr or skeletons
for a single scene with a Charm vs. 12 roll

You are acquainted with an ancient lich who

provides indirect help once per venture
Requires a Charm vs. 12 roll, failure results in
the lich adding itself to the venture against
your efforts

6 Summon a nightmare while dreaming

Requires a Charm vs. 12 roll

The rules for interacting with nightmares
apply (see Chapter 7)

By tasting anothers blood, living or dead, ask a

single question which that person must answer
truthfully to the best of his or her knowledge.
If alive, the target also suffers 3 Damage, using
the rules for whips

One limb or facial feature becomes grotesque

and gains 1d6 when using it

9 Breathe disease upon an area, infecting everyone

in it
Requires a Brawn vs. 12 roll
The disease is non-magical, contagious
smallpox

aJ Shape-shift into a distorted, demonic-looking

wolf once per venture, lasting for a single scene

Requires nudity
Armor 6, +1 Damage, and Outdoorsman profession in the context of wolf-like behavior
Your combat split must always favor offense
while in this form

aA

Recover 3 Damage when someone dies in your

presence for any reason

aB A person or beast you kill becomes a draugr in

your service
Requires a Charm vs. 12 roll

114

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OATHS

When a person gains a Gift of Rbaja during a venture,

roll Brawn vs. 12, using only 1d6. If the roll fails, then he
or she acquires a Mark, which beginswith the persons
interior becoming caked and slimy with black gunk.

A Circle knight or a named person may swear one oath per venture. Beasts, monsters, and creatures of Rbaja or
Amboriyon cannot swear oaths.

The more the person is Marked by Rbaja, the more

distinctive the gunk becomes when he or she is
injured or when body fluids are released. At the
first Mark, the persons physical appetites become
excessive; choose one of food, narcotics, or sex. At
the second, he or she exudes a swampy bog smell. At
three Marks, about half of his or her interior mass is
replaced by the gunk and it also becomes evident in
the mouth and eyes.

An oath must begin with the phrase I will and is

followed by a stated action, which must follow these
constraints depending on which magical color is
being expressed:

Non-Circle wizards in a venture begin with Gifts

equal to the number of Circle knights in play, and
with a single Mark. Roll 2d6 to determine each Gift.
A Circle knight may be Marked with both Amboriyon
and Rbaja, in which case the net effect determines the
extent and color of the evident Mark.
One may ask, are Gifts for Circle knights good or bad?
As with everything magical, Circle knights think of
them pragmatically and seek to use them against
Rbaja and Amboriyon just as they use spells and
oaths. However, Marks and the increasing vulnerability to magical zones indicate a creeping dehumanizing
effect, which potentially limits and subverts the Circles effectiveness. The badness or goodness of the
characters choices is up to you to find out.

Eddie Brown provided an insight which might well

have come from a Crescent Land priest whod joined
the Circle:
One of the first truisms to go under the knife: reality isnt black and white, but shades of gray. This
is bullshit. Shades of gray are too simple for the
complexity of life. Imagine mixing emotional green,
mental blue, moral yellow, physical red, and external gray to form the potential for action. The slurry
makes a tonal brown. In some ways brown is always
brown. Yet, like snowflakes, every individual brown
in any particular situation is subtly different. Unique.
Worth examining.
Circle of Hands struck me as having a brown feel
to it. A real, gritty, banal brown caught between
idyllic, abstract, frightening white and black. The
knights come from the brown, and as Gifts from both
sides accumulate and mix, the brown fades to a tonal
(gray) quality. The pinnacle of the gray theme being
the wraith. Sad in a compelling way.

Hearing an oath sworn is unmistakable. It cannot be faked or concealed. The persons voice doubles or triples in
volume and crackles with metaphysical force, reverberating with strange harmonies for Amboriyon or backed
with cosmic screams for Rbaja. It even transcends the medium of voice; no ordinary means of preventing speech
suffices to stop an oath from being sworn.

PHRASING

Rbaja
Inflicting pain upon a living person or beast
The destruction of an object or a physical
location
The destruction of an avatar or an eidolon
The raising of a currently living person or
beast as undead
Amboriyon
The restoration to true death of an undead
The protection of a person or beast against a
specific attacker
The preservation of an object or a physical
location from a specific threat
The destruction of a demon
The oath phrase may include a how or when
phrase of some kind, but this part is not binding. One
might say with this blade! but if you end up killing
the thing with a pickaxe, the oath is all right with that.
The oath phrase finishes with a designated, specific
target, e.g., a given person or group, not a man or
whoever did this.
Krimhilde is fighting a ghoul, and swears a white
oath: I will slay this foul ghoul! Saying These
three ghouls! could also work. It could not have
been a ghoul or any ghoul or an undead thing.
The means of fulfilling an oath are not pre-set, being
instead completely open to the needs of the moment.
An oaths color implies or requires nothing about
values, social mores, or decency of any sort. Note
that killing a living being is not a valid object for an
oath, because that it is perfectly suitable as part of the
means for any oath.
Most wizards, not in the Circle, believe that oaths

carry moral and ideological weight for their side of the

magical war, but the fact is that plenty of very similar
actions could be coded by either color: to inflict great
pain upon an abusive war-leader which may or may
not include killing him is an Rbaja goal, but to preserve a fortress by killing him is an Amboriyon one.
Circle knights utilize oaths entirely pragmatically and
consider the two colors morally equivalent, yet again
provoking non-Circle wizards into horrified fury.

OATH MECHANICS

Oaths are simply spoken words, effective when

announced. During a complex set of actions and conflicts, an oath is stated during the ordinary description
of intent, following the resolution of a characters
action. This is the sole consequential, mechanical
action that can be completed at this moment.
In fighting the ghoul, Krimhildes action at 3:00 is
resolved as a clash, with her foe injured while she
remains unharmed (it could have ended in any fashion with her still conscious). Her intent statement is
to keep the foe in the clash, i.e., to press the attack, as
well as swearing the oath, which will already be in
force when she again reaches 3:00.
Once a character swears an oath, add 1d6 to any dice
roll for this character which is directly relevant to the
oath. This bonus die is rolled separately every time
its used. It is not an advantage die (see Chapter 5) and
operates completely independently from the quantitative combat mechanics. For claritys sake, use a die
with a color that corresponds to the color of the oath.
As Krimhilde injured the ghoul with her great-axe
in the previous clash, she has the advantage in their
next clash, which occurs when she reaches 3:00. The
ghoul had been injured by her and is therefore just
behind her in the order, so she gets there first unless
it pumps Brawn; lets say it doesnt. In this clash, she
has the advantage and the oath is in force, so she
rolls four dice and applies her split, which as it happens is 11/1. She rolls 14 on four dice, for results of 25
offense and 15 defense.

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Circle of Hands
What actions qualify for relevance? Literally trying to do it obviously counts. And doing something antithetical or
refusing to try obviously doesnt. But everything else is an edge case, such as trying to break out of confinement far
away from the object of ones oath. In the interest of avoiding tedious negotiation during play, the rule is simply to
apply the oath bonus when the player wants it, as long as the action is not literally contradicting the oath.
Krimhilde gets the oath bonus as long as shes fighting the ghoul; thats easy. If the fight were cut short for some
reason, and events landed her in some scuffle or interaction far away from the ghoul, she would still receive the oath
bonus at the players option for whatever actions were going on. The only situations in which she would not receive
the bonus would include fleeing from a fight with the ghoul or trying to make friends with it anything absolutely
antithetical to destroying it.
The resulting value on that die also provides the same number of Color Points of the appropriate color to the
characters chart.
The oath die showed 4 in Krimhildes roll, so she marks four color points for Amboriyon on her chart.
To end the oath during the venture, either fulfill it or formally renounce it. Unfulfilled oaths remaining at the
ventures end do not carry to the characters next appearance, but impose both a Mark of the appropriate color
and permanent -1 to an attribute of the players choice.

WIZARDS

Wizardy is listed as a profession in the rules, and it

is certainly a skill-set, but its not a literal job at all.
Wizards are visibly and sincerely off, no longer
functioning entirely within society. Their minds and
priorities are half out of the world entirely, and their
manner and obvious personal practices advertise
this fact. Most continue in the social rank and other
professions they already had, as that is the only context they know, but their interactions are thrown into
extreme forms. A wizard typically receives only desperate entreaties, terrified obedience, or fear-driven
hostility.

LEARNING MAGIC

No one learns magic in any way without dedicated

intention and visceral, no-way-back commitment,
requiring either zone or a creature of the relevant
color of magic. The experience is not precisely shamanic, but definitely ecstatic, only partly based on
learning in the usual sense. Spell names are guttural,
non-language things, because they punch a hole in
ordinary reality.

dence. A person tends to adopt extreme personal

display at this point, which is where the tangled hair
or scarification described earlier come from. Mentorship is often involved as well, typically from another
wizard, or if the person is a scholar, from studying
rare texts.
Documents concerning magic do exist, but none of
them can teach anything at all to anyone who hasnt
committed to the contact described above. Such
documents may be enchanted but are not otherwise
magical themselves. If someone without the contact
and commitment looks at one, he or she will see
words in understandable language, but they are incoherent, boring, and devoid of meaning. Also, none of
these documents are standardized, far from it.

doing so has always reinforced that its one or the

other. Until the Circle came about, either no one tried
or they quickly ended up dead.
All Circle magic is deliberately both Rbaja and
Amboriyon. The lesser practitioners know spells of
both at all times, and the wizards are fully capable of
casting any and every spell.
A person may have known some magic prior to
joining the Circle, in which case he or she may now
choose which spells to trade in and out of use based
on the constraint of Wits. Or if he or she knew no
magic already, such access is now available and
embraced. The wizards of the Circle provide patient
and relatively safe instruction for this level of practice,
up to and including becoming a full wizard as well.
A person may have been a wizard already upon joining the Circle, in which case he or she must have
undergone quite an ideological shock by expanding
his or her knowledge to cast both colors of magic
freely.
The differences in these personal histories are nice
to know for the Circle knight youre currently playing, but they dont need to be conceived in detail
or narrated as a story. Sometimes a detail or two is

interesting, as with Krimhildes prior knowledge and

use of Semblance, but thats about it.

WIZARDS SENSES

All wizards sense the following, in the range of

normal senses:
Nearby spellcasting
A currently-active spell or enchantment
Whether a creature was created by magic
The color of a spell, either as its cast or encountered in ongoing form
This sense is active and used only at the players
announcement, i.e., the GM does not proactively have
to account for it during play.
This sense is not limited by darkness, ambient noise,
or any other input to the ordinary senses. It is only
blinded by a sufficiently strong Blank spell, which
is not itself detected by the character and therefore
cannot be actively overcome.
No other characters have these senses, not even the
non-wizard Circle knights who know a little magic.

A non-Circle wizard knows all the spells of either

Rbaja or Amboriyon, constrained in their use only by
the physiological limits to wracking his or her body
with agony and exhaustion. A wizard of Rbaja also
knows white spells equal to his or her Wits.

Its possible to know some magic without being a

wizard, perhaps coached by an imp or taught a bit by
a wizardly mentor. Such a person feels a whiff of the
power, but his or her spellcasting is a rote, instructed
action and is limited to a number of spells equal to
his or her Wits.

Circle knights do not become wizards in play, but

its possible for other characters. Gethyn Edwards
provided some ideas about it.

Becoming a wizard is far more drastic. It requires

extended contact with Rbaja or Amboriyon, at the
edge of a zone, in a state of hallucinating transcen-

Nothing intrinsically stops anyone from practicing

both Rbaja and Amboriyon magic. However, the
cultural, ideological, and experiential gateway into

116

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THE CIRCLE

Illus. Rachel Kahn

117

Circle of Hands
SPELLCASTING
THE BASICS

Circle knight wizards may cast any and every spell

listed, exactly as described. Circle knights without
the wizard Profession begin play with their W in
points of spells, choosing anything from the list they
like adding up to points equal to W, as long as both
colors are represented.
For perspective and contrast, other wizards, i.e.
normal magic, are limited to all spells of one color.
(Rbaja wizards also know white spells with total
points equal to Wits, which they cast with Warp.)
Their Gift results are always determined randomly,
and filling up with the wrong color is disastrous.
Typically they Gift up pretty hard, as an expression
of their ideological commitment.

Some spells are cast as rituals, which require

approximately one hour per color point to cast.
A ritual permits any number of spells to be
included, with the time to cast being the longest
required among them, i.e., a maximum of three
hours
Non-ritual spells may be included in the
ritual, which take effect at the end of the
casting.
The required Brawn cost for the spell or
spells is spent at the end of the casting.
Enchantment is a special case of ritual casting applied
to any spell, described later in this chapter.

WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE

Spellcasting is a symbolic act and employs a variety

By contrast, the Circle knights view of magic is crassof ritual items: smeared or scattered ash, worked or
ly pragmatic. Gifts are considered a strategic choice
polished bone, smeared or scattered oil, and smoke,
and utterly not loyalty-based, rather to the contrary.
in the appropriate color for the
This view baffles other wizards.
spell in question. Its typically
They cant see how you could
Willow
Palecek
suggested
that
the
assertive, obvious, and creepy. A
earn or be given a Gift without
spell
names
be
more
evocative,
and
caster might pull his her hands
doing ideologically-appropriate
upon learning about their short,
apart with great force, revealing
things, and they consider acquiremphatic nature, reinforced the
a flash-and-bang of flame and a
ing opposed-color Gifts to be
idea that they be mostly verbs.
billow of smoke, which is then
abominable.
blown toward the target. Or brandish a painted bone, or pour oil onto a pile of ash held
COST OF CASTING SPELLS
in his or her open palm. The caster may or may not
A spell requires the spending (reduction) of a specific
speak, but if so, then the vocalization is barely speech
amount of Brawn, typically the same value as the
at all but a guttural, primal expression of the spells
spells listed color points.
purpose or visual aspect in a single brief word.
Brawn lost this way is treated exactly the same as
Such descriptions impose no resource or timing
Brawn spent to move ones action to 3:00. It is as
factor into the spellcasting mechanics. These details
dangerous to the body as a weapon-strike. However,
are mainly for fun as one describes the characters
unlike physical damage of any kind, it returns much
actions, toward the ends of reinforcing the setting
faster, replenishing by the beginning of a characters
and rejecting the stereotyped image of the mage wignext scene. Nor does casting magic have any effect
gling his fingers and shouting weird syllables. Nor is
on Quickness.
a detailed description required; if you forget about it
One may cast a spell that reduces Brawn to 0, but not a
once in a while, thats fine.
spell for which the current Brawn is not fully available.
Casting a spell is first announced during a characters
intent statement after his or her action is resolved. As
TIME TO CAST SPELLS
with any other action, however, a spell announced at
A given spell is cast in one, and only one, of two ways.
this point may be switched to another action, or some
Most spells are cast as an ordinary, rapid action.
other intended action can be switched to a spell,
When this is done in the confusion of a multiwhen the character reaches 3:00.
participant fight, it fits into the order/action
In either case, the minimum statement is Im casting
circle described in Chapter 5 right in there with
a spell, and the spells color. Anyone whos paying
everything else, happening at 3:00.

118

Gray Magic
attention recognizes both of those things immediately due to the actions involved, explicitly described
or not. A wizard also absolutely and instantly knows
what spell it is, even if he or she is not observing
directly with ordinary senses.

example: the magic manifests, hurts a person,

and then is gone, leaving behind an injured
person.
An instant spell is vulnerable to oppositional
magic only at the moment it is cast.

The spell takes effect as an ordinary action at 3:00.

As an action, its typically spectacular, accompanied
by strobing effects of either white-hot light or voidopening blackness, by sonic effects similar to those
for oaths, and striking its target with genuine physical
impact and neurological disruption. The victim of a
Rip spell may well void his or her bladder, the recipient of a Balm spell reacts with a brief bout of petit mal.

Prolonged: the magic operates throughout the

current scene, defined as continuity in time and
immediate location during play.

These details also play into the hours-long process of

ritual spellcasting, which I imagine certainly deserves
a little enthusiasm in colorful description.

Creation: the created item or creature remains

until the next sunup or sundown.

Surreptitious casting requires skill at timing and

misdirection to a degree known only to low entertainers, including a Quickness vs. 12 roll. A wizard always
senses a spell being cast and cannot be fooled this way.

SPELLCASTING COLOR MECHANICS

Every spell is designated either white or black and

rated from one to three color points, themselves of
the indicated color. During play, when a person casts
a spell, that precise number of color points yields the
same number of color points to that characters chart.

SPELLCASTING RESOLUTION

Spells require the caster to expend Brawn, with only

two exceptions (Store and Sacrifice). The required
Brawn equals the Color points gained by the spell, so
a two-point spell both requires 2 Brawn to be spent
and adds two points of the appropriate color to the
casters chart. Casting a spell requires no dice rolling;
the character spends the Brawn as an action at 3:00
and the spell takes effect. Some spells require subordinate dice rolls to determine specific effects, but not
to establish whether the spell works.
The spell description includes its color, its Brawn
cost, whether its a ritual or not, its eligible target. In
all cases, the target must be within the range of the
casters immediate senses. If those senses have been
extended through magic, the rule still applies and
therefore the spell may strike at a farther distance
than usual.
A spells duration is one of three types:
Instant: the magic operates only for a moment,
although its effects remain. Blast is the perfect

A prolonged spell is vulnerable to oppositional magic both at casting and throughout

that duration.
A prolonged spell may be terminated by its
caster before the end of the scene.

A creation spell is vulnerable to oppositional

magic only at the moment it is cast.
Created items or creatures cannot be
magically un-created (banished) prior to the
spells duration.
During play, there is no such thing as out-of-scene
spellcasting. Statements like Every morning I cast
Store are not valid contributions to play. Nothing
stops a player from tactically preparing for a confrontation with magic, but it must be played continuously.
When the player wants his or her character to get a
spell into action, then its time to begin the scene in
which it takes place, with its own location and its own
specific time in the fiction as it proceeds, subject to
Crossing and other techniques described in Chapter 4.

SUMMONED CREATURES

Beings created by the Beast, Walk, Demon, Avatar,

and Eidolon spells appear at 3:00, so their first
action will proceed immediately unless someone
pumps Brawn to get there ahead of them.
In combat, created beings also fight a bit strangely,
over-mechanically. They always split offense/defense
evenly unless otherwise indicated in the creatures
description.
The products of the Beast spells arent real animals.
Their coloration and demeanor always reflects their
origin in Amboriyon, and they dont act normally.
Real animals dont like them one bit and they arent
subject to interactions based on animal-friendly professions.
A creation spell cannot be terminated prior to its
durations end. There is no banishing.

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Circle of Hands
PUMPING

Some designated spells effects may be increased

by pumping: donating more Brawn to their power.
Pumping is instantaneous and does not increase
Color points. Some spells may be resisted if the target
pumps Brawn. Pumping is instantaneous in the fiction and does not require an action.

OPPOSITIONAL SPELLS

Some spells affect other magic: Absorb, Stop, Reflect,

Sink, and Warp. Some spells are paired in opposition as well and can be cast as a counter toward one
another: Bless/Curse, Soothe/Berserk, Forward/
Trailtwister, and Repair/Ruin. Quell is similar in its
potential effect on either Erupt or Storm.
Oppositional magic targets other spells in several
ways.
Reflect and Repair/Ruin are cast only toward a
spell in the moment of its casting.

Gray Magic
SPELL LIST

the incoming spell must be pumped to a Brawn total

above that of the oppositional spell.
Oppositional magic disrupts ritual spellcasting at any
point during the hours-long process.

UNNAMED CHARACTERS

Unnamed characters are often affected more extremely by spells, as described for the relevant spells. For
example, Blast injures a named character according
to the results of a dice roll, but simply obliterates an
unnamed character.

SOME GENERAL POINTS

No spell stacks with itself, regardless of caster.

Amboriyon

Amboriyon

Instant
Beacon, Healing, Master, Repair,
Waft

Instant
Absorb, See, Soothe, Purge, Purify,
Dazzle, Forward

Prolonged
Blade, Blank, Glow, Perfection,
Haze, Step, Stop

Instant + Ritual
Cure

Creation
Beast 1, Ward

Prolonged
Shining, Counter, Glamor, Grow,
Vine

No single caster may cast the same prolonged spell

more than once, while its active.

Prolonged + Ritual
Bless, White Light

A caster may terminate his or her current prolonged

spells, but it must be cast again to re-activate.

Creation
Avatar, Beast 2

Amboriyon
Instant
Restore, Wrath
Prolonged
Righteousness, Sink, Spirit, Statue,
Throng
Prolonged + Ritual
Calm, Link, Preserve
Creation + Ritual
Eidolon

Creation + Ritual
Store

Absorb, Reflect, Warp, Bless/Curse,

Soothe/Berserk, Forward/Trailtwister,
and Quell (when directed toward either
Erupt or Storm) are cast either toward
a spell in the moment of its casting or
toward a currently-active prolonged spell.

Rbaja

Stop is cast upon a target person; further

magic cast toward that person initiates
an immediate Brawn comparison and
possible bidding context.
Sink is cast upon a target area; it affects
current prolonged spells as well as all
subsequently cast spells.
When targeting a spell in the moment of its
casting, the caster must first pump Brawn to act
just before the target spell is fully cast. In this
case, the pumped action doesnt fully pre-empt
the other persons action i.e., the first spell is
indeed cast but otherwise its just the same
as any other instance of spending Brawn to act
first, including moving the person to 3:00.

Rbaja

Instant
Confuse, Contort, Noxify, Palsy,
Web

Instant
Blast, Fake, Infect, Reflect, Ruin,
Scar, Warp

Prolonged
Black Speech, Drugges Envenom,
Itch, Seem

Prolonged
Berserk, Curse, Dominate, Flesh,
Hate, Stimulant, Trailtwister

Creation
Cloud, Walk

Creation
Demon 2

Creation + Ritual
Demon 1

Rbaja
Instant
Die, Rip, Sacrifice
Instant + Ritual
Erupt, Pox
Prolonged
Pain, Rage, Suck
Prolonged + Ritual
Puppet, Storm
Creation
Demon 3
Creation + Ritual
Distort, Lich

Characters can pump Brawn to alter the

Brawn totals between opposed spells, perhaps
resulting in an immediate bidding war. Such a
contest is instantaneous in fictional time.

Moreno Roncucci and playtesters provided

much help regarding spell effects and costs.

An oppositional spell must at least match its

target spell in Brawn; e.g., a default Curse is
countered or reversed by a default Bless, and
vice versa. Whereas to function as intended,

120

Illus. Phillip Simpson

121

Circle of Hands

Gray Magic
Perfection

Amboriyon

Balm
Duration: Instant, Ritual: No
Target: One beast, monster, or person
Effect: The targets Brawn and Quickness are both
restored by 3. An attribute may only be restored to
its original level with this spell, not increased above
its base level. Balm only affects physical injury, not
Brawn lost to spellcasting. If it is cast upon oneself,
the Brawn spent to cast it offsets the gain to Brawn.
Unnamed characters: The target receives complete
healing of injury, but not restoration of maimed or
missing body parts.
Variants/options: A single additional die may be
rolled by pumping 1 Brawn, but no more.

Beacon

Duration: Instant, Ritual: No

Target: Caster
Effect: A highly visible column of light blasts upward
from the casters hand; similarly, any wizard within
miles (functionally, any wizard who can participate
in the current venture) is magically alerted to this
spell being cast and knows approximately from what
direction.

Beast 1
Duration: Creation, Ritual: No
Effect: A 1-point beast of the casters choice appears
(see Beasts). It obeys the summoners commands until
its Brawn or Quickness is reduced to 0 or below, after
which it can be forced to obey with a Charm vs. 12 roll.
Variants/options:
Hawk: Brawn 3, Quickness 6, flight

Small snake: Brawn 3, Quickness 6, venom

Dog or cat: Brawn 3, Quickness 6, Armor 3

Blade
Duration: Creation, Ritual: No
Target: One person
Effect: An ordinary sword is safely created in the
persons grasp
Unnamed characters: Ascend if given the sword
Variants/options: Additional blades may be created
simultaneously by pumping Brawn 1:1.

122

Blank
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No
Target: One person, item, or small area
Effect: The target does not emanate magical vibrations and cannot be perceived as magical by a wizards
special senses.
Unnamed characters: Ascend upon casting the spell
Opposes: It can still be perceived as magical by the
target of a Perfection spell.

Glow
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No
Target: One person
Effect: A gleaming silvery light source appears. It is
the only way to create light within a Cloud.
Variants/options: The light is emitted either from a
small object held or worn by the person or as a hanging, drifting globe near him or her.

Haze
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No
Target: One person
Effect: +3 to his or her defensive Quickness total
during combat.
Unnamed characters: Ascend upon casting the spell

Master
Duration: Instant, Ritual: No
Target: One person
Effect: 1d6 is added to any single roll involved in
making something, or the spell permits such a roll to
be made in the absence of suitable materials.
Unnamed characters: Ascend when spell is cast
Variants/options: Both effects can be achieved simultaneously by pumping 1 Brawn.

Stop

Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No

Target: One person
Effect: The target gains perfect sensory abilities
excluding pain and balance. He or she sees in neartotal darkness, hears whispers through walls, smells
or tastes poison without ingesting enough to be hurt
by it, and otherwise senses the barest possible stimulus. The spell permits the target to operate normally
in conditions which provide some stimuli, e.g., fighting in darkness.
Unnamed characters: Ascend when spell is cast

Repair
Duration: Instant, Ritual: No
Target: A broken weapon, piece of armor, or object
no larger than a door or table
Effect: It is entirely restored.
Opposes: Ruin, either at the time of casting or in targeting the subject of a prior Ruin spell

Step
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No
Target: One person
Effect: The target gains nearly perfect balance and
coordination, gaining the combat advantage bonus in
appropriate conditions and permitting actions usually reserved for professional entertainers.
Unnamed characters: Ascend when spell is cast

Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No

Target: One person, a small area, or an item about
person-sized or less
Effect: 1-point spells cast toward upon the target
person, place, or thing are negated.
Unnamed characters: Ascend upon casting the spell
Opposes: Either caster may pump Brawn to overcome
the other, but the outcome does not terminate the
Stop spell

Waft
Duration: Instant, Ritual: No
Target: One person
Effect: Arrested in a fall or potential fall. Waft does
not permit powered or directed flight.
Unnamed characters: Ascend upon casting the spell

Ward
Duration: Creation, Ritual: No
Target: Object
Effect: Serves as an alarm to warn its holder of
nearby intent to harm or otherwise interfere with
him or her.
Variants/options: The warning is always sensed by
the caster, and he or she may also set it to be visible,
audible, or tactile, or any combination of these, so that
it is noticeable by others. Additional sites for warning
may be created in the area by pumping Brawn 1:1.

Amboriyon

Avatar
Duration: Creation, Ritual: No
E ffect : An avatar of the casters choice appears
(see Avatars). To obey the caster, the avatar must be
befriended or placated, depending on its type.
Variants/options:
A unicorn may only be summoned with a supplication by a person who is suffering.
A pegasus may only be summoned by a person
with a martial profession.
A valkyrie may only be summoned into a current
battle with more than about a dozen people involved.

Beast 2
Duration: Creation, Ritual: No
Effect: A 2-point beast of the casters choice appears
(see Beasts). It obeys the summoners commands until
its Brawn or Quickness is reduced to 0 or below, after
which it can be forced to obey with a Charm vs. 12 roll.
Variants/options:
Small bear, Brawn 9, Quickness 6

Large wolf or panther: Brawn 6, Quickness 9

Large snake: Brawn 6, Quickness 9; reverses
when it coils

123

Circle of Hands
Bless
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: Yes
Target: One person, beast, or avatar
Effect: +3 to the attribute of the casters choice, which
may exceed its ordinary value. This is effectively a
mini-Oath for that attribute, without gaining color
points via the bonus.
Unnamed characters: Ascend upon casting the spell
Opposes: Curse

Cure
Duration: Instant, Ritual: Yes
Target: One person, beast, or monster, including the
caster
Effect: The target person or beast is cured of all disease, fatigue, and injury, but does not regrow missing
or maimed body parts. If cast upon oneself, the spells
cost is not restored.
Unnamed characters: Ascend when spell is cast

Dazzle
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No
Target: One person
Effect: Quickness rolls lose a die, including in combat,
but he or she also gains a bonus die to Wits rolls.
Resistance: None against the spell being cast, but
the affected person may pump 2 Brawn to cancel the
effect.
Unnamed characters: The target is rendered completely helpless

Forward
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No
Target: One person
Effect: The target perceives the route which affords
the least immediate danger and is not subject to the
perceptual effects of Storm.
Unnamed characters: Ascend upon casting the spell
Opposes: Trailtwister

Glamor
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No
Target: One person
Effect: The target gains 3 Charm.
Unnamed characters: Ascend when the spell is cast
Variants/options: The caster may pump 1 Brawn to
increase the gain to 6

124

Gray Magic
Grow

Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No

Target: One beast
Effect: The target visibly increases to between onehalf again and twice its usual size; if the immediate
environment would constrain or damage it, its growth
ceases before that point. Benefits include combat
advantage in many circumstances, the ability to apply
force at the new size scale, and +3 to the Damage the
target delivers. The target beast receives no deficit in
its ordinary functions, and its Brawn score remains
unchanged.
Unnamed characters: Animals are ascended to beast
status upon casting the spell
Resistance: None

Purge
Duration: Instant, Ritual: No
Target: One person
Effect: The target is cleared of poison including the
effects of Envenom and recovers quickly from its
prior effects
Unnamed characters: Unchanged

Shining
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No
Target: One person wearing armor
Effect: The armor gains +3 protection.
Unnamed characters: Ascend when the armor they
wear is targeted by the spell

Soothe
Duration: Instant, Ritual: No
Target: One person or beast
Effect: The target becomes sleepy and less capable of
action, reducing rolls by one die. The effect is terminated if the target is attacked or subjected to forceful
interaction.
Unnamed characters: Ascend when the spell is cast
Opposes: Berserk; it also counters the berserk component of Rage and the effects of Hate for one victim, but
it does not cancel either spell or oppose its casting.

Purify
Duration: Instant, Ritual: No
Target: Substance or object, including ore
E ffect : The target is purged of decay or other
impurities; in the case of ore, a single metal of the
casters choice remains. If cast upon a corpse, the
body becomes a polished skeleton. The spell does
not make an inedible substance edible, nor does it
reverse the effects of Noxify.
Variants/options: The caster may pump Brawn to
increase the number of objects affected 1:1, or pump 2
Brawn to affect an area.

Store
Duration: Creation, Ritual: Yes
Target: The caster
Effect: The 2 Brawn spent are added to a storage
pool, which appears as a glowing nexus of energy.
After casting, the caster may recover normally and
spend the stored Brawn to cast white spells at any
point until the next dawn or sunset. The stored Brawn
may not be expended for enchantment. Once used,
the Brawn is gone. A person cannot have more than
one Store operating at once.
Variants/option: The stored energy may float in the
air or be bound into a staff, gem, or anything else the
person carries.

Vine
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No
Target: Area
Effect: Existing vegetation twists and grows according to the casters will: a wall, a net, or anything
else physically possible. The plant
may grow to twice its size; it does not
become animated aside from its functions as barrier or entanglement. An
entangled person or creature, must
roll Brawn vs. 12 to escape. At the end
of the spells duration, the affected
plants die.
U n na m e d c h a r ac t e rs : Rendered
unable to move, communicate, or act
effectively

White Light
Duration: Creation, Ritual: Yes
Target: Area
Effect: Creatures of Rbaja may not
easily cross the boundaries designated by the caster in any fashion
(e.g. flying, burrowing). It may pump
Brawn against the spell to cross, but
the boundary remains and the creature incurs 1d6 Damage as it crosses,
which is not stopped by Armor.

See
Duration: Instant, Ritual: Yes
Target: One person
E ffect : The caster perceives the persons entire
experiential history, but not thoughts, opinions, or
data-based information in the persons mind. Later
during the venture, the caster may recall specific
details with a Wits vs. 12 roll.
Resistance: No
Unnamed characters: Ascend when the spell is cast
against them
Illus. Juan Ochoa

125

Circle of Hands

Gray Magic
Spirit

Amboriyon

Absorb
Duration: Instant, Ritual: No
Target: Any spell in the process of being cast or a
currently active prolonged spell, powered by Brawn
2 or less
Effect: The target is canceled and the Brawn used to
cast it is co-opted as per the Store spell, either initiating a Store or adding to an existing one.
Resistance: It is always opposed by the target caster in
a comparison of expended Brawn, including pumping.

Eidolon
Duration: Creation, Ritual: No
Effect: An eidolon of the casters choice appears (see
Eidolons). To obey the caster, the eidolon must be
befriended or placated, depending on its type.
Variants/options:

Guide

Lammasu
Silver dragon

Link
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: Yes
T arget : The caster and one designated person,
animal, avatar, or demon.
Effect: The two beings included in the Link may each
use 1 to 3 of the others attribute points as bonuses at
will, stating the amount and the attribute per action
at 3:00. While being used in this fashion, the points
are unavailable to their original owner. The points do
not revert and are re-stated with each action.
Unnamed characters: Ascend upon being included
in this spell

Preserve
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: Yes
Target: One person or beast
Effect: The target is protected from ongoing harm,
aging, or decay of any kind. The spell does not protect
against attacks and has no healing properties.
Unnamed characters: Ascend if targeted by this spell

126

Quell
Duration: Instant, Ritual: Yes
Target: A natural or magical storm, landslide, eruption, or similar phenomenon
Effect: The phenomenon ceases, replaced by mild
weather and conditions, although the effects of the
prior phenomenon remain.
Opposes: Erupt or Storm
Variants/options: The caster may pump 1 or 2 Brawn
to reduce the hours for ritual casting to two or one,
respectively.

Restore
Duration: Instant, Ritual: No
Target: One undead creature
Effect: It simply and finally dies.
Resistance: The target may pump Brawn to exceed
Brawn spent on Restore

Righteousness
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No
Target: One weapon
Effect: None immediately, but if and when the target
weapon or its wielder is subject to attacking magic,
and if it or they survive, it inflicts 3 additional Damage
until the Righteousness duration is ended.
Unnamed characters: Ascends those who wield such
weapon

Sink
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No
Target: An area
Effect: A stationary, swirling magical well is created
in the air; all magic cast in the Sinks proximity costs 2
additional Brawn; prolonged spells currently running
must have 2 Brawn pumped to them immediately or
dissipate.

Throng

Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No

Target: The caster
Effect: A glowing white semblance steps from the
casters body (not a target persons) and may act independently, as if his or her personality were present
in both bodies. Its Brawn and Quickness are both +1
to the casters. It has an armor score of 6 and Perfect
Senses. In a clash, it always splits evenly. It may not cast
spells nor can it be healed by any means; it cannot talk
or interact in any way aside from combat. The caster
is incapable of combat or further spellcasting while
the Spirit is active. It may be resorbed at the casters
discretion at any time prior to the durations end. If it
is brought to 0 Brawn, it dissipates and the caster must
succeed in a Wits vs. 12 roll to remain conscious.

Statue
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No
Target: A specially-prepared statue
of clay or metal
E ffect : The caster animates and
commands the target. It has Brawn 9
and Quickness 6, and it is effectively
invulnerable to ordinary combat
damage. It always splits for maximal
offense (12/0). It is not alive and cannot
be killed in any ordinary sense of the
word. Its Quickness is not reduced
by damage. It is capable of standing guard and taking pre-arranged
action against specific individuals,
and of pursuing a designated target.
Although it is not mighty enough to
destroy any possible barrier quickly,
it is relentless and will eventually get
through most human-crafted barriers. Although Statue is not a ritual
spell, if you dont have a statue handy,
then building one is a lengthy and
expensive project.

Illus. Amos Orion Sterns

Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No

Target: One person
E ffect : The target uses the ordinary resolution
rolls when addressing a group of people, including
increased volume for voice and improved visibility.
The effect only applies in motivating them to act; it
will not calm.
Resistance: None
Unnamed characters: Ascends upon casting the spell

Wrath
Duration: instant, Ritual: No
Target: Area of a size of the casters choosing between
a patch big enough to cover a small room, and about
a quarter acre
Effect: An Amboriyon zone is created.
Unnamed characters: All in the area are killed; the
GM may choose to ascend one of them, who survives

127

Circle of Hands

Gray Magic
Drug

Rjaba

Black Speech
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No
Target: Caster
Effect: Undead respect the target and listen to him or
her instead of taking other action; given a successful
Charm vs. 12 roll, they will act as he or she directs.
Variants/options
A draugr or skeleton under someone elses control can be commanded using Black Speech,
given a Charm vs. 12 roll to wrest control from
their current master.
A draugr can supply limited information (see
description in Chapter 7).
A ghoul can supply limited information but
is almost impossible to sway from its favorite
topic.

A haunt can converse almost normally, but

cannot think outside the context of its obsession.
A lich converses and interacts almost normally
without Black Speech, but can be commanded
to perform single actions with Black Speech
one of a lichs few weak points, and a sure way
to make it seek the spellcasters imminent and
horrible doom.

Cloud
Duration: Creation, Ritual: No
Target: Area
Effect: All light sources in the immediate area are
extinguished, and all target actions in that area
receive a 1d6 reduction, as does attempting to leave
the area of effect.
Unnamed characters: Completely helpless
Opposes: None which prevent the spell from taking
effect, but Glow provides the single working light
source in its effect and Perfect Senses permits its
target to act normally.

128

Confuse
Duration: Instant, Ritual: No
Target: One person or beast
Effect: The target becomes incapable of targeting
other characters in any way, or of speaking
Resist: None which prevents the spell from taking
effect, but effect is removed if the person or beast
pumps 2 Brawn.
U nnamed characters : Completely incapable of
directed action or communication

Contort
Duration: Instant, Ritual: No
Target: One person, animal, or monster
Effect: The targets body becomes sufficiently malleable and flexible including the pelvic symphysis
and the fused skull bones to permit passing through
frighteningly small openings. All items worn or carried are affected as well.
Unnamed characters: Ascended upon casting of the
spell

Demon 1
Duration: Creation, Ritual: Yes
Effect: A 1-point demon of the casters choice appears
(see Demons).

If the spell Sacrifice was employed, then the

demon obeys the summoner by default for its
first action
If not, then the summoner must force it to obey
with a Charm vs. 12 roll, which is a full action
of its own

Variants/options
Imp

Splotch
Doll

Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No

Target: One person or beast
Effect: The target suffers 1d6 Damage immediately
and another at the end of the spells duration; the
latter effect is counteracted if he or she receives
another Drug spell prior to that point; Drug cast
upon a Drugged target inflicts no damage.
Resist: None
Unnamed characters: Ascends upon casting the spell

Envenom
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No
Target: Weapon or other item used against the skin
(cup, clothing, blanket); alternately, food or drink
Effect: The target inflicts 1d6 Damage upon its user,
or in the case of a weapon, upon suffering ordinary
Damage from it after armor.
Resistance: None
Unnamed characters: Kills instantly

Itch
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No
Target: One person or beast
Effect: The targets Quickness is reduced by 1 and he or
she cannot benefit from the advantage during combat.
Resistance: None
Unnamed characters: Rendered completely helpless

Noxify
Duration: Instant, Ritual: No
Target: Organic, non-living substance
Effect: The target becomes disgusting and unusable;
it has no effect on living targets, nor can it target anything currently Purified.
Variants/options: The caster may pump two Brawn
to affect all objects within an area

Palsy
Duration: Instant, Ritual: No
Target: One person, beast, demon, eidolon, or avatar.
Effect: The target becomes unable to change position
significantly or move coherently enough to attack.
Resist: None which prevents the spell from taking
effect, but effect is removed if the person or beast
pumps 2 Brawn.
Unnamed characters: Rendered completely helpless

Seem
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No
Target: One person
Effect: The target looks, sounds, and smells like
anything else of the casters choice, subject only to
size constraints. This spell is completely ineffective
against Perfect Senses. The spell does not confer any
abilities.
Resist: To fool an observer who has reason to doubt
the semblance, the target must make a Wits vs. 12 roll
Unnamed characters: Ascends when spell is cast

Walk
Duration: Creation, Ritual: No
Target: One corpse of a person or beast
Effect: The target becomes either an undead skeleton or draugr (see Undead). It obeys the casters desire
immediately at 3:00; such commands are integrated
into the casting of the spell.
Unnamed characters: Ascends when spell is cast
Variants/options: The spell produces either a draugr
vs. skeleton based on the condition of the corpse.

Web
Points, Duration: Instant, Ritual: No
Target: Area
Effect: The target area is covered with sticky webs.
Any person or creature in the area is constrained in
movement and actions and must make a Brawn vs. 12
roll to act or escape.
Unnamed characters: Trapped and helpless
Variants/options: The caster may pump to reduce
the dice rolled to escape.

129

Circle of Hands

Gray Magic
Dominate

Rjaba

Berserk
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No
Target: One person
Effect: The target suffers no Quickness penalty from
Damage and may neither all-out defend nor retreat.
For the duration of the spell, he or she is incapable of
speech and cannot make Wits rolls.
Resist: None
Unnamed characters: Ascend upon casting the spell
Opposes: Soothe

Blast

Duration: Instant, Ritual: No

Target: One person, beast, monster, eidolon, or
avatar
E ffect : The target suffers 1d6
Damage. Armor does not protect
against this damage. The damaged
area has a characteristic blackened,
fried look without being burned.
Resist: None
Unnamed characters: Killed
Variants/options: The caster may
pump further Brawn 2:1 for additional dice of Damage

Demon 2
Duration: Creation, Ritual: No
Effect: A 2-point demon of the casters choice appears
(see Demons).

If the spell Sacrifice was employed, then the

demon obeys the summoner by default for its
first action
If not, then the summoner must force it to obey
with a Charm vs. 12 roll, which is a full action
of its own.

Variants/options

Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No

Target: One person
Effect: The Target may apply Charm vs. 12 rolls to
animals and peasants.
Resist: None
Unnamed characters: Successful Charm effect with
no roll required
Variants/options: The caster may pump Brawn to
affect additional individuals 1:1

Fake
Duration: Creation, Ritual: No
Effect: A fabricated object of the casters choice, no
larger than may be carried by hand, is created from
minimal materials. It looks serviceable and even tests
well, but crumbles when it is used in earnest.

Nzagg

Nightmare
Eye

Flesh
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No
Target: One or more corpses of people or animals
Effect: A wall is created with strength equal to the
bodies combined original Brawns. If damaged, it will
regrow 5 Brawn per action. The bodies used do not
necessarily retain their original integrity, such that
the wall is about 5 by 5 per human-sized body.

Hate

Curse

Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No

Target: An area
Effect: All persons or animals within the area attack
one another at random and without ceasing
Resist: To behave differently, one must succeed with
a Wits vs. 12 roll; this roll must be made per intended
action as long as one is in the area.
Unnamed characters: If a person or animal succeeds
in the Wits roll, he or she ascends

Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No

Target: Person or beast
Effect: The target loses a die for all
rolls using a single attribute of the
casters choice
U nnamed characters : Rendered
incompetent at any attempted task
Opposes: Bless

Infect
Duration: Instant, Ritual: No
Target: One person or animal
Effect: The target person or beast contracts a nonfatal, non-contagious fever.
Unnamed characters: Rendered miserable and helpless

130

Illus. Amos Orion Sterns

Reflect
Duration: Instant, Ritual: No
T arget : A spell in the moment of its casting by
another
Effect: The target spell is directed to another target
of the casters choice

Ruin
Duration: Instant, Ritual: No
Target: Non-living object, approximately humansize or less
Effect: The object is broken.
Opposes: Repair

Scar
Duration: Instant, Ritual: No
Target: Person
Effect: The target loses 1 die of effectiveness with
Charm; the effect recovers similar to injury.
Resist: None
Unnamed characters: Disfigures them terribly
Variants/options: Removes 2 dice with an additional
1 point of pumped Brawn

Stimulant
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No
Target: One person or animal
Effect: The target person or beast adds two points to
either Brawn or Quickness as desired by the caster,
which may exceed its original value. When the spells
duration is over, the target suffers 1d6 Damage.
Unnamed characters: Ascend if this spell is cast on
them

Trailtwister
Points, Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No
Target: An area
Effect: People and beasts in the target area will go
anywhere, even backwards, except where they wished
to go. Once affected, a person or beast may try a Wits
vs. 12 roll to overcome the effect.
Unnamed characters: Hopelessly lost
Opposes: Forward

131

Circle of Hands

Gray Magic

Warp

Pox

The target instant or prolonged white spell is transformed into a black spell, i.e., it confers black color points upon its
caster. The caster of Warp may also pump 2 points of Brawn to change the spells effect into a Curse.
Duration: Instant, Ritual: No
Target: A spell of Amboriyon in the moment of its casting by another
Effect: The target spell is converted to Rbaja, conferring black color points rather than white.

Rjaba

Demon 3
Duration: Creation, Ritual: No
Effect: A 3 point demon appears (see Demons).
Demons summoned with this spell are not interested
in deals or commands and simply go into action as
they see fit. An imp must be involved in the summoning process.
Variants/options:

Dancer

Points, Duration: Instant, Ritual: Yes

Target: An area of natural ground or built upon it.
Effect: The ground bursts forth in a miniature (20
tall) volcano, with attendant effects depending on the
situation. Named characters in the area of effect make
a Quickness vs. 12 roll or suffer 6 Damage;
Unnamed characters: Killed or flee

Lich

Yoggoth
Angel

Die
Duration: Instant
Ritual: No
Target: One person or beast
Effect: The target loses 3 Brawn from the target.
Resistance: None
Unnamed characters: Killed instantly
Variants/options: The caster may pump Brawn 1:1 to
remove additional Brawn from the target.

Distort
Duration: Creation, Ritual: Yes
Target: An area
Effect: The spell creates an Rbaja zone in the immediate area. All corpses within the designated area
become draugr.
Unnamed characters: Flee in terror, some disappearing, some driven mad.

132

Erupt

Duration: Creation, Ritual: Yes

Target: The caster
Effect: The target dies and transforms himself or
herself into a lich, given the appropriate materials
(see Undead; also see rules for player-characters).

Pain
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No
Target: One person
Effect: For every 3 full Damage points inflicted by the
target person after armor, 1 point of Brawn is made
available to the caster of the spell for healing injury.
Points in excess of those are made available for casting black spells; these latter points must be utilized
during the current scene or they dissipate.
Resistance: No
Unnamed characters: Ascend when spell is cast

Rip

Duration: Instant, Ritual: Yes

Target: An area
Effect: All persons, beasts, and animals is infected
with a normal contagious disease of the casters
choice, with immediate sensations and symptoms.
The spell does not do immediate damage.
Resist: No
Unnamed characters: All in the area die within a day
unless they receive magical help
Variants/options
Smallpox
Influenza

Puppet
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No
Target: One person or undead
Effect: The target obeys a single willed, non-verbal
order from the caster at any point in the spells duration.
Resistance: The target may negate the command with
a Wits vs. 12 roll; if successful, he or she incurs 1d6
Damage.
Unnamed characters: Ascended when targeted with
this spell

Rage
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No
Target: One person
Effect: The target, who must be nude, is transformed
into a bestial form with armor 6 and is considered
armed when bare-handed, including +1 to Damage
similar to a great-axe. In combat, the person is Berserk
as per the spell and may acquire combat advantage in
beast-favoring circumstances. The subject may end
the spell prior to its duration with a Wits vs. 12 roll.
Unnamed characters: Ascend if targeting
Opposes: None, but the berserk component may be
overcome by Soothe

Duration: Instant, Ritual: No

Target: One person
Effect: The caster may ask one question of the target,
which the subject must answer truthfully to the best
of his or her knowledge, but limited to a single word;
the target also suffers 3 Damage, using the rules for
whips (see Chapter 5).
Unnamed characters: Ascend when this spell is cast
upon them

Sacrifice
Duration: Creation, Ritual: No
Target: One or more persons or beasts.
Requirement: The caster must kill one or more persons or beasts just prior to casting this spell, which is
its own physical action
Effect: For each 3 of a victims Brawn, one point is
stored as a storage pool, which appears as a black
shadow. The caster may spend the stored Brawn to cast
black spells until the next dawn or sunset. The stored
Brawn may be expended for enchantment. Once used,
the Brawn is gone. More Brawn may be added to the
shadow with additional castings of Sacrifice.
Unnamed characters: Not eligible an unnamed
person or animal must be ascended before killing it
for this spell to work.
Note: Sacrifice does not require spending Brawn.

Storm
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: Yes,
Target: An area
Effect: A storm is raised in the area, complete with
darkness, rain, lightning, and thunder; if cast in an
arid location, raises a sandstorm. Peole and creatures
in the area of effect suffers reduced visibility, reduced
movement, and disadvantaged actions, except for
creatures of Rbaja.
Unnamed characters: Hopelessly lost and disoriented, killed at the casters option

Suck
Duration: Instant, Ritual: No
Target: One person or beast, whom the caster must touch with an ordinary action; requires Quickness vs. 12 if
the target tries to avoid being touched.
Effect: The target loses 3 Brawn as a physical injury and the casters injuries are healed by this amount. Excess of
2 or higher has the effect of a single Stimulant spell. This spell costs no Brawn unless it is pumped.
Unnamed characters: Ascend when this spell is cast on them

133

Circle of Hands
SPELL COMBINATIONS

Minor tactical spellcasting within either Amboriyon

or Rbaja is rife throughout the spell list, such as Web
+ Suck, Stimulant + Pain, Glamor + Throng, and one
of the Beast spells + Grow. Finding clever pairings is
part of the fun, as when two spellcasters use Pain on
one another.
More subtly, the big Brawn cheaters lie at the core
strategies for Rbaja magic, such as Pain but especially
Sacrifice. Since it has no limit on how much Brawn can
be supplied, the only constraint is the casters capacity
for murder. Such excess Brawn permits not only outrageous combinations of powerful spells like Pain + Rage
or but also fuel for Blast and other pumped effects.
For the especially disgusting capper, following the
murders, the resulting corpses may then be used for
yet more services with Walk and then Flesh.

White combos can be aided with Store, but do not

have the end-run of Sacrifice available. They rely
more typically on rituals, permitting complex arrays
of multiple prolonged effects, sometimes with a kickoff multi-spell effect hitting simultaneously at the
end of the casting. It works especially well when dealing with a specific problem with organized help, such
as a Warded space to protect the ritual casting and a
squad with a plan, prepared to benefit from the barrage of spells that hit at its conclusion. Consider such
a squad, Hazed and Blessed, supporting a Statue and
led by Forward inexorably toward its target. Multiple
casters also help in order to spread the Brawn cost
around a little. Or for success at negotiating, imagine
a Purified golden ornament made with Mastery and
offered as a gift in combination with Glamor.
The Circles specialty, of course, is black-and-white
combinations which boggle the mind in their profusion and cross-cutting effects. Killing someone for
Sacrifice to power Envenoming a Righteous sword
cast from Stored power its a spectacle that freezes
the blood and lends credence to the grumbles of the
more traditional priests in Rolke who say the Circle
is nothing but twice the trouble at once.
Since the non-wizard knights in play may choose
which spells they have on tap, learning the magic and
making useful choices about those spells possible
interactions is very wise. A group of Circle knights
who rely on their wizard as the only person to make
such choices during a venture will soon be missing
its wizard.

134

Gray Magic
ENCHANTMENTS

Every spell except for Sacrifice and Store may be cast

as an enchantment. The caster must permanently
lose the Brawn cost for the spell and gains twice the
color points he or she would otherwise. Casting a
spell as an enchantment requires ritual casting, i.e.,
about an hour per Color Point. The Preserve, Statue,
Distort, Wrath, and Raise Lich spells are typically cast
as enchantments. Wizards of Rbaja may rely heavily on Sacrifice to avoid permanently losing Brawn,
resulting in physically powerful liches.
The ritual casting for an enchantment requires special, successfully-crafted materials. The Mastery spell
may be employed to produce these, but itself must
also be an enchantment to contribute to one.

As suggested by Willow Palecek, the process also

requires the object to be given a unique name, and
its effects to be specified colorfully above and beyond
the spell or spells used as its platform.
The Blade of Mercy deals no pain as it severs its
victims from all experiences of life.
An instant spell cast as an enchantment is bound into
an object which may then be employed to activate the
spell by anyone. The user gains color points just as
if he or she had cast the spell. The object must be
symbolically appropriate for the spells effect. The
Brawn cost is defined in either of two ways:
The user spends Brawn for the effect; the object
remains usable
The user spends no Brawn for the effect, and
the enchantment is terminated
A prolonged spell cast as an enchantment is defined
in either of two ways:
Bound into an object which may then be
employed to activate the spell by anyone. The
user gains color points just as if he or she had
cast the spell. The Brawn cost is defined in
either of two ways:

A creation spell cast as an enchantment differs only

in that its duration is indefinitely extended.
Once cast, enchantments cannot be targeted by
Absorb, Reflect, Stop, Warp, or Sink. An enchantment lasts forever unless it is broken by other magic,
and its resistance to such breaking may be bolstered
with pumped and also permanently lost Brawn. An
enchanted object is also disenchanted if it is physically broken, or a person, if he or she is killed.

USE AND CONSEQUENCES

To use an enchanted item, a person must swear an

oath of the appropriate color using the full rules
for oaths. At the end of the scene including the first
use, the player rolls for the chance of a Mark of that
color (not a Gift). If a Mark does not result, then this
roll is repeated with continued use until the Mark is
acquired. Once so Marked, the character always gets
a bonus die in the use of that item.
An enchanted object is itself a faint, focused version
of an Amboriyon or Rbaja zone, with recognizable
consequences called stains. Stains are never quite
the same, being a variable mix of certain trends in
behavior and daily practices in a community where
an enchanted item has been located for a while usually a matter of years.
Stains of Amboriyon include
Sweet and pleasant demeanors, banal stockphrases
Insufficient, plain and minimally-prepared food
Conversation always turns toward abstract significance
Obsession with light
Stains of Rbaja include
Bloody rituals
Moments of heedless cruelty
General disorder and mess
Secretive acts and signals

The user spends Brawn for the effect; the

object remains usable
The user spends no Brawn for the effect, the
enchantment is terminated
Cast onto a target per the description of the
spell, but the effect lasts for the entire venture
rather than merely a scene.
No further Brawn is spent

135

Chapter

7L

ight and

Darkness

USING THIS
A prepared venture for Circle of Hands ultimately concerns soap opera. You dont put creatures in there unless the
preparation components in Chapter 3 say so, and if they do, then you specify them toward the harshest, grimmest,
or squickiest human problem as indicated by the red die. Raw logistic challenge isnt the issue; if you put in a
monster, for example, then maybe it outmatches the Circle knights, and maybe it doesnt. Doesnt matter.

Since the people, animals, and creatures in a venture arent boss fights or speedbumps, this chapter offers both
the various useful numbers for each being and, at Keith Senkowskis suggestion, a little rubric for orienting it or
them for preparation and play.

PREPARATION

To review, the various component numbers give you:

1-4: People and ordinary animals

Social rank, profession, ecology, community
Familiarity, personal likes and dislikes,
understandable reactions and responses

5 In addition to people and animals, dangerous

creatures

Beasts, monsters and minor creatures of

Amboriyon and Rbaja
Effects of human activity, distortions of
human activity, prompters of human activity

6 In addition to people and animals, major creatures and agents of Rbaja

Enchantment, zone, wizard, or demon

7 In addition to people and animals, major creatures and agents of Amboriyon

Enchantment, zone, wizard, or eidolon

You have to make choices of your own and be a
little creative with the components, as described in
Chapter 3, but if I say, And just play! then its easy
to fall back on directing and conducting and dictating, in order to meet speedbumps and get to a boss
fight soon but not too soon. So each creature has a
little flow chart with some text, like this one for the
manticore (for perspective, this is a monster which
acquires the limited memories and imitates the voice
of its victims, when its eaten their brains):

Illus. Jez Gordon

Manticore:
In the wilds
Recently disturbed or its territory newly
entered
Kills a person, eats his or her brain, and
relocates to that persons home area
At a community, where people are beginning
to go missing; the people there probably dont
know what it is
It proceeds along the kin and social ties of
the victims it eats, remaining hidden and
taking a victim once every week or ten days
if this pattern becomes evident, social
strife may ensue as people blame old clan
or family problems
If youre hunting for whatevers doing it, or
searching for missing people, itll lure you
to its lair
Lets say your preparation includes the component #4
set in Famberge, and youre looking at the monsters
of that area. You can decide whether the manticores
rubric fits with your notions of what the other prep
elements are, like the people and the locations. You
can even find some place in the middle of the rubrics
path which seems like the right starting point for
your particular creature in this particular situation.
Some of the rubrics are linear and others represent
branchings or alternatives; the difference should be
apparent in context.
Ive found that if the component (5, 6, or 7) is by itself,
then the flow chart or rubric works well from the top,
but with other components in play, enough stuff is
happening that the creature fits better already further
down through its branches.

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Circle of Hands

Light and Darkness

IN THE MOMENT

Descriptions during role-playing are harder than they look. My personal failing is not describing enough, so that
I look back at a session and feel as if it had been conducted in partly-finished, sometimes stick-figure terms. I
know that using game terms and creature names by themselves isnt enough, as it seems flat, and yet long-winded
purple prose is no fun either.
Theres no easy answer, so are some thoughts from my playtesting, acknowledging that I struggle with it too.
Youre not the animator or the movie screen, providing the full visuals and motion so that others may soak them
in. Instead, youre only talking so that others imaginations have enough to work with. In turn, if you listen while
they speak, and then more fully detail what you heard them say when you respond, youll find theyll do the same
with you.
When playing people and ordinary animals, try it from the observing characters eyes, filtered through and focused
by his or her social rank and profession. Lacking an outdoorsman perspective, even the sight of an ordinary creature
like a hawk is jarring, composed of startling details, especially if its up close. Lacking a martial perspective, one may
see a horse that can be ridden during a fight as a nearly-supernatural monster.
In play, Ive also been holding off on the explicit names for beasts, monsters, and the Rbaja and Amboriyon
creatures until after theyve been established as a visual presence. Try describing it in pieces, focusing first on the
familiar, then on the unfamiliar. When it moves describe its actions with one or two details, then if it gets injured,
describe that with one or two details.

ORDINARY AND EVERYWHERE

A lot of the people and animals in scenes arent active

agents and never become anything more than the
way things look around here. Theyre available for
more agency as the events may prompt, but are not
launched as such during preparation.

ANIMALS AND PEASANTS

Incidental animals are a constant part of life: domestic dogs and horses, herded animals including goats,
sheep, and cows, wild animals including many small
mammals, wolves, bear, deer, and plenty of birds
from sparrow to hawk to pheasant. In regional terms,
Tamaryon is associated mainly with boar and oxen,
Famberge with wolves, smaller wild pigs, and horses,
Spurr with snakes and hawks, and Rolke with a distinctive regional panther.
People in the Crescent Land live and work closely
with animals, so briefly describing animals in this
way during play helps the group to engage with the
culture quite a bit. For them to matter more, a character has to be seriously in their space and seriously
doing something they like or dont like, which effectively means ascending them to the Beast category
(below) in a specific situation.
Peasants are human beings. However, as far as everyone else is concerned, and as far as peasants who dont
know one another are concerned, they are incidental
people a person in this social rank is perceived as

138

part of the landscape and more of an ecological actor

than a social one.
Although peasants as a class can be a potent social
force, they arent perceived that way, and arguably
dont perceive themselves as such most of the time.
Therefore, in game terms, for Circle knights who dont
have peasant status and for everyone else too, peasants are moving parts of the background in scenes.
The mechanics for unnamed people and groups
arent used for them, and they cant be ascended or
even be targeted by Wits or Charm.
If a Circle knight in the venture is of the peasant
social rank, then as far as he or she is concerned, local
peasants are played as unnamed people instead, and
if he or she does single out or interact with a peasant,
then that peasant can be ascended to named status
and played from there.

UNNAMED PEOPLE

Most of the characters present in fictional terms are

unnamed but present and active, whether seen in the
moment or not. A bunch of villagers, four armed
men, mounted, women singing as they bring their
baskets to the wagons all qualify.
Such characters actions are not assessed for failure.
They do stuff appropriate to their social rank and professions, and you role-play them as individuals as you
see fit, thinking in terms of their generic relationships

to the named characters and of basic, understandable human-interest.

For resolution, review the rules in Chapter 4. To summarize briefly here:
If a player-character wants to stop or change what an unnamed person is doing, that requires a vs. 12 roll.
Magic has special effects for these characters, mainly taking the spell to its maximum possible effect without
nuances like penalties to specific attributes, as described in Chapter 6.
Circle knight or not, youre usually on their turf, and going straight up to them and using an attribute against
them will only employ a single die. You can get the full two dice with some thoughtful play prior to conflicts.
Group action is extremely effective and dangerous.
An unnamed character may be ascended to named status by either GM or player actions, as described in
Chapter 4.

NAMED PEOPLE AND BEASTS

These are all about agency. When included in preparation, a named person or designated beast is not
only already directing actions toward some goal or
problem, he or she is opinionated about it and ready
to respond assertively to anything and anybody who
comes along. A good way to look at it is, they have not
received the memo that the Circle knights are the
player-characters and have no particular reason to
respect that status.
Interacting with them begins with social rank, profession, and Charm vs. 12 rolls as described in Chapter 4.

NAMED PEOPLE

Several named people are created as components

of preparation; so you already have them. For each,
you should know at least one thing from both of the
following lists:
Special interests, past history, problems, strong
emotional attachments
Social class, relative wealth, kinship, social
authority and reputation
By definition all non-Circle wizards are in this category, as they only come into play via the preparation
components.

ily for characterization and action, and as mechanics

only when reactive things like magic are involved.

BEASTS

These are not just an animal, but rather the nonhuman version of named people as placed into an
adventure by the preparation system, as well as
animals ascended through interacting with them
during play. Such a creature recognizes individual
people and forms strong, wide-ranging connections
with them, such as protectiveness, friendship, and
hatred. It has attributes and acts as a character, with
motivations and relevance to the human community;
it may or may not have a literal name given it by that
community. Play them with agency and reactivity just
like named people.
All beasts use the following rubric. It will make most
sense to begin them a few steps into it.
Ordinary life
The beast receives help from a person
The beast is provoked by a person or unexpectedly survives a human threat
Involvement with human community

To review from Chapters 3 and 4: the initially-prepared

named people have scores 8 5 4 2 in any appropriate
arrangement, and for the single most problematic
individual, his or her sum of scores is equal to the sum
of the highest-sum Circle Knight currently in play.
The ascended characters, given an identity during the
course of play, have scores 4 4 4 4, although the GM
may increase or decrease the scores to the same total
if the fictional circumstances call for it.

Threat, usually with identifiable targets or at

least logical ones from the beasts point of view

Resolve these characters actions during scenes using

their Brawn and Quickness just as for the Circle
knights. However, use their Wits and Charm primar-

A person with an appropriate profession may interact

with a beast using Charm just as for people and with
the same results.

Leads to strife among the people about what

to do, or whos responsible
Hunting the hunter
Help
Makes a significant decision which some
humans disagree with

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Circle of Hands
Dont use 8 5 4 2 for them, but the following values
for Brawn and Quickness. Wits and Charm typically
arent used directly, nor should they be applied outside the parameters of the animals identity.
A small animal typically has Quickness 6 and
Armor ranging from 0 to 3. If its little, like a
housecat, then its Brawn is 3; if its capable of
damage and actions similar to a human, then
its Brawn is 6.
A big animal, larger than a human, typically has
Brawn 9 and Quickness 6, with Armor ranging
from 0 to 6. Generally placid and focused upon
its ordinary eating habits, this sort of creature
is capable of much fury when provoked, and it
can attack multiple human-sized opponents at
once, positions permitting.
A swarm of tiny creatures is rated by units equal
to how many people it can hit with an attack.
It doesnt have Brawn, but only Quickness 6,
Armor 0. It always acts at full offense (+12/+0),
and the Damage it does is determined by the
roll alone, but ignores ordinary armor. Hitting
it successfully removes a unit.

Beasts are vulnerable to arrows only in hunting circumstances. In confrontational, lethally-intended

combat, arrows have no meaningful effect upon them.
They also attack extremely strategically. If they initiate a violent encounter, then they always begin with
the advantage die.
Some creatures are always considered beasts and are
only brought into play at that status already, through
preparation components.

Beasts in Tamaryon

Light and Darkness

are fast and dangerous! If they grab you, youre

in the water, drowning.
People who are accustomed to ockers teach
them to respond to whistled signals. Ockers in
such communities receive a lot of food in relatively safe conditions and may grow quite big.

Brawn 6, Quickness 9, Armor 3.

Beasts in Famberge
Wolves are not inclined to bother or attack people
most of the time, but they become interested in lone
individuals when game is scarce, and if hunted, they
seem to get the intended roles confused.
They act together using the group rules in
Chapter 5, not so much for fighting in a human
or battle sense, but for isolating, harrying, and
exhausting single targets.
Brawn 6 Quickness 6, Armor 3
The forest man is a strangely benign bipedal beast
in the thick forests who resembles a slight, short
shambling person with long hair hanging from most
of its body. They do not speak and use no technology.
Sometimes they help lost travelers, leading them to
safer areas or to usable paths. Forest men fight back
when hunted, but given their facility with the terrain,
they prefer to escape if they can.
Brawn 3, Quickness 6, Armor 0.
The sad thing is that its meat is excellent and
tasty, Eating it restores injured Brawn and
Quickness by the result of a 1d6 roll; e.g., a roll
result of 3 returns 3 to each characteristic, to a
maximum of its original level. Therefore people
have been known to hunt forest men for food.
Eating its meat once or twice has no long-term
effect, but making a habit of it makes a person
eligible to become a ghoul upon dying.

An ocker is an aquatic tentacled beast which lives in

shallow water, whether fresh or salt, as long as its
home is connected to larger bodies of water, because
its eggs only mature in the open sea. People sort-of
domesticate ockers living in water near communities
by feeding them spoiled fruit and approaching them
cautiously, partly because an ocker can be helpful
in heavy physical tasks at the shore, and partly in
preventative self-defense. People from other regions
may be surprised at how common they are in larger
waterside communities, their tentacles twining out of
the water for treats, or squelching across a dock or
shore to get from one favored hole to another.

The Rolke panther has distinctive mottled gray-and-tan

coloring and somewhat demonic facial structure. It is
is not very big as far as large cats go, weighing about
90 pounds, but its incredibly dangerous able to recognize individual humans and remember what they
have done, and a patient, observant, ambush-oriented
hunter. Usually its content to take down rabbits or
deer, but if it is attacked or if its family unit is threatened, or if its hunting territory is regularly encroached
upon, it becomes a highly personal nemesis.

Brawn 3, 6 or 9, Quickness 6, Armor 3. Ockers

Rarely, a panther displays the opposite behav-

140

ior: befriending a person who has helped it or

shown some quality it values. Sweet as this may
seem, consider its implications for an outsider
such as a Circle knight, in territory well-known
to such a person with such an ally.

Beasts in Rolke

Beasts in Spurr
Rats are not native to the Crescent Land but have
been transported to some coastal communities in
ships cargo. Contrary to stereotype, rats are not filthy
or disease-ridden, and individuals carefully avoid
people.
The Dominate spell can induce them to act as
a squirming, spilling horde capable of horrific
damage.

The ships from Spurr are often accompanied by

pods of a sleek, medium-sized dolphin species, physically similar to our northern right whale dolphin,
who have a disturbingly watchful demeanor toward
people. If a ships crew provides a living human for
them to play with and then devour, the pod provides
useful help for navigation; if it doesnt, theyll follow
for a while hoping for a change of heart, and be especially unsympathetic in the event of a wreck or other
problems that get people into the water.
Brawn 6, Quickness 6, Armor 0.
They always act as a group by preference, using
the group rules in Chapter 5. They are not
strong or numerous enough to threaten a ship,
but small boats and people in the water have no
feasible defense against such a group.

Use the swarm rules.

MONSTERS
These creatures are much like beasts, but they have human-like features or features which prompt specific behaviors
in humans. They dont think like people and are generally predatory or indifferent to people personally, but the way
they interact with people or human practices produces unique problems for a community.
Monsters are not associated with Rbaja or Amboriyon, and they do not register as magical to spells or wizard
senses.
As with beasts and people, they act with agency and react flexibly however, according to highly individualized,
strange logic with odd correspondences to humanity. I hope that you will personally connect with them, or with
the people close to them, and feel squicked out about it. The term monster really means something; its not just
about animals with big teeth.
Charm rolls are either folded into their rubrics appropriately or ineffective against them in any way.
The rules for arrows effects on beasts apply to monsters as well.

Monsters In Spurr

Mansnake
People who have taken sick in Spurr sometimes tell of fever dreams in which a huge, sinuously gliding snake has
come to speak with them, and of waking to a remarkable recovery as promised, if they were to murder a specific
person, always already known to them. Sometimes other people remind the recovered person of the snake, in
their speech or mannerisms.
Prep and play

A person recovers from a lingering illness with memories of the snake

He or she murders someone as directed, usually secretly, then gains +1 Quickness and eventually does so
again
He or she refuses to do so, at any point
This person experiences no further urges or effects.
His or her family or other intimates fall ill with a fever, soon to develop mansnakes of their own.

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Circle of Hands
A person currently in the murder-cycle, i.e., not
actively refusing, shows no physical symptoms, but if
killed in any way, his or her skull ruptures to disgorge
a long serpent with shiny dark green scales, more
than one would think possible to be packed away
inside a persons head.
Brawn 6, Quickness 9, Armor 0.
The emerged mansnake fights if cornered,
but otherwise attempts to wriggle away; if its
injured or killed, it dissolves into vapor.
How mansnakes initially get into hosts, and where
they come from in the first place, are unknown. Most
people think its just a legend.
Circle knights are plot-armored against hosting a
mansnake.

The golden
Some people undergo a change associated with gold:
their irises change color and their hair becomes lighter
and shining. They prefer to wear the metal and can
even smell it nearby. Such a person generally seems
improved, especially socially, gaining +1 to Charm and
to one other attribute, as well as becoming a bit less
concerned with physical gratification like food and sex.

People with this condition are considered lucky and

tend to gather social support for their aims. These
aims always add a certain interest subtle, but strong
in acquiring or at least being around gold.
Whats really happening is classic parasitoidy: a certain butterflys eggs do not pupate immediately, but
accumulate in the water supply and sometimes reach
critical mass in a human body. As they pupate there,
the hosts behavior changes to suit their needs.

the end arrives. Since the origins of the condition are

not at all understood, no one associates the butterflies
with it, and the golden are often envied in life and
remembered with pride.
Prep and play

A golden is a leading participant in whatever activities or problems are currently happening

Successful Charm vs. 12 rolls (by the knights,
not the golden) bring Circle knights into his or
her close associates and plans
Failed Charm vs. 12 rolls turn the golden into
a determined foe, unafraid of murder and brazening it out through charm and local respect
If the Circle knights wear or otherwise have gold, the
golden is too clever to give away its obsession.
Success on a Wits vs. 12 roll for any purpose in
the goldens presence includes awareness that
he or she is staring or otherwise deeply concerned with the gold object
If the passage of time in the venture includes weeks and
months, roll the goldens Brawn vs. 12 between scenes
Success: the number of gold objects around the
place decreases noticeably
Failure: as above, and the golden is noticeably
bloated and gaseous
Circle knights are plot-armored against becoming
one of the golden.

Light and Darkness

Monsters in Famberge

Manticore
This is my favorite monster. A manticore has a lions body and limbs, but a huge and swollen scorpions tail with
sting. Its face is that of a senile old man. It lairs in rank places, like swamps or cliff faces coated by bird droppings.
A manticore is about as intelligent as a wild pig and cannot speak, but if it eats a victims brains, it can imitate his
or her voice and utilize certain memories, those most useful to lure people closer.
Brawn 9, Quickness 6, Armor 6.
It stings when circumstances of combat make a +12/+0 split feasible, typically either upon ambushing someone or late in an encounter against a badly wounded opponent or prey.
In addition to ordinary damage, the stung target must make a B vs. 12 roll; failing means all his or her
Quickness rolls are penalized by a single die for the remainder of the scene.
Since neither really big cats nor scorpions are known in the Crescent land, its abilities are a bad surprise, and
require a Wits vs. 12 roll to acquire the advantage die. It is also remarkably stealthy for such a big and grotesque
creature.
Prep and play
In the wilds

Recently disturbed or its territory newly entered

Kills a person, eats his or her brain, and relocates to that persons home area
At a community, where people are beginning to go missing; the people there probably dont know what it is
It proceeds along the kin and social ties of the victims it eats, patiently and strategically luring victims
with its voice if this pattern becomes evident, social strife may ensue as people blame old clan or family
problems
If youre hunting for whatevers doing it, or searching for missing people, itll lure you to its lair

The golden and liches deeply loathe one another.

Fear a component roll whose result includes 5 and
6 in Spurr.

Much later, a matter of months and years, the persons

saliva acquires the ability to dissolve gold, and he or
she starts eating it. The host body begins to bloat,
first slowly and then exponentially faster, as his or
her hair, nails, teeth, and even blood become metallic, actual gold. In the final stages of the condition,
the person sickens and, just as he or she seems to die,
splits open to release hundreds of brilliant golden
butterflies. These creatures spread throughout the
area and multiply by cloning, so they can be quite
common in an area.
An affected person suppresses the parasitoids
development in others, so golden dont show up in
proximity, nor are butterflies present in the area until

142

Illus. Juan Ochoa

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Circle of Hands

Light and Darkness

Spider-hags
A spider-hag lives alone in deep forest thickets or submerged in isolated ponds. It has long spindly human
limbs as well as four even longer and more spindly
spider-limbs, and multiple eyes, but is not capable of
human social interaction or language with the exception
of its own name and learning others names.

Brawn 9, Quickness 3, Armor 6.

A wracker is big enough to fight several people
with once if it can maneuver to keep them in front.
Some wrackers are also trained for sport fighting
one another, essentially cockfighting with creatures
the size of two horses end-to-end. Deaths are not too
common, as the creatures are durable, but they are
gory and sometimes dangerous for the onlookers
as the beasts rear, tear at one another, fall crashing
down, and thrash in lizardlike fashion.

Brawn 3, Quickness 9, Armor 3.

A spider hag is not hostile or predatory and fights
only if cornered, but it can be dangerous as all those
legs are very hard for a human to fight face-to-face.
Its bite delivers a painful venom inflicting1d6 additional Damage.

Prep and play

Wrackers only become problematic under the following circumstances:

It does not use webs in combat, only for travel, but

it is not affected by the Web spell.

Mistreatment under stress

Both males and females enjoy and seek consensual

sexual contact with humans, which is quite an experience or so Im told. Not only do ones fellow humans
find this objectionable, but when and if two spider-hags
do find one another and mate, they become strictly
monogamous, and each will become thoroughly hostile
to its partners former lovers and spider-hags can smell
that on you, no matter how much you wash.

This is a bit horrible as they do not retaliate

directly against the perpetrators, but instead,
later and more-or-less at random, thrash or go
berserk in panic.
Mating season, as they wander about
People familiar with wrackers know not to get
caught between two of them who suddenly
fancy one another

Prep and play

Sport fighting

Single: plenty of hedonistic fun

Social problems arise among people who object
to others frolicking with a spider-hag, for any of a
hundred reasons

Monsters In Rolke

fined to a few verbs, adjectives, and familiar objects.

But its true speech.

Illus. Juan Ochoa

Hi there! Sooner or later a spider-hag approaches interesting strangers to an area.

Mishaps to onlookers due to the violence of the

encounter
The human brawls and feuds that sometimes
result from arguments about the betting.

Mated: on the vengeful path

Confrontations with people to assess their histories, dismissing those they deem innocent in contrast to
the unmated spider-hag, not a bit interested in casual sex.

Pode
A pode is a squishy creature which wedges itself
into the bottom of natural cavities and crevices, or if
necessary, digs itself a hole. At adulthood it is merely
the size of a pancake, but nothing feeds on podes and
they are long-lived, so it is not unusual to encounter
one whose clotted, puddling mass exceeds twenty feet
in diameter. The ochre or beige male of the species
is passive and offers no harm to anyone except the
microbes it absorbs from soil, but the female alters
its lair to trap prey, especially large mammals. It is
almost always gravid, which turns it a dark red color.
A red pode is a nasty thing to encounter, especially
after an ankle-breaking fall.
Brawn 3, Quickness 6, Armor 0

It is impervious to harm from ordinary weapons

and must be fought with intense and prolonged
fire or with magic.
Once hit by its pseudopods, a person or beast
makes a Brawn vs. 12 roll; failure means he or
she cannot act or escape. Repeated rolls are possible but reduced to a single die.
Once caught, a persons gambeson or mail protects him or her for only one attack, and not at
all thereafter.
The pode would be at most a beast, but it also gives off
an air-borne chemical with a soothing quality, very
effective if one can sit near it for a while and not, for
instance, fall into its hole. Doing so restores Quickness to its original level regardless of the injury or
penalty.
Furthermore, a relaxing recreational drug can be distilled from its exudate. Its a widely-appreciated trade
good in Rolke, and anywhere else it gets to, but given
the necessary resource, not very common.

In additional to the danger to individuals, peoples lives may have taken a more complex turn long after they
frolicked with a spider-hag, resulting in social strife if the past is revealed.

Monsters in Tamaryon

Prep and play

Encounter in the wild

Wracker

If the ordinary orienteering Wits vs. 12 roll fails,

one has fallen into a female podes lair

A wracker is a huge lizard with a wide flat head and rounded snout which results in a disturbing or possibly cute
human caricature; its long torso is just the right height for hanging many saddlebags or trunks from its ridged,
narrow back. Properly fed and managed, its an excellent beast of burden. They are good swimmers and if the
water is not too deep, they can act as barges as well as wagons.

Roll Quickness vs. 12 to avoid immediate

injury, but you are still fighting a pode
Encounter through the drug

Wrackers labor with and for humans, but are not truly domesticated as their breeding choices cant be controlled.
People have learned merely to release them during mating season, when they wont work anyway, and let whatever
happens, happen.

Someone offers to share the paste

Someone else does not approve

Wrackers can speak, a startling feature for people who arent used to them. Their topics are limited, mostly about
the immediate situation or being hungry or in some other physiological urgent state, and their vocabulary is con-

A habitual user becomes insistent

144

145
Illus. Juan Ochoa

Circle of Hands
About sharing more experiences
About acquiring more paste
The majority of people using it experience no recognizable effects aside from a few hours of mellow high
(see Chapter 4), but a few people become addicted.
Roll Wits vs. 12 roll, with failure meaning
incipient addiction. Further use requires an
additional roll, which results in physiological
addiction. Such a person eventually runs off
with a crazy urge to mate with a female pode,
and that doesnt go well.
Circle knights are plot-armored against pode addiction.

Wyrm
A wyrm is a cranky, vicious thing, mostly serpentine,
with two or four short muscular legs, which it uses to
anchor and augment its slithering, coiling, or climbing, or to fight.
Brawn 9, Quickness 6, Armor 9.

Some can spit venom. The venom acts as an

ordinary attack, but at considerable range.
Armor protects against it, but if the venom gets
you to any degree , its pretty much impossible
to hold the advantage.
In addition to coiling, spitting, and biting, it can
lash at anyone behind it, defined as making a
Quickness vs. 12 roll to avoid falling down.

Light and Darkness

The two-legged ones are winged and although

they cannot fly, they can flap to elevate their
ordinary movement, providing considerable
advantage.

They unfortunately perceive humans as just another

species of edible mammal, of just the right size. They
do not hate or abuse people, but merely hunt them
much as they would hunt deer.

A wyrm is malevolent in its habits, but bestial and

not especially smart, no more intelligent than a
horse, with the strange exception of its affinity for
precious metal things. As there is no treasure in the
Crescent land (heaps of coins, ruby necklaces), think
of ornaments or provocative items like Wootz steel,
unfamiliar in both materials and design. How the
creature can recognize such things is a mystery, but it
somehow knows if they are within a few miles radius
and it can smell them in its immediate area. Beyond
beast-like needs for food, it seems to want nothing
more than to wrap around its hoard, typically four
or five such things, and contemplate them.

Typically they are driven away instead, perhaps with

the loss of young, but sooner or later they come near
to human communities again, and people are so
much easier to catch.

It singles out individuals with such an item, kills

everyone else, and slithers off with this person,
or part of him or her, to bring the thing it wants
to a lair.
Older and living in an area for a while
It has a hoard of four or five such things and
prefers to sleep and contemplate them.
It can recognize people who bring it such
things, and sometimes bargains are struck, if
the person is clever enough.

Ogres
Ogres are about eight feet tall and extremely human
in appearance aside from obesity well beyond the
range of people in the Crescent land, and from being
typically bald or with only patches of hair. However,
they do not process information or otherwise act as
social primates, being behaviorally more like oxen.
They live in small family groups, with no language or
technological capabilities at all, not even fire.

Prep and play

Family unit

Hunting people opportunistically

Social breakdown if and when someone
cant make a kill
Rogue individual
Dedicated attacks against a community, timed
and aimed for maximum terror
Social breakdown including recriminations
for the disaster

Creatures of
Amboriyon: Avatars

Young and/or newly arrived in an area

Monsters Throughout
the Lands

Illus. Juan Ochoa

They are ferocious enough in defense and will

fight to the death if cornered, but they panic
and cry at pain, too human-like for people to
stand killing easily, sometimes a character
must make a Charm vs. 12 roll in order to strike
a wounded ogre.

Prep and play

Like a horse or dog, it readily understands that if it

does a desired thing, it will get what it wants in return.
It cannot speak, but more so than a horse or dog, it
can recognize fine-detailed things about locations
and understand concepts like kill the people who
pass by here, or attack when I wave this banner. It
also takes betrayal of such bargains most personally.

146

Brawn 9, Quickness 6, 0 armor.

Occasionally, bitter, scarred older ogres break the

cycle and actively seek vengeance upon a specific
community, with nightmarish cunning and determination. They dont fear pain and strike to terrorize
and punish.

Avatars embody purity; they focus on the environment to remove of it any conceivable taint. They do not speak,
but they understand whatever is said to them, and they act in such assertive ways that their intention is clearly
communicated. Avatars may be summoned by magic, but they also emerge spontaneously from the clouds of
Amboriyon to wander around, especially when circumstances arise which favor their particular quirks, by type.
Avatars activity is always about a personal relationship, based on companionship, approval, and implicitly the
concept of salvation, rescuing the person from conflict. Their values toward this end are simple: white points
and Gifts of Amboriyon are good, and black points and Gifts of Rbaja are bad. To gain an avatars help, one must
establish this relationship according to the steps in its rubric.
In combat, avatars always split their Quickness evenly between attack and defense, unless otherwise indicated
in the individual description. When hurt, they bleed ordinary blood, but its appearance on their perfect forms
evokes such pathos and dignity that all opponents except for creatures of Rbaja must make Charm vs. 12 rolls in
order to strike them after that.

Unicorn
A unicorn is stunningly beautiful, smooth and blindingly white, with cosmic empathy spilling from its gaze and
a remarkably long horn.
Brawn 6, Quickness 9, Armor 3.
It moves with perfect balance and coordination, gaining the combat advantage bonus on uneven or confusing terrain.
Its horn qualifies as a spear in terms of combat mechanics, and it may also use it to purge a person of poison
(including the effects of the Envenom spell), an organic substance of decay, and an inorganic substance of
impurities. If removed from the unicorn, the horn has none of these properties.
Prep and play

A unicorn is a ruthless cleanser of undeath, cruelty, and emotional and physical suffering. It begins with a speciallyadopted friend who has been victimized by these or similar events, and turns its attention to the problem, proceeding
strictly through the following scale:

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Circle of Hands
Destroy any undead
Destroy Rbaja magic as indicated by black color
points and Gifts, including its users
Slay the perpetrators of cruelty and injustice as
perceived by its companion
Cure and eradicate disease
Bring an end to any and all suffering among
people; the easiest way being to kill them
Bring an end to any and all strong emotion
among people; as above

Light and Darkness

Remove the stain of humanity from this place,

as they seem to persist in suffering and strong
emotion
That is, it typically begins its activities when befriended by a person who has been victimized, especially by
black magic, upon which it kills the perpetrators. The
trouble is that it will never stop, up to and including
killing people who suffer so their suffering will stop,
and even going on to decide that humans themselves
are too impure to tolerate, so the eventual result of a
unicorns presence is a community of impaled corpses.

Prep and play

Upon summoning or first encounter

Black color points: it attacks and then tries to
escape
No black color points: Charm vs. 12 roll to
befriend (a character without a martial profession is limited to a single die for this roll)
Failure: it attacks and then tries to escape
When befriended
Participates in combat that day: friendly and
nuzzling toward everyone
No combat: cranky, glares at people, injures
horses if theyre near
The friend acquires black color points
It attacks and then tries to escape

Valkyrie
A valkyrie is an idealized, inhumanly beautiful
woman-seeming thing, arriving or being summoned
only to an existing battle situation. If summoned with
a pegasus, the valkryie is riding the pegasus and benefits from its Armor. If arriving spontaneously from
Amboriyon, they are always riding pegasi.

Brawn 9, Quickness 6, Armor 6.

Prep and play

Observe a battle situation

Receive supplications
Provides +3 to an attribute of the recipients
choice, which may exceed its ordinary value.

Pegasus

Illus. Amos Orion Sterns

A pegasus is a gorgeous winged horse, both larger and more graceful than the typical horses of the Crescent land.
Brawn 6, Quickness 6, Armor 6.
It can fly and perceives the route which affords the least immediate danger to wherever its rider wants to go;
it is not subject to the perceptual effects of the Storm spell.
Its rider uses its Armor score if he or she has less than 6 points of armor.
Fighting from the air, a pegasus is incredibly dangerous, as it swoops down and runs on its opponents,
against which the only real defense is to hurl oneself flat. It can bank to a remarkable degree, so that its rider
may fight normally during the same action. It always flies fast and cannot hover.
A pegasus companion gained by a Circle knight as a Gift differs only in that it will tolerate black color points, but if
the character gains a black Gift, the pegasus flies away for the duration of the current adventure.

148

This effect is negated and transformed into

a reduction to a single die with that attribute
if the recipient does not gain white color
points through an Oath during the current
scene.
If no one supplicates it, then it attacks a random
target
Receive offer to fight on one side
If the person has no Gift of Amboriyon, it
attacks him or her
If the persons Charm vs. 12 succeeds, it attacks
his or her opponent; otherwise it attacks him or
her
Regardless of whether it is fighting and toward
whom, it still provides its blessing to anyone
who asks

When a white Oath sworn in its presence is fulfilled,

the valkyrie shrieks in triumph and dissipates into a
mist, with an accompanying display of lightning.

Creatures of
Amboriyon: Eidolons
Eidolons are not encountered and must be summoned, and to remain permanently, enchanted.
However, in or near an Amboriyon zone, such
summoning may be performed without knowledge
of magic, although it does cost 3 Brawn as per the
Eidolon spell.
Eidolons embody transcendence; they focus on human
attitudes and actions. Their judgments are assertive,
authoritative, and presented as final a person is the
chosen one, and this place shall meet its fate. They are
eloquent and conversational, as altering human behavior is their first priority. When they are summoned,
they observe and listen to the people present, then
soon intrude with authority. They are fixated upon
people with black color points and/or Gifts and focus
their proselytizing or summary judgment on them.
In combat, eidolons always split their Quickness
evenly between attack and defense, unless otherwise
indicated in the individual description. They do not
bleed, but when they are wounded, they give off coruscating light effects which negate 1-point spells cast
toward them.
They do not act in groups and no more than a single
eidolon is ever included in a venture.

Guide
A guide is a pleasant-appearing, rather generic and
androgynous humanoid, dressed in a simple robe
and barefoot. A guide never fights nor even defends
itself.
Brawn 6, Quickness 6, Armor 0.
Spells powered by 2 Brawn or less are negated
in its vicinity, whether at the moment of casting
or in their ongoing effects. The Brawn powering
these spells is absorbed and stored as a usable
pool for the Guide.
It heals injuries to anyone when asked, at 1d6
restored Damage per Brawn point it spends
out of its store; it actively seeks to do so for
injured people with black color points.

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Circle of Hands
Prep and play

Upon arrival or summons

It engages in pleasant dialogue, immediately
perceiving a persons entire experiential history, so it has no trouble ingratiating itself with
a local community.
Soon it offers advice, always some combination of purification by fire, murder by quiet
means like poison or suffocation, and suicide. Unnamed characters reliably act upon
this advice, which can get out of hand and
become much less quiet indeed.
Killing it re-summons it, so it reappears at the
next dawn or dusk with its scores intact, displaying the wounds it received.
In this state its interactions affect whole
groups.
If an Amboriyon zone is present, each
death of the Guide significantly increases
its extent.

The only way to get rid of a Guide is to kill it and

then establish an Rbaja zone, or when utilizing a
white oath. The latter is subtle because destroying an
eidolon isnt in the conditions for such an oath, so one
must fold that act into the means toward something
else which is eligible.

Lammasu
A lammasu is a shining, massive lion with eagles
wings and a classically handsome human face. It
seeks to aid a person to perform the single most
extreme act possible in his or her interests as the
person sees it.
Brawn 9, Quickness 9, Armor 6.
Its body is itself a small Amboriyon zone which
negates violent weather and environmental
effects, whether natural and magical.
In combat, a lammasu remains earthbound,
using frightening tactics like twenty-foot horizontal leaps and wing buffets that encompass
thirty-foot arcs on either side, usually retaining
the combat advantage. It flies only to travel.
Lammasus despise manticores, and if any are in the
area, a lammasu makes it its business to hunt them
when its not occupied with the person its mentoring.
Prep and play

A lammasu fixates upon a single person, if possible

the one with the most black color points.

150

Light and Darkness

It prophesies for this person in an insightful

rhyme, which is initially too powerful and odd
to be comprehensible.

Brawn roll, i.e., with what Brawn may remain after

such a contest.

At the next dusk or dawn, the person

involuntarily remembers the rhyme and,
if successful with a Wits vs. 12 roll, finds
that one item he or she habitually uses is
enchanted with an appropriate 1-point white
spell.

A silver dragon is never present at the start of a venture, but certain portents herald its potential.

It protects this person fervently.

If the person gains further black color
points, the lammasu attempts to kill him or
her with equal fervor, then looks around for
someone else to influence.

Silver Dragon
A silver dragon is an astounding, bewildering presence. No one could mistake one of these for a wyrm.
Although wingless, it hovers or rockets through the
air, coiling and spiraling in perfect circles within
circles, the patterns punctuated with exploding
points of light.
It perceives and understands the current social
and geographic situation profoundly well and thus
cannot be surprised or tactically deceived; however,
unlike the Guide, it equally profoundly does not
interact directly with anyone and is not concerned
with opinions or specific actions.
Its only goal is eradication. It does not care a bit about
what a person without black or white Gifts does or
does not do.
A silver dragon is a combat horror.
Brawn 12, Quickness 9, Armor 9.
Limbless, it fights by coiling around opponents
and biting. It does not swoop down, so it can
be fought normally although it is technically in
the air.
It breathes pure white flame by spending 2
Brawn, requiring no attack roll; the targets
Quickness is penalized to a single die, including
in combat, but he or she also gains a bonus die
to Wits rolls.
It casts 1 point white spells as if it were a wizard,
with ordinary Brawn cost.
It can fight groups as if they were individuals.
If a silver dragon is killed, an Amboriyon zone forms
unless its slayer successfully makes an immediate

Once present
Its presence expunges all current black color
points in that scene from existence.

Prep and play

If anyone has a Gift of Amboriyon

Aids that person by annihilating opposition

The air becomes especially cold and clear; ordinary effects such as smoke or fog are minimal
at most.
Charm rolls do not yield the ordinary results
as interactions with beasts and named people
are notably and unusually bland; only dedicated attempts to engage will generate standard
results with Charm.
It appears in one of three ways:
Summoned
Assess summoner: if he or she has no white
Gifts, then annihilate.
Personal transformation through a Gift of
Amboriyon
The portents escalate
A person succeeds with a Wits vs. 12 roll in
trying to understand them.

Looks for more such Gifts

If anyone has a Gift of Rbaja
Annihilates that person
In the risky event of a person interacting with a silver
dragon, roll Wits vs. 12, using a single die, or two dice
if the person has one or more Gifts of Amboriyon. He
or she may ask it anything factual about the people or
area in the current venture and receive a completely
accurate answer.
A person with the Gift to transform into a silver
dragon differs in that Brawn and Quickness are +1
to the characters, and his or her behavior and magical abilities remain unchanged. The transformed
character does gain the armor, perceptual scope, and
motility of the silver dragon, as well as the dazzling
fire and the ability to remove black points.

Creatures of Rbaja: Undead

Undead embody desire which overrides death, distorting and intensifying that desire into mania. Such a being
always wants something to the point of stark insanity, no matter what. Draugr remorselessly and relentlessly kill, a
ghoul obsessively eats, a haunt boils with fury and never ceases to direct it, and a lich wants something extravagant
that in living, the person could not have. It wants what it wants and never gives up. Even a draugr, nominally the
games zombie, obeys orders strictly on its own terms.
1-point undead are created by magic, enchanted if theyre wanted long-term. 2-point undead occur under certain circumstances, especially in or near an Rbaja zone. 3-point undead make themselves using magic, typically
enchanted as well. The rubrics assume enchantment.
In combat, undead always split their Quickness evenly between attack and defense, unless otherwise indicated
in the individual description. They are immune to arrows and bolts, they are not injured by fire during combat,
and they only take Brawn-based damage (not attack-defense difference) from pain-based attacks like unarmed
strikes, whips, or quarterstaffs.

Draugr
To raise a draugr, the wizard needs a fresh, at least mostly whole corpse from a person or beast, casting either Walk
or Distort. A draugr is a walking corpse but it is no pushover. It does not move weirdly or stiffly; it is not clumsy and
can, for example, climb a rope. It moves at normal human speed including a steady run. Its expression is always
and solely one of natural-seeming determination. It reeks with a baked, dusty smell of death old staleness, not
rank bacterial rot.
Draugr do not experience hunger or any other sensation, and they do not eat anything. They do not rest. They
are not laborers. They are killers.

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Circle of Hands
It has Brawn and Quickness of the target person
or creature when he or she was alive, or 5 and 5
if that information is not relevant, and Armor 0.
Arrows and bolts have no effect on it, but handheld weapons do ordinary damage, assuming
the attacker is striking to break and sever rather
than, for instance, against blood vessels.
Its insides are doughy and stuck together; it does
not bleed. It takes damage only to its Brawn,
not to its Quickness (half of the Damage of the
attack is lost), and it will fight until hacked apart
(a total of twice its Brawn).
After that, it reknits its wounds unless it is
destroyed by extensive dismemberment or by
intense and prolonged fire. The reknitting process is not terribly concerned about conforming
precisely to the anatomical arrangement prior
to being wounded.
It has very little memory of its former life; a person
who questions a draugr using Black Speech must
make a Wits vs. 12 roll to get anything useful out of
it, such as how its body died or the persons concerns
when he or she was alive. However, such communication isnt really two-way as a draugr doesnt care a bit
about living concerns any more.

Prep and play

Inert: in any semi-concealed place, even merely dug

into the ground
It responds fiercely to anyone who bothers it
It may be perceived through wizard senses or
the Sight spell
It can be addressed and commanded using
Black Speech
Anyone in the area is killed
It emerges from wherever it is and seeks to
kill the slayer, becoming inert thereafter
Community strife may well ensue depending on the details and common knowledge
or ignorance concerning the situation
Commanded via summoning or using Black Speech
It serves as commanded, then becomes inert

Haunt
A haunt is not created by a spell but rather by a dying
persons Charm vs. 12 roll as he or she swears a mighty,
passionate black oath. A beast may do this as well.
Ordinarily this roll is made at 1d6, but in or near an

152

Light and Darkness

Rbaja zone adds 1d6. As a spell is not involved, there is

no duration once theres a haunt, it stays.
The haunt looks like an idealized, translucent version
of the person, always associated with a person, place,
or object. Although it retains the original persons mannerisms, it only concerns itself with the fulfillment of
the oath. It cannot affect the world physically or be so
affected, but it can be targeted by the Restore spell.
The Black Speech spell can force it to manifest more
fully and also permits it to describe its death and
aim more coherently. It is absolutely single-minded
and cannot process information that contradicts the
immediate effort toward its aim.
Prep and play

A haunt is typically not obviously present

Minor manifestations may occur, usually psychologically tied to the haunts oath
A person who succeeds with a Wits vs. 12 roll
for any reason also notices such manifestations
It can be perceived with wizard senses or the
Sight spell, and addressed using Black Speech
If a person enters its area whose appearance or circumstances correspond even minimally to events in
the haunts prior history:
It manifests and communicates through repetitive actions and phrases, influencing the person
to act in some way which addresses the oath.
If it is denied or mocked, it instantly becomes
a Brawn 12, Quickness 6, Armor 6 monstrosity
intent on revenge and destruction, now tied to
its target
It can be truly killed by violence in this form.
If the offending person is destroyed the
haunt resumes its original appearance and
location.
If it is targeted by the Restore spell, it transforms
as above and pumps Brawn to resist.
A haunts oath cannot be fulfilled, as far as the haunt
is concerned. Nor does it care; the point is to act on
the oath. A haunt cannot be laid to rest in the classic
sense at all, as its fury is unresolvable.

Ghoul
A person who routinely practiced cannibalism may
rise from death as a ghoul with a successful Charm

vs. 12 roll, made with 1d6, or 2d6 if in or near an Rbaja

zone. Because no spell is involved, there is no duration once a ghoul has arisen, it stays.
It appears to be a withered, fanged version of the
person, with feculent, pustulent breath. It retains
mannerisms and rote memory from life, resulting in
a ravenous caricature of the original person; left to
its own devices, it devours helpless or dead people
regardless of anything else happening.
If Black Speech is cast, a ghoul can think and function a little bit more fully, to recognize people as
individuals and to act upon memories, as well as to
direct its actions toward specific targets. However, it
is so hungry that its behavior and goals cannot be
coaxed to anything normal; it is effectively a strungout addict.
Brawn +1 and Quickness +1 of the person when
he or she was alive, and Armor 3.
It attacks at a distance with its chilling howl,
which is resisted by Wits vs. 12. If the target is
affected, he or she loses a die of effectiveness to
all actions, or in combat, must cede the advantage die. A target may only be affected by one
ghouls howl at a time. It cannot howl when
engaged in a clash.
A ghoul does not regenerate as do draugrs. If
damaged too badly to continue fighting (i.e.,
death for a normal opponent), then it bloats
and bursts, releasing an unmistakable, appalling miasma which hangs for days.
A ghoul cannot starve; it only gets hungrier.
Famberge is infamous for the ghouls which rise in the
wake of the massacres and famines there. Quite horribly, some which persist for a while begin to adopt
habits approximating those of the living, wearing
clothes, lurking in abandoned houses, and carrying
out mundane tasks in a mockery of life. This activity
is extremely incompetent and can in no way disguise
their condition.
Prep and play

Scarcity and starvation

Complete breakdown of social networks and
resources
Some people resort to cannibalism
Some few of them rise as ghouls

Different conditions in the area

Continued devastation and desertion
Ghouls prowl as open-field predators
Recovery or beginning of a new community
Ghouls lurk in secrecy in avoided spots
Some community control
People who know the Black Speech spell may
turn ghouls to their own ends
In desperation due to some other circumstances, members of a community may keep an
enclave of ghouls fed, to use them as guards or
otherwise make use of their abilities
The above rubric assumes a group or area-based
context for the ghouls. More individualized situations may occur if only a few individuals are involved,
for example, castaways from a wreck, or a deranged
person in an otherwise ordinary community.

Lich
A lich is created voluntarily by casting the Lich spell
on oneself, which is also committing suicide. The
spell may be cast as an enchantment, furthermore, it
may utilize Brawn gained from Sacrificing something
or someone else. If cast in or near an Rbaja zone, the
spell is automatically an enchantment.
A lich looks like the person in life at first. Beginning swiftly and proceeding slowly, death withers
and hollows its face and body until it becomes all
desiccated, with the fibers of its muscles stuck to its
bones, covered with the paper-like remains of its skin.
A lich has its original professions and mental faculties, although one may fairly say that the latter were
already deranged to be casting the spell in the first
place, and its behavior is subject to the ordinary
interaction rules such as Charm rolls. It experiences
muted, variable sensations, similar to that of a phantom limb, as well as a persistent chill.
Dont mistake a lich for a person. The phantom limb
concept applies to its emotions as well, flickering in
and out and experienced more as a what was that
than an authentic response. It has a single desire:
whatever it didnt get in life, despite all of its magical
and probably temporal power. That desire remains,
obsessive, monomaniacal, and impossible to satisfy,
so central to the lichs being that it may never even
mention it.

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Circle of Hands
Wealth and privilege
A specific sort of romance
Regard for a particular artistic or intellectual
achievement
Mere power, destruction, or vengeance are not candidates. Other, grubbier undead are concerned with
those.
The lichs Brawn is equal to the wizards black
color points at the time of death (including the
casting of Lich), and all other scores are the
same as when the wizard was alive. A lich has no
intrinsic armor but may wear ordinary armor.
It retains black Gifts, if any were present.
A lich can cast all the black spells, but may only
cast white magic, if it knew any originally, along
with a Warp spell.
If Brawn and Quickness are brought to 0, it will
spatter and disperse into muck and dust, which
also happens at the end of the spells duration.
If the Lich spell had cast without enchantment,
the lich is transformed into a haunt; however, if
it was cast as an enchantment, the lich re-forms
at the next dawn or dusk unless the remains are
destroyed utterly or targeted by Purify or Restore.

Black Speech permits a single chance to command a

lich to a specific action, which is guaranteed to enrage
it regardless of success. This is why liches keep out a
sharp eye for wizards of Rbaja and ruthlessly
exterminate them.

Light and Darkness

A lich is served by people and establishes control over

other undead, and sometimes demons. It does not
like to be disturbed, but it also needs agents to seek
its goals, and it definitely does not like to be alone.
Liches are not found in Tamaryon, where Amboriyon is strong and tends to target them; nor in Rolke,
where the recent events included a ruthless purge of
all sorts of undead. Some few reside in old towers or
manors in Famberge. Spurr is famous for some very
old liches who collude and compete in a mercantile
network, and who may be the wealthiest individuals
in the Crescent Land.
Prep and play

Decide what community support it has

They dont know its there, only fearing, appeasing, and otherwise avoiding its agents.
They dont know its there, thinking its front
person or community is the agent of power.
They know its there and have decided to
respond with respect and obedience, likely
receiving protection in return.
Decide what enchantments or servitors it has available
Demons: at least an imp
Undead: especially those its created or caused
to be created
Human companion: in addition to at least one
significant local group, sometimes a person
becomes devoted to a lich in emotional
or ideological terms

It knows the Circle has arrived

If no wizard is present among the knights, it approaches them through magical intermediaries and seeks to
offer significant reward
If a wizard is present among the knights, it approaches them through non-magical intermediaries and seeks
to identify a common threat

Creatures of Rbaja: Demons

Demons are summoned using the relevant spells, and remain permanently only if they are enchanted. The only
demon which appears in any other way is the imp, which may emerge from Rbaja zones, but is also subject to the
ordinary rules of a summonings duration unless enchanted. The following descriptions are all modified by the
impending disappearance of a demon which has not been enchanted to remain in existence, or to put it another
way, some of the rubrics with longer-term events presume enchantment.
Demons embody extreme, near-hysterical sensation on a hair-trigger, seeking an outlet. They dont want or even
truly feel; they are simply sensation and escalation, without empathy or engagement. They are the emotional
equivalent of cancer: relentless, repetitive, entirely consistent, interacting with and impacting others with no
intrinsic direction.
Since they are not really capable of individual proactive behavior, interacting with demons is all about collusion. A venture including them must also include a person doing something which the
demon helps or abets, not because it wants to or cares, but because of its explosive and
unavoidable presence. A demon is flatly insane and focuses solely on people who
reach out to them, responding in accordance with its rubric.
Since each demons rubric relies on what a specific person wants, the precise effects of each step depend entirely on the details of the relevant
person and must be customized for a given venture.
In combat, demons always split their Quickness evenly between
attack and defense, unless otherwise indicated in the individual
description.
When hurt, they bleed colorful, metallic ichor a lot, it gets everywhere, forcing Quickness vs. 12 rolls not to slip or drop stuff. If a
demon is killed, a splotch coagulates from the puddle of ichor.

Doll
A doll is an obedient, low-affect Uncanny Valley humanoid
which serves as the sex partner of its summoner or anyone the
summoner designates, without negotiation and with complete
compliance to its partners wishes. In any other circumstances,
it otherwise behaves quietly and inoffensively. A doll vocalizes
only during sex and does not actually speak.
Sexual contact with the doll inflicts 1d6 Damage immediately
and again at the end of the current scene; the latter effect is
counteracted if he or she has more sex with the doll prior to
that point, which does not inflict more damage.
Brawn 3, Quickness 6, Armor 0.
A doll does not fight voluntarily and does not defend itself
Its bite deals +1d6 Damage which does not heal through
ordinary means
Illus. Juan Ochoa

154
Illus. Juan Ochoa

155

Circle of Hands
Prep and play

The doll serves its master

If it is not subjected to violence during a sexual
encounter
The master employs its services more and
more frequently
The master brings acquaintances into
contact with the doll, abandoning ties with
those who do not want to participate and
switching social allegiances to those who do
If the doll is subjected to violence during a
sexual encounter
It bites the offending individual in such a
way that he or she is badly maimed, in addition to the damage described above

Imp
An imp is a small, winged grotesque humanoid. It
automatically and involuntarily provides a 3-point
Brawn battery for its summoners or designated masters magical use, once between each dawn and dusk
(and vice versa), at no harm to itself.
Brawn 3, Quickness 6, Armor 3.

An imp always allocates full Quickness to

defense, i.e., +0/+12.
In combat, it utters malevolent scraping cries
which alter white color points gained by anyone
in the scene into black color points.
It does not speak except to teach and whisper, but it is
a supernaturally effective spy, including the full range
of wizard senses. An imps master may be presumed
to know anything and everything about the current
activities of a person of his or her choosing, with a
slight time lag.
Above all, however, is the imps crucial role in teaching black magic. Certain experiences and determined
actions effectively summon imps to a person, and
they offer knowledge. Should he or she agree, then
the imp leads them through ever-more terrifying
training and experience, ultimately to create a wizard
of Rbaja.
Prep and play

It spies both as directed and in general, relaying information to its master.

Finds sources of resentment and opportunity
It mutters and teaches the magic of Rbaja.

156

Light and Darkness

It begins with the Demon 1 spell, then proceeds

through Demon 2 and Demon 3.
It provides the person with the means to become
a wizard of Rbaja, as speaking to it at length
conveys the effect of a nearby Rbaja zone.

Splotch
A splotch is a nasty, icky wet patch of rotten-seeming
dark stuff, coagulating from the ichor when a demon
is killed, or if summoned for some reason, disgorged
from the summoners mouth.
A splotch does not speak or otherwise communicate,
but it acts aggressively against anyone except its summoner, if there was one.
Brawn 3, Quickness 6, Armor 0.
It attacks all-out (+12/+0), doing damage and
also attaching to its target.
Once attached, it continues to attack, and at that
point, armor doesnt protect against it.

If more than one nzagg is enchanted to remain in

existence, and if they are permitted contact, they
quickly begin breeding. Breeding nzaggs are very
hungry and if not fed, become intractable, as do their
offspring.
Prep and play

A nzagg is always hungry and really hates being

bored
Feed it, potentially by sending it to do things,
and watch it grow
Deny it and it solves the problem on its own
(and you wont like that)
Two or more nzaggs breed
New nzaggs are produced at an approximate
rate of 1-6 per month
Breeding nzaggs and newborn nzaggs are very
hungry

A nightmare is an apparently iron horse with flaming

hooves which can gallop across any medium, excepting running water. It cannot literally fly, but can run
on air as long as it ends its action on a solid substrate. At the start of the ride, its rider loses 1 Brawn
to fatigue, as if casting a spell. It must be ridden to
accept commands. If the rider engages in combat,
the nightmare attacks the same opponent with jets
of flame from its nostrils.
Brawn 9, Quickness 6, Armor 6, and edged
weapons have no effect upon it.
It will rebel against commands that are neither
attacking nor running at full speed, and in this state
can be brought back under control with a Wits vs. 12
roll. When and if the nightmare rebels, or if it simply
happens not to be ridden at the moment, it will
alternately run about randomly and attack whoever
is closest.
You dont keep a nightmare; if its enchanted, it
vanishes and reappears in the dream of someone
planning to fight (so if you want it back, better plan
on fighting)

It is really really hard to detach, requiring a

Brawn vs. 12 using a single die
Only blunt weapons hurt it, to splatter it. If this
happens while its gunked someone, then that
person is injured too.

Eye

Whatever cloth, leather, or other clothing-like material it sticks to becomes disgusting and unusable.

An eye is a literal eye about the size of a human fist,

sullen red with a slotted, vertical pupil, hovering at
about human head-height. It peers and blinks, with
the air and general reality surrounding it acting as
its lids. It is surrounded by a sphere of force about
six feet in diameter, visible only as distortions and
impact on physical surroundings.

Nzagg
A nzagg is a vicious, brutish, ape/dog/boar thing,
prone to sudden rage and with a taste for atrocity. It
does not speak, but its intentions are typically quite
clear. Each one is visually distinctive and recognizable, with its own fur color pattern, skin excrescences,
and facial details, and its given a name by its summoner.

This sphere is capable of considerable destruction, either bludgeoning opponents at Brawn 6,

Quickness 6, or destroying a human-sized mass
of inanimate material with a Brawn vs. 12 roll.
This area effect is not itself subject to attacks.

Brawn 3 when first summoned, Quickness 6,

Armor 3

The eye itself may be targeted in combat but

is sufficiently small and strange that combat
advantage may not be taken against it.

A nzagg eats voraciously and grows dramatically, increasing to twice human size or conceivably
more, so its Brawn may be 6 or 9
A nzagg can transport itself to any location in the
venture, specified by geography, so here rather than
to this person wherever he is. It only understands
one command, kill, and it considers itself free to
decide how and how much, nor does it understand
the concept of targeted person beyond everyone
and anyone present.

Nightmare

A person who provides an eye with one of his or her

own body parts, sufficient to impair organ function,
gains the following benefits:
To name a group defined by social rank or profession in his or her area

Illus. Juan Ochoa

To see and know what unnamed people in the

group are doing at all times

157

Circle of Hands
To direct the groups collective action with a
Charm vs. 12 roll at any time, with no need to
be present
These effects can be perceived through wizard senses
or the Sight spell directed toward the people themselves.
Additional body parts may be provided to affect additional groups. Without a group to influence, the eye
soon turns upon the person currently engaged with
it, then seeks someone else.
Prep and play

A person uses an eye to manipulate a group

He or she gains privilege or other satisfaction
Other people and groups take action against
the situation
He or she includes those groups in the
manipulations
The person is killed or ceases to manipulate the
groups
The eye kills the person and finds someone else

Angel

An angel is a beautiful humanoid whose dark wings

typically enfold it like a cloak. It is typically perceived
only through an individuals dreams. A wizard can
sense the presence of an angel, but it is forced into
visible existence, and into vulnerability to combat or
magic, only if its host (lover, whatever) is convinced
to reject or reveal it.
Brawn 6, Quickness 9, Armor 3.
It wraps an opponent in a winged embrace,
rendering him or her unable to change position significantly or move coherently enough
to attack, in addition to the Damage from the
attack.
If it has the leisure to do so, it then drains 2
Damage per action
Attacking an angel requires a successful Charm
vs. 12 roll each round
An angel becomes visible in dreams only to a single
person of Charm 4 or lower, to provide intense comfort and affection. If such a person is not provided by
the summoner, including himself or herself, then the
angel instantly vanishes, only to appear in the dreams
of a suitable person nearby.

158

Light and Darkness

Prep and play

The angel regularly attacks people with Charm 6 or

higher whom its lover (or whatever you want to call
this relationship) knows personally
It conveys the experience of doing this to the
lover during later dreams
The angels lover refuses to continue seeking such
people, or otherwise resists
The angel scars him or her with its claws such
that they are penalized to a single die of effectiveness with Charm, which recovers similar to
injury, then leaves to find someone more willing.

Yoggoth
A yoggoth is a black-and-violet cloud, usually a
surrounding fog, with many tooth-filled maws and
dangling tentacles.
It has Brawn 1, but replace that with 3 per creature killed using the Sacrifice spell during its
summoning. The points gained by Sacrifice are
expended in providing this effect.
It has Quickness 6, Armor 6.
It can attack and defend in an area, against
everyone in the area at once.
Its normal attack seizes a victim, doing normal
damage, and the next round it tries to swallow
him or her whole, resisted by Brawn vs. 12.
Its horrifying appearance overcomes one opponent on its turn unless they roll Wits vs. 12 a
single success protects the person throughout
the encounter.
Failing the Wits roll means the person
becomes incapable of targeting other characters in any way, or of speaking; he or she
may remove this effect by pumping 2 Brawn.
Inside it is an Rbaja zone, such that if a person or
beast is killed by its attack:
It becomes a draugr (see Undead), with its
emergence just following the yoggoths next
action, then proceeding to the end of the action
order.
If a yoggoth is injured:
A storm is raised in the area, including darkness, rain, lightning, and thunder. People and
creatures in the area of effect suffer reduced visibility, reduced movement, and disadvantaged
actions, except for creatures of Rbaja. Unnamed

characters are hopelessly lost and disoriented,

killed at the casters option
If a person voluntarily sacrifices his or her life to a yoggoth, with seeking to defend, the demon is destroyed.
It is not bright enough to refuse such an offering.
Prep and play

For a yoggoth to be present in a venture, a group of

people must be dedicated to engaging with it, by summoning or attracting it using rituals that resemble
worship.
If the Sacrifice is not employed, the yoggoth has
Brawn 1.
If this spell is employed, the yoggoth has Brawn
equal to 3 per person of Sacrifice. Additionally,
per person Sacrificed, it provides any one of the
following services:
Assaulting an indicated community
Increasing a single persons Brawn by 3, at
no cost to itself
Providing a group of people with a cloud of
magic darkness, in which they can perceive
things normally but others cannot fight
or escape, as long as the group is acting in
concert
Aside from any services as above, the yoggoth does
not speak or communicate, nor does it care about its
summoner.
It senses the nearest most dense or numerous
group of people, and drifts that way, seeking
to wreak as much havoc and generate as many
draugr as it can.

Dancer
When initially summoned or when encountered
in any context outside of a fight, a dancer is a small
statuette made of bronze or pewter, about a foot long,
depicting a stylized armed person.

Brawn 9, Quickness 9, Armor 6.

In clashes, its offense allocation is always set to
double its defense (12/6), and its multiple weapons often grant it the advantage.
Its combat companions undergo an effective
Berserk spell unless they make a Wits vs. 12 roll.
A dancer does not converse.
Prep and play

During any social interaction in which the statuette

is present
Charm vs. 12 rolls are limited to a single die
Unnamed people are extremely touchy and
react angrily to perceived provocations
During a fight, upon the first wound inflicted upon
anyone
It manifests at 3:00 in the order and attacks,
helping the current owner of the statuette, if
any, or against someone who tried to damage it
for its first action
Prior to its next action
Its current ally, if any, makes a Wits vs. 12 roll,
casts Sacrifice, swears a black oath,or gains
black color points: it continues to fight for
that person
Its current ally, if any, fails to do any of the
above: it switches sides and continues to fight
It potentially switches sides according to the
above logic with every action

A QUICK REFERENCE
You cant go wrong with the classics. I was pleased to
re-read Karl Edward Wagners Death Angels Shadow
and to find that the antagonists in the three stories are
picture-perfect for, in order, a monster, Amboriyon,
and Rbaja.

When in the presence of a fight, specifically when

a wound is inflicted, or if someone tries to damage
the statuette, it becomes a silhouette-like, very tall
human-like form apparently composed of shadows
and disturbing voids. It flickers in and out of vision
variably across its body, and moves in such a way as
to blink across distances; it also changes its facing
without seeming to change position with the same
flickering effect. Its substance includes weaponry,
long chains headed by weights.

159

Chapter

8F

antasy

Heartbreakers

AT THE TIME
By February 2002 Sorcerer and its first two supplements had been published in book form, and a year later the set
was completed with Sex & Sorcery. I organized the first Forge booth at GenCon in summer of 2002 and planning
the next, as well as working on Trollbabe, my first game as an established publisher. For those who remember,
the Forge itself was a hotbed of discussion, design, and excitement. For my part in that, I was only glad that the
whole GNS thing was finally settling down and I could think about games. The first things I thought about were
Glorantha, which I wrote about elsewhere, and these two essays.

THE FIRST ESSAY

FANTASY HEARTBREAKERS, APRIL 2002
People who have known me for a while, and especially those whove read Sorcerer & Sword, know of
my life-long devotion to fantasy - and my nearly as
life-long loathing of what has happened to most
of it over the past two decades. Without going into
further detail regarding the background, any fantasy
role-playing game is subject to dark, personal, and
not especially friendly scrutiny from me. Frankly,
they usually induce teeth-gnashing, cries of rage,
and pages of scrawling, in very tiny letters, in a spiralbound notebook.

Illus. Jez Gordon

In the late 70s, this wasnt unreasonable. By the early

90s, though, things were considerably different. This
essay is about some 1990s games Im calling fantasy
heartbreakers, which are truly impressive in terms of
the drive, commitment, and personal joy thats evident
in both their existence and in their details - yet they
are also teeth-grindingly frustrating, in that, like their
counterparts from the late 70s, they represent but a
single creative step from their source: old-style D&D.
And unlike those other games, as such, they were
doomed from the start. This
essay is basically in their favor,
So combine this with the facts
in
a kind of grief-stricken way.
that many would-be hopeful
I see some common features
that lead me to think that
role-playing games are fantasy,
Perhaps its no big deal. Perhaps
their respective publications
or fantasy anyway, and that
just getting into print and being
were not, after all, only
I am dedicated to the cause of
on the shelves was all that their
about seeing it in print.
creator ownership and publishauthors wanted. Perhaps Im
ing ones own vision ... and you
just a big meanie for expecting
can probably see the pickle
more (1) critical perspective of the intervening hisIm in. On the one hand, Im in agony when faced
tory of game design, (2) knowledge of actual fantasy
with another elfy-dwarfy deal, and on the other, Im
instead of gaming-fantasy, (3) originality of concepts
saying, Publish your dream, go, go, go.
in mechanics, and (4) business acumen.
Fortunately, it all gets better when I take a step back
But then I look at the games, and I see some common
and think historically. I can be sympathetic this
features that lead me to think that their respective
way. Imagine a role-player who learned of fantasy
publications were not, after all, only about seeing
through Dungeons & Dragons. I can be a half-orc, he
it in print. Nearly all of them include text that can
says. So whats an orc? Think of him having fun breakdescribed as outreach, or a deliberate attempt not
ing doors, confronting the beholder, or running his
only to present but to enlighten the reader about
fingers over the minotaur illustration in the Monster
the self-perceived innovations. Many have helpful
Manual. And sooner or later, he says, Im tired of these
accessories, like disks with programs for character
rules or arguing about this or that. Lets do it this way.
creation or idea cards for players and GMs. Several
And sooner or later after that, he and his friends say,
had spunky websites with all sorts of memberships
this way is way better. Wow, we wrote a game! Maybe
and services and brave mission statements, but
we can publish it too, like Gary did.

161

Circle of Hands
whose update-intervals grew longer and longer. And
considering when most were published, before most
printers changed their policies regarding small print
runs, print costs must have been enormous, in the
$6000-plus category for standard paperbacks. Some
of the games contain cardstock inserts, too. Vanity is
vanity, sure, but we are not talking about small sums.
So whats the point of the essay? For once, my issue
has nothing to do with GNS. All of these games are
solidly nested in Simulationist (Setting), Gamist, or
Gamist/Simulationist baskets, and most of them are
quite coherent. For once, Im talking about content,
what some call genre, and the means of generating
it through the mechanics of play. So screw GNS, lets
talk about something else. Cue videotape.
Fifth Cycle - 1990, Shield Laminating, by Robert
Bartels
Hahlmabrea - 1991, Sutton Hoo Games, by Dan
Fox.
Of Gods and Men - 1991, Non Sequitur Productions, by Jeffrey Konkol
Darkurthe: Legends - 1993, Black Dragon Press, by
Matthew Yaro and Colin Murcray
Legendary Lives - 1993, Marquee Press, by Kathleen and Joe Williams
Neverworld - 1996, Foreverworld Books, by Erin
Laughlin

Pelicar - 1996, Pharoah Games, by Lewis Nicolls

(one of six listed authors, possibly the primary)
Forge: Out of Chaos - 1998, Basement Games
Unlimited, by Mike, Paul, and Mark Kibbe
Dawnfire - 2000, Dawnfire Games/ Committed
Comics, by Jason Marin
All of these are indisputably independent: the author,
the imprint, the company, and the publisher are all
the same person or small group of persons.

PART ONE: AAARRRGHH!

Lets take the most painful aspect of these games

first - not one of them demonstrates a shred of critical perspective regarding role-playing techniques.
The authors played Old D&D, and their decisions
about their games demonstrate a perfect salad of
patch rules, unquestioned assumptions, and touted
innovations that induce migraine, all founded on
this single template.
For instance, lets look at this weapons list from
Dawnfire: Bill-Guisarme ... Flail, Flail (horsemans),

162

Glaive, Guisarme, Halberd .... Lasso, Lucern Hammer

... Trident, Voulge ...
Just rolls trippingly off the tongue, doesnt it? (For
those of you who are wondering what Im talking
about, we older role-players memorized the weapons-list in the 1978 Players Handbook through sheer
concentration and fascination, such that its cadences
took on a near-catechistic drone.) Same goes for
armor in these games; its like a chant: padded, leather, studded, ring, chain, banded, splinted, half-plate,
field plate, full plate ...
Thats a mere detail, however, compared with the
other evidence that AD&D, vintage Numero Uno,
provided not only the model, but the only model
for these games design - to the extent of defining
the very act of role-playing. Metagame mechanics
are conspicuously absent, with the exceptions noted
later. In Hahlmabrea and in Fifth Cycle the status
of adventurer is an in-game licensed social role.
NeverWorld provides a painfully complex, self-helpgroup-like personality system which fundamentally
becomes the same-old alignment system. In Forge:
Out of Chaos, the very notion of doing anything that
isnt treasure-seeking in a dungeon is completely
foreign - its section Breaking Open Portals is predicated on (a) finding treasure (b) in a dungeon, with
no reference to the concept that doors might exist for
any other reason or play any other sort of role in an
imaginary situation. The list of such things goes on
and on.
Not that all the games are alike in their perspective
on this act. Hahlmabrea makes a fair effort to get away
from loot-and-murder role-playing, although its
means to do so are questionable at best (The council
says you oughtnt and theyll kill you if you do, which
to me reads, Dont get caught). Forge: Out of Chaos,
on the other hand, is gleefully honest about looting
and murdering as a way of life, or rather, role-playing.
Nor are they all alike in tone. Dawnfire and Legendary
Lives are zesty and kind of funny, whereas Neverworld
is dreamy and pop-psychological, and Pelicar and Of
Gods and Men are deadly earnest. But the acts and concerns of role-playing, for each of these games, is exactly
the same.
The tender-hearted readers probably consider me to
be pretty mean at this point. But whats wrong with
that? they ask.
Consider: each of these games is alike regarding the
act of role-playing itself. The point of play is being an

Fantasy Heartbreakers
adventurer who grows very powerful and might die at any time, and all context and judgment and outcomes are
the exclusive province of this guy called the GM (or whatever), case closed. They precisely parallel what AD&D
role-playing evolved into during the early 1980s. Each of these games is clearly written by a GM who would very
much like all the players simply to shut up and play their characters without interfering with whats really happening. They are Social Contract time bombs.
Finally, the last painful thing. Check out the self-perceived innovations, like these listed on the back of Forge:
Out of Chaos.
Select proficiencies such as Final Blow, Field Repair, Assassination, Mounted Combat, and Blind Fighting! [AD&D2,
late 80s] No more arbitrary experience points! The more you use a skill, the better you get! [RuneQuest, c. 1977]
Realistic combat mechanics! Armor that can be destroyed! [The Fantasy Trip, 1980] Two separate defensive values!
[(Sigh) Champions, 1980]
The same applies to just about all the noted innovations - the spell paths in Fifth Cycle are straight out of Rolemaster, for instance, and Hahlmabreas magic crystals are straight out of RuneQuest.

PART TWO: HMMM!

All right, now for some interesting details ... these

are neither painful nor wonderful, just some other
notions or features that pertain to this set of games
as a historical and conceptual group.
The art represents exactly the same blend throughout
each book: a few fine pieces, a few real stinkers, and
the majority being frankly boring in both subject and
skill (grinning goblins, elfy player-characters looking
like actors in a B-movie, etc). What I do like is that
many of the books sport illustrations by the game
authors themselves, for which I forgive a great deal
of technical lack of expertise. I just like the idea of a
person writing a game and illustrating it.
But back to design. Some interesting patterns show
up in terms of differences from old D&D.
All of these games have skill lists.
All of them except one have randomized
attribute systems, but also an extensive set of
secondary attributes which serve to homogenize the actual Effective values (i.e., those used
in play).
All of them greatly emphasize character race
(species, really) as a major modifier of the randomized attribute system.
All of them have levels in one fashion or another,
but interestingly, in all cases, a very diminished
version of levels with not-terribly-notable
effects on the characters game effectiveness,
compared with the role of skill proficiency.
All of them crunchify D&D combat in a RuneQuest or Rolemaster or DragonQuest fashion,
placing emphasis on individual character speed
and action-by-action (freeze-frame) resolution.

Almost all of them rely heavily on damage rolls,

but make some effort to integrate how well you
hit into the final effect.
All of them have one speedy-race, one or more
brute-race, and one pretty-race (either winged
humanoids or kitty-people), as well as the standard elves and dwarves.
Not one uses a D&D style magic system (much
more about this later).
What interests me about the above patterns is not
that any particular detail is bad or good, but rather
that they all represent the same solutions to problems
in the design of D&D, especially in terms of generating a functional Gamist/Simulationist hybrid. Its very
clear to me that what we are seeing are the children
of Drift - and given the same Parent, so to speak, and
similar (if not identical) interests in play, a very welldefined profile across the children is to be expected.
Those randomized attribute systems deserve a closer
look, as they are almost all incredibly baroque. With one
exception, the attributes are to be rolled in order, and all
of them include extensive racial modifiers as well.
Hahlmabrea: roll 3d10 for each of ten attributes,
re-rolling all 1s, 2s, and 3s throughout the process; each race confers a further randomized
modifier of various sizes (usually plus or minus
1d6) for various attributes.
Fifth Cycle: roll 2d10 and take the result to a table
to determine ones total points for allocation
across nine attributes; the table also provides
the maximum (and second maxima) for any
given attribute; interestingly, in this game, if you
want to play a non-human, you must roll for it.

163

Circle of Hands
Of Gods and Men: roll 7d10 for each of six attributes, taking the five highest as a total.
Legendary Lives: roll d6 for each of twelve attributes, adding the result to a given value set by
race; these values are highly differentiated by
race such that the roll doesnt make much difference.
Darkurthe: Legends: roll 2d6 + 4 for each of five
attributes, with a couple of options listed (e.g.
roll six times and take the best five).
Pelicar: roll 3d10 for each of eight attributes,
ignore the lowest, total the other two and add 10.
Forge: Out of Chaos: roll 2d6 and 1d10 for each of
six attributes, with the tens die acting as a decimal
(e.g. I roll 8 on the 2d6 and 3 on the d10, so I have
an 8.3 in that attribute); three other attributes are
determined randomly as well (e.g. Speed d4 + 1).
Dawnfire (the normal-est): roll 2d10 for ten attributes and arrange to suit.
To me, each of these appears to be a solution to the
fact that, in old D&D, rolling 3d6, in order, to determine ones ones attributes was a near-guarantee
of a really shitty character - hence the widespread
cheating in character creation and the proliferation
of house rules such as the above. (By house rules,
I mean patch rules - fixing a problem by adding correcters, rather than proceeding from base principles.)

It fascinates me how far some of these go, especially

in combination with the bizarre math necessary to
derive the secondary attributes. For instance, in Pelicar, double the Reflex score, add some points based
on Reflex value (from a table), and add the profession modifier (itself multiplied by character level), to
derive the characters touch defense - which is what
armor increases, during play. This example is typical
of the complexity of derived attributes across most of
these games.

Fantasy Heartbreakers
PART THREE: WOW!

And now, at last, those things which astound and fascinate me about the games ... although I have to start
with the fact that few of these things seem to have
been well-understood by the authors as innovations,
at least not to the extent that they deserve.
The basic notion is that nearly all of the listed games
have one great idea buried in them somewhere. Its
perhaps the central point of this essay - that yes, these
games are not only AD&D knockoffs and hodgepodges of house rules. They are indeed the products
of actual play, love for the medium, and determined
creativity. Thats why they break my heart, because
the nuggets are so buried and bemired within all the
painful material I listed above.
Some examples include the exceptionally fun
randomized life-path creation in Legendary Lives,
which granted was first presented to role-playing
by Cyberpunk, but here takes on a spritely, fun quality. I would very much like to play the cultist Draco
character I produced using this method, without reservation, and I have a clear image of his highly prized,
rather sporty scarf. (A Draco fire-conjurer with an
ascot! I mean it, it worked.) This game also sports
the semi-diceless system, which is to say, all rolls
are made by players against target numbers, which I
have praised highly regarding The Whispering Vault,
published some years later. I rather like the setting in
Of Gods and Men, and Forge: Out of Chaos is irresistibly
honest about itself; I almost feel as if Id played with
the authors just by reading the book.

Finally, I want to tell you about some magic systems,

specifically that they are, in some cases, outright
amazing. Its not surprising, really, given that the D&D
magic system rots. [Cue large number of protests and
excuses; cue counter-arguments; end.] But the neat
thing is that these games do not simply recapitulate
the magic-system solutions produced in the contemVery, very few of them have
poraries of D&D at all, as they do
much in the way of metagame
The basic notion is that with combat systems. Instead,
mechanics. Player-called miracles
they provide genuine innovation.
nearly all of the listed
come into Pelicar, similar (and
Here, a tremendous number of
games have one great idea
randomized) Divine Power Cards
author-power and metagame eleburied in them somewhere.
play a small role in Of Gods and
ments start to appear.
Men, and Dawnfires Luck attribute qualifies, as does
Hahlmabrea: A character learns several spells
Hahlmabreas secondary attribute Luck, much less
in a given category, but may cast them in any
significantly (it starts at about 2%). However, with one
combination for synergistic effects. Improvismajor exception (below), the kind of player-character
ing novel combinations and outcomes is highly
separation inherent in metagame mechanics is not
encouraged and supported by many examples
philosophically recognized in these games at all.

164

in the text. The best thing about this system

is that combining spells actually reduces the
chance for Spell Error, rather than increasing it
- creating incentive to combine and be creative.
Legendary Lives: A character knows a category or
two of magic, with no further compartmentalization - no individual spells. Instead, the player
may customize applications of the category on
the fly during play. So if you know Fire spells,
anything and everything about or using fire is
yours to do. Its limited only by cost (0-5) as
set completely freely by the GM, which is the
one sour note in the mix, as it sounds to me
like a recipe for bitter argument. (LLs system is
similar to than Ars Magicas, but more sketchy
and flexible.)
Darkurthe: Legends: Spells are built through a
component method. Granted, its very much
like that found in Fantasy Hero (1986) and
crunchy as hell, but considering that no other
games picked up on this type of magic-system,
Im willing to extend credit to Darkurthe too.
Forge: Out of Chaos: The player picks a characters spells, but each one is heavily randomized
for many aspects, including points to cast it,
degree of side effects, distance, duration, and
other things. One begins with an allotment
of re-rolls for these aspects of the spells, and
increasing the characters level includes more
re-rolls, permitting the player either to add new
spells or refine the old ones as desired.
Dawnfire: First of all, every character is a magic
character in this setting, with Flow Points and
access to a variety of magically-oriented abilities; magic users are simply those who have
optimized the same abilities that everyone has.
Second, the game includes the universallyaccessible mechanic called bullshitting, which
is just about the neatest magical mechanic Ive
seen in print. To bullshit is to cast any spell in
the book or that the player can make up, regardless of what is or isnt written on the characters
sheet. Anyone can try it, any time; having a
certain skill makes it a little safer, but that skill
is not necessary.
Dawnfire also deserves some special mention for its
encouragement to customize the magically-oriented
characters as desired, such that one character might
be a singing bard-type or whatever ... this is pretty
standard, until I got to the suggestion regarding

nave magic-guys - who must bullshit all their spells

and never realize that they are casting magic. The
player must describe all the outcomes of their spells
accordingly, manipulating elements of the environment to suit. Boink! Hard-core Director stance, more
radical than nearly anything out there, buried as a
throwaway option in the middle of the book!
My frustration with these real and impressive innovations is this: why not center the game specifically
around the actual innovation, playing to the strength
as it were? Dawnfire at least does so with its Flow in
setting terms, but the true power of the bullshitting
system is still buried under a huge formal spell list,
not to mention the overwhelming mass of D&Dbased assumptions and imitations (the creature list in
this game is embarassingly derivative, for instance).
Of Gods and Men tries to do it with its Divine Power
Cards, but they get quickly outweighed by the traditional magic system; the far more sophisticated
system in Darkurthe: Legends is similarly presented
as secondary. Speaking strictly as a practioner, if the
innovations in magic system of any of the five games
listed above had been dusted off and made the core
of a powerful Premise (of whatever GNS category),
the game would have been a triumph of role-playing
power and quite possibly extremely influential.

PART FOUR:
BUSINESS AND MARKETING

It is killing, just killing, to contemplate the authors

naivete about the actual market and nature of RPGs
as a business. Consider their status from the perspective of the three-tier system of marketing. As fantasy
games, they were competing with TSR. As lines,
they were competing not only with TSR but also with
such aggressive line-developers as White Wolf, AEG,
and FASA (at the time). As lower-budget labors of
love, they offer neither the coffee-table degree of glitz
as single objects, nor the promise of multiple sequential objects, that the bigger companies presented.
So economics is the second reason that these games
break my heart: basically, they were and are doomed.
The world of the 1990s was no longer a place in which
a house-rules variant of D&D can take wings in the
marketplace and fly. Theyre dead. The older ones
websites are fading or absent, and the books are in
the half-off boxes. I very much fear that the more
recent ones will go the same way.
Why? Because they are not selling direct to end-users,
they are selling to the tiers. A limited presence in

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Circle of Hands

Fantasy Heartbreakers

stores via slush-fund ordering is the best they can hope for, meaning no in-store sales or even recognition of
their presence. And even if they get to end-users, their aggressively retro mode of play and presentation cannot
compete with those games which defined that mode of play and command the loyalty of those who value it. In
terms of the tiers, these games are what define small press: imitative game design, low-budget presentation, and
minimal customer interest. To the retailer of the 1990s, such a game is not re-ordered, even if it sells.

rules from D&D

super-class which
remember, all Fantasy Heartbreakers have at
play as a defining
only one player per
least one good, possibly brilliant feature
feature. As a general
group may take,
observation, yes, a
as an example of
Fantasy Heartbreaker very often has D&D-imitative
the kind of free-associative logic that seems to have
or assumption-based rules, but the degree of house
underlaid this set of the rules.
rule can be very extreme, and some Heartbreakers
As far as resolution systems are concerned, Im not
do have home-grown, ground-up systems. Therefore
confident about the combat and spell systems, which
the games rules dont necessarily have to be derived
(speaking prematurely) look wildly various to me. But
directly from D&D. However, when theyre not,
maybe Im missing the point - if a randomized and
they mainly recapitulate immediately-post-D&D
freewheeling effect is the goal, and if a certain Ninja
developments as self-perceived innovations. Quite
Burger, who-knows-what-will-happen approach is
a few resemble early RuneQuest, early Rolemaster or
taken, then maybe it works great.
MERPS, and one or another feature of AD&D2, most
The GMing section is astounding. It gets the defilikely through parallelism and probably more rarely
nition of theme right on the first try, which is far
through imitation.
more than I can say for some of the most well-known
Some recent fantasy-adventure games that I do not
games and authors in the hobby. It includes extensive
consider Fantasy Heartbreakers include Arrowflight,
and applicable advice for running geographicallyThe Riddle of Steel, Chain of Being, and Donjon.
separated characters at the same time and for cutting
scenes, and it nails the Lumpley Principle on the
THE LATEST ROUND
nose. If this section were presented as a PDF for sale,
I ran across three games in the last few months that
Id buy it in a shot. Its well worth the price of the
would have gone straight into the pool with the
whole game.
other games I listed in my first essay. I hope everyone
Undiscovered, from Eilfin Publishing, is quite different
understands that the following material isnt a set of
- instead of a flurry of ideas all mixed together, its a
reviews, but reviews, but merely textual comparisons.
carefully-organized manual. Its GMing section is just
I cant speak to these games actual playability, coherabout the most extreme opposite of Demons Lairs, statence, or other features except by inference.
ing the Impossible Thing Before Breakfast as clearly
They have all the basic game design components as
as it can be stated. Its also pretty sedate in its options,
any Heartbreaker: randomly generated attributes,
based mainly on elf/dwarf fantasy races, although I do
lots of derived attributes, and a very heavy race
like the angel race and the Dusters (weresnakes).
emphasis. Most of the space of the book is devoted to
Unlike most Heartbreakers, Undiscovered is based on
character creation options, especially if you include
a unified system mechanic (d100), but the authors
spell lists in that category, and the rest being mainly
are a bit late in claiming the point-allocation method
lists of stuff to find, buy, or fight, and setting history.
for setting beginning skill-levels as an innovation.
They all have fairly standard magic systems, unlike
The key element seems to be a certain amount of
most of the games described in the previous essay.
choice on the players part regarding managing skillIll lay out some of their differences and unique
improvement: you have ranks of expertise and
qualities (remember, all Fantasy Heartbreakers have
levels within the ranks, and sometimes one has
at least one good, possibly brilliant feature) and muse
the choice between skipping up a rank and levelling
a bit more.
up within a rank. It reminds me of both Earthdawn
Demons Lair, from Lasalion Games, presents a high
and the old High Fantasy, but neither of these games
wince-factor, both stylistically and in terms of conoffered as much flexibility on the players part.
tent. It reads like a hyperactive, uncritical Arduin
Overall, the game has a certain early-RuneQuest feel
Grimoire, peppered with empty character quotes and
in the sense of lots of personal bzz! magic flying
attempted giggles, even including some rules for
around everywhere, especially based on personal
whether a character suddenly has to take a piss in
worship. It also has an enjoyable Earthdawn feel in
the middle of combat. Character creation is diverse
that all the characters are pretty arty with lots of stonto the point of being scattered and bizarre, with one
ecarving, weaving, and similar.

PART FIVE: WHATS IT TO US? THIS IS WHAT

These are indie role-playing games. Their authors are part of the Forge community, in all the ways that matter.
They designed their games through enjoyment of actual play, and they published them through hopes of reaching
like-minded practitioners. It is not fair to dismiss the games as sucky - they deserve better than that, and no one
is going to give them fair play and critical attention unless we do it. Sure, I expect tons of groan-moments as some
permutation of an imitative system, or some overwhelming and unnecessary assumption, interferes with play.
But those nuggets of innovation, on the other hand, might penetrate our minds, via play, in a way that prompts
further insight.
Lets play them. My personal picks are Dawnfire and Forge: Out of Chaos, but yours might be different. I say, grab a
Heartbreaker and play it, and write about it. Find the nuggets, practice some comparative criticism, think historically.
Get your heart broken with me.

THE SECOND ESSAY

MORE FANTASY HEARTBREAKERS, JANUARY 2003
One purpose of this essay is to clarify just what a Fantasy Heartbreaker is, based on some confusions that
arose from my previous essay of that title. In order
to judge a game a Heartbreaker, three things should
be considered: publishing context, rules design, and
imaginative content. All three matter, but I think the
last one is most important.

A Fantasy Heartbreakers basic, imaginative content is

fantasy using gaming, specifically D&D, as the inspirational text. Whats D&D Fantasy? Well, its about
seting up a character starting-point with a strong
random component as well as a strong strategy component, having encounters, surviving them (or not),
and improving. What characters do is travel, team
up, bicker a bit, walk a tightrope between cooperating and exploiting one another, suss out threats (risk
assessment is a big deal), and fight with unavoidable
or especially rewarding ones. Some giveaway details:
gotta have elves and dwarves, gotta have underground
complexes, gotta have teams of adventurers, gotta have
array of tactical possibilites for combat (armor/weapons), gotta have similar array of spells, gotta ramp up
the range and scope of both arrays with experience,
and gotta have a chock-full smorgasbord of threats.
(I want to emphasize that terms like Tolkien fantasy,
traditional fantasy, and high fantasy are often
used to refer to D&D fantasy, all of which I think are
highly inaccurate and obfuscating.)

166

Its publishing context is a bit more tricky. The way I

see it, anyway, is that a Fantasy Heartbreaker deliberately recapitulates the origin of D&D as a game:
a few guys, a good idea, a labor of love, and book
on the shelves, with the hope that gamers will like
it. Gary did it, and so can we. In that sense, were
talking about indie-indie-indie, in Forge terms. One
element of this context is that most of these publishers are pretty naive about the three-tier distribution
system, which (on the positive side) means they are
more interested in establishing the game as part of
ongoing hobby culture rather than simply making a
quick buck through hyping to distributors. The other
interesting ramification is that D20 material cannot,
by definition, be a Fantasy Heartbreaker - D20 per
se and D&D3E in particular arent recapitulating the
original TSR publishing model at all.
Also, a historical factor is at work. Considering early
innovations as such when they were innovations, Arms
Law, Spell Law, and Claw Law were not Heartbreaker
material, and neither was Melee/Wizard, or early
Tunnels & Trolls. However, today, a game published
as an original fantasy role-playing game which
resembled one of these would probably be one. Part
of the definition includes ignorance of the existing
diversity of game design.
Rules are also an issue, but its grayer than one might
think. Some people have been confused about house

167

Circle of Hands
They also got hold of a Julie Bell painting for the
cover clearly done specifically for the game; Id like
to know whatever story is behind that.

Fantasy Heartbreakers
OVERALL MUSINGS

First, some observational details. The minotaur fetish

is alive and well, especially as a bagful of subspecies;
Im already raised the issue of the semi-undead race in
Deathstalkers, from Cutters Guild, is simultaneously
the forums (Druine, Dunnar, and Half-dead), so not
the most deconstructive and most preservative game
much can be added there; and
Ive ever seen, relative to
Im also wondering whether
the oldest-of-schools D&D
Fantasy Heartbreakers are dragon-people (Dawnfire,
play, in detail after detail.
Undiscovered, Deathstalkers)
always recognizable in terms of
Its almost impossible to
might be replacing the hither
voice... I like this, actually.
summarize them: castings,
to-irreplaceable kitty-people.
ingredients, hit points, levels,
Fantasy Heartbreakers are always recognizable in
alignments, etc, are all hard-core D&D belt (Madison
terms of voice - if someone were to pick a random
to Springfield) dungeon crawl. The game is the very
couple of paragraphs from, say, Undiscovered, Forge:
essence of midwestern U.S. D&D style gaming and
Out of Chaos, Demons Lair, and Dawnfire, I could
should probably be studied in detail by anyone interinstantly see which game it came from. I like this,
ested in the history of the hobby - it distils out nearly
actually. I think it speaks well for the hobby in comevery strategic element from the old-school texts and
parison with the bevy of high-gloss attempts, in the
places them into prominent, character-mortalitymid-90s, to see who could present a game with prose
challenging center stage.
that imitates Vampire the closest.
Characters effectiveness/vulnerability ratio is the
Skill systems are tremendously various across
key, and I suspect that character survival at the beginFantasy Heartbreakers. Some of them, such as
ning is largely a matter of GM-largesse. Its hard to
Deathstalkers, are demonstrably tack-ons. This game
understand why one would play at the lower levels;
already has a fairly sophisticated resolution system
a characters Sanity, at the very least, seems slated to
based strictly on attributes, and the skill system is
drop radically.
both redundant (given the well-defined character
The innovation lies in the combat system, which
classes) and insignificant, given that characters begin
is best described as taking whats broken in D&D
skills in the under-10% range. Others, as in Fifth Cycle
combat and making that, itself, a strategic system.
and Undiscovered, are the core of the game. I think
Apparently successfully. Upon setting the order of
the existing range recapitulates the very same set of
attacks, they proceed from fastest to slowest, then
developments seen in 1977-1984.
back up the line from slowest to fastest. This sets up
Now for more substantive issues.
a tug-of-war over who gets to be on the advantageous
side of a zero-sum now-or-later game, using Actions,
As I mentioned in the first Heartbreakers essay, Im
Aggression Points, Hit Points, and potential reaction
generally impressed by the GNS coherence found in
to hits as resources for timing, especially in terms of
these games. Even when the modes are jumbled a bit,
which variable is the limiting factor at what time. Play
theyre almost always well-articulated and the game
would seem to be complex in terms of resources to
designs often offer interesting solutions to D&Dkeep track of: in addition to the combat-specific ones,
style incoherence. Of the new games discussed in
theres also Sanity, Castings, and more.
this essay, Deathstalkers and Undiscovered respectively
Im pretty dubious about the origins of its setting. Im
given to understand that a series of novels or perhaps
computer games already exists called Deathstalkers,
which like this game concerns big apocalyptic robots
in a kind of fantasy setting, so Im a little nervous
about the IPs in question. Perhaps its either all
worked out or no big deal, so if anyone knows, tell me.

168

represent textbook Gamism and Simulationism,

and Demons Lair, although essentially incoherent in
System terms, includes some of the best Narrativist
GMing advice Ive ever seen.

My biggest criticism concerns some thematic content.

Im really starting to wonder about the god-lists and
religion in general in Fantasy Heartbreakers. Its a
unique phenomenon; I dont think its possible to
imagine anything less like religion in any sense. It
includes a lot of highly-imitative or downright dumb

names, direct correspondence with player-character

options (as opposed to societies or organizations),
and lots of un-fun strictures. The best of the bunch
is Forge: Out of Chaos, probably (as I read it) because
this material was taken the least seriously and written for fun imaginative-background rather than as a
personal fantasy opus.
Whats odd is that most Fantasy Heartbreakers take
great pride in their world-settings: maps, elaborate
histories, wars, borders, economies, cataclysms,
wilderness areas, and more. Id think that religion, as
such a major feature of culture, would get a bit more
intellectual consideration beyond what must a cleric
avoid doing in order to get his healing spells back or
when a character gets a minor bonus.
Another issue concerns the three-plateau assumption regarding a character over time: a prolonged
weeny stage, a brief pretty damn good stage, and
an upwardly-spiralling unstoppable stage, straight
out of old-school D&D. When faced with a potential
threat, the first thing to do is decide whether its out
of your league, and the second thing to do, if its in
your league, is to identify its particular limiting factor
relative to your own. Lets check out this issue a bit
more carefully, though - I think its central to D&D
fantasy that a character must start with a very high
risk of dying and very little ability to change the world
around him or her, and then increase in effectiveness,
scope, and ability to sustain damage, all on a positive
exponential fashion.
The concept seems to be that the player must serve his
or her time as a schlub, greatly risking the characters
existence, in order to enjoy the increased array and
benefits of the powers, ability, and effectiveness that
can only be accumulated through the reward-system.
An enormous amount of the draw to play a particular
game seems to be based on explicitly laying out what
the character might be able to do, later, if he or she
lives. I want to distinguish this paradigm very sharply
from the baseline character improves through time
found in most role-playing games. This is something
much, much more specific.
All three of these issues lead to my big point for
the essay. The key assumption throughout all these
games is that if a gaming experience is to be intelligent (and all Fantasy Heartbreakers make this claim),
then the most players can be relied upon to provide
is kind of the Id of play - strategizing, killing, and
conniving throughout the session. They are the raw

energy, the driving go, and the GMs role is to say,

You just scrap, strive, and kill, and Ill show ya, with
this book, how its all a brilliant evocative fantasy.
Its not Illusionism - theres no illusion at all, just
movement across the landscape and the willingness
to fight as the baseline player things to do. At worst,
the players are apparently slathering kill-counters
using simple alignment systems to set the bar for
a given group (e.g. Deathstalkers); sometimes, they
are encouraged to give characters personality like
hates fish or likes fancy clothes; and most of the
time, theyre just absent from the text, Player who?
Character who? (e.g. Undiscovered). The Explorative,
imaginative pleasure experienced by a player - and
most importantly, communicated among players
- simply doesnt factor into play at all, even in the
more Simulationist Fantasy Heartbreakers, which are
universally centered on Setting.
I think this is a serious problem for fantasy role-playing design. Its very, very hard to break out of D&D
Fantasy assumptions for many people, and the first
step, I think, is to generate the idea that protagonism
(for any GNS mode) can mean more than energy and
ego. These are fine things, of course, but it strikes me
that playing with them as the sole elements provided
by the players is a recipe for Social Contract breakdown. Ultimately, this is why I decided on favoring
the content-based definition for the term Fantasy
Heartbreaker as a whole.

AN INTERESTING PROPOSAL

Mike Holmes once suggested that Everyone should

write a Heartbreaker. What does he mean?
Notice, he says, write, not publish. The benefit,
as far as I can tell, is as a form of personal therapy.
People apparently have issues that arise from their
play of D&D fantasy games, and from their grappling with broken Social Contracts and mismatched
GNS stuff. A lot of the time, game design seems to
be a form of coping with these issues. If Im understanding Mike correctly, writing ones own Fantasy
Heartbreaker constitutes working through a phase
of development as a role-player - in some cases, it
might remove the need to design games further, in
favor of settling down actually to enjoy play, and in
other cases, it might open the door to ground-up
genuinely-innovative designs.
Im not a good case study for this, for a variety of
reasons, but lets try it anyway. Lets imagine: all right,

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Circle of Hands
Im going to take D&D Fantasy as a just-plain-given,
deliberately taking the naive assumption that everyone just knows what role-playing is, what fantasy
is, and what this hobby is all about, given only D&Dbased culture as the foundation. Also, Ill work
straight from what I enjoyed about reading the text
and playing the game - working toward getting them
centrally into play, without questioning any assumptions of why that stuff was in there, or considering
where it came from before it was in there.

what you add. So, um, a salamander characters Agility starts at 10, and you roll this 4d6, getting (perhaps)
an 11, divide and round to 6, so his or her Agility is 10
+ 6 = 16. To colorize things up, Id put in a randomized
table for motive, all being fun and active like Fame,
Profit, Virtue, Vengeance, and that sort of thing. Id
stress that not one of them actually dictates behavior,
just sets up what youre interested in increasing for
the character. Itd be very lightly reinforced in the
reward system.

Id come up with races based on three things: adding

diversity to existing groups (two sorts of humans
[Aztec-like vs. Nordic/barbarian-like]), keeping elves
and dwarves (because theyre fantasy), and taking a
couple of monsters that I think are cool and making
them player-character options (specifically salamanders and big mean trolls, possibly half-human
hybrids of trolls). Race will carry tons of content
about attitudes, family structure, and so on, such that
the salamanders get to be misunderstood and exotic
and the half-trolls get to be unapologetic butt-kickers.

System? No problem! Its compartmental: combat,

magic, other. For combat, just think initiative sets
order, order sets who hits, hits set up taking damage,
and protection deals with damage. Thats classic
post-wargaming logic - injecting a particular brand of
Simulationism, mainly, into a primarily-Gamist context of play, which Im afraid lends plenty of room for
Social Contract disputes. Lets see ... another notion is
that I want the setting to be pretty hot, environmentally, which will cut down on the heavy armor. Oh
yes, armor - does it cut down on the chance to hit, or
does it provide protection when
youre hit? Ill also have lots and
Everyone should write a lots of neat missile weapons, to
Heartbreaker.- Mike Holmes provide a slightly different feel
or tension to combat.

Id come up with classes,

which can mean lots of
things - perhaps Ill take the
innovation of not having
formalized classes and sticking with professions, using internal constraints like
race limitations and attribute minima that result in
unstated classes. Each profession has a few skills,
and then each character also gets to pick some skills
ad-lib. Ill keep the skill list pretty short - its a menu
for adventuring advantages, not an exhaustive list of
a characters repertoire of personal skills.
And Id probably set up some kind of metaphysical
oomph that a character might have more or less
of, along the lines of Dawnfires Flow. Cool - wed
have randomly-based attributes, basically Strength,
Toughness, Agility, Intelligence, and Perception, and
use those to come up with derived stuff for combat,
magic, and other.

Lets see, for the starting attributes, I like the idea of

the race setting a baseline value and then adding a
small roll onto that, as in Legendary Lives, and I like
the idea of the roll using multiple dice, for a strong
bell curve, but covering a small spread. I know. The
race sets a value of 0, 5, or 10, to start for each Attribute. You add on the result of a 4d6 roll, but before
adding, you divide the result by 2 to get a value of
2-12, heavily weighted toward the middle (7), which is

170

Magic then becomes a secondary system of some

kind, probably based on profession in terms of available spells. Its effectiveness, to my tastes, would be a
function of a characters magic score rather than set
by the spell-listing itself, which is to say, any spell may
be cast lightly or hard depending on the magicoomph put into it. I like the idea as well that difference
races use different rituals for the same spells.
[Im being a little vicious regarding combat and magic
design; obviously, a number of Fantasy Heartbreakers
struggle much harder to be more unified and/or coherent in their resolution systems, especially Undiscovered,
Fifth Cycle, Forge: Out of Chaos, and Legendary Lives.]
Setting? No problem. Have map with evocative
names, have history including two cataclysms,
have off-the-cuff list of gods corresponding to one
metagame-tweak apiece, have monsters, have two or
three more races that players cant play - will travel.
This is the kind of stuff I used to fill whole notebooks
with instead of doing homework.
For experience (i.e. character improvement),
weapons and armor, damage mechanics, and much
more, Im in pretty good shape - present point-value

Fantasy Heartbreakers
rewards for creatures killed or puzzles solved, and
then set up a point-scheme to spend them. But spend
them on what? Levels or no levels? I think that Ill
be innovative again and jettison levels (be sure to
put that on the back of the book and into the introduction). Therefore character improvement will be a
matter of improving skills, attributes, and secondary
attributes, as well as maybe changing profession for
lots of points. But the word level has to be retained
in some way. Ill have to think about that. Maybe itll
be a hit-point thing, so that certain plateaus of points
earned (not spent) result in higher hit points and
higher magic scores.
Is this a valuable exercise? Surprisingly, Im enjoying
myself. Im pretty tempted to start a notebook for this
game, to be titled whatever the setting ends up being
called. It would mainly concern the ongoing war and
interactions among the lava-living salamanders and
humans, with lots of intermediate contact and societies among the two. Obviously ruins of both human
habitations and salamander communities would be
the dungeons.
But maybe the exercise is only valid for some people,
and perhaps its a generational issue. My own first
role-playing game experience was indeed old-school
D&D. In terms of us folks, yes, I think Mikes point
is valid. But ... what about those role-players who
were born into an entirely different set of starting
assumptions? Nowadays, a lot of folks first game was
probably Vampire.
Lets also consider that a form of D&D has recently
become available that is far more mechanically satisfying, if perhaps less intriguing, than the original(s),
and thus less likely to instil its users with any number
of frustration-issues. And as well, that if setting for its
own sake is ones primary creative drive, then D20s
your huckleberry.

So consider people who entered the hobby in this

context, over the last ten years ... Can we expect, in the
next few years, Vampire Heartbreakers? Do we already
have them, in the form of Immortal and The Chosen?

WHAT TO DO, WHAT TO DO

Fantasy Heartbreakers are an ongoing, irrepressible

feature of the hobby, arriving thick and fast. I anticipate coming upon plenty more at GenCon this year.
Ultimately, although I admire their authors pluck
(and Ill defend to the death their right to publish),
these games are essentially doomed, economically
speaking, for the reasons I listed in my first Heartbreakers essay.
But Id like to get a little more abstract about that. Even
aside from industry and promotion considerations, I
think these games are doomed through a conceptual
tautology: you cant do D&D fantasy, regardless of
how streamlined or more logical your rules are,
without being directly measured by the defining feature, which is to say, D&D itself. In other words, the
game design is trapped - the less like D&D it becomes
in function and content, the further it moves from its
goals, to fix D&D. And the more it stays with its
goals, the more D&D compares favorably with it.
Its agonizing to see and, despite my best intentions,
these games are not easy to get people to play for
purposes of review and promotion.
So what to do with them? If anything? Id like to
develop some kind of tracking or ongoing analysis of
Fantasy Heartbreakers which permits people arriving
at the Forge to get a solid, well-articulated introduction to them, as a preventative measure if possible.
Suggestions toward that goal or constructive alternatives are definitely welcome.
And I havent even begun my discussion of their
science fiction equivalents based mainly on Star
Frontiers and Traveller.

A LOOK BACK
AH GEEZ, DID I SAY THAT?

That what if I did it example in the second essay is bad. Not only is it not kind of lame on its face, its terrible
dishonest crap given that Gray Magick was sitting forgotten in a manila folder the whole time. Just red-sharpie
that right out and replace it with the majority of this book.
I completely missed the boat about Legendary Lives, which I realized upon playing it a few times. It does belong
in the essay, but for all the good reasons and none of the design criticisms I wrongly attributed to it. Thinking
about that also leads me to reconsider my phrasing about the bit of genius stuck in the mire, which has become
rephrased and over-repeated as the nugget in shit, far more insulting than what Id written. I did not characterize

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Circle of Hands
the games as either unplayable or necessarily poorly
designed; like an assortment of RPGs grouped in any
category theyre all over the map for that.

ONCE MORE WITH FEELING

D&D fantasy
There are actually two, neither of which has much
to do with the rules and play of Dungeons & Dragons. They have a lot more to do with the publication
details of TSRs history.
In the first essay, I talk about vintage Numero Uno,
which is an amorphous thing, not tied to a single text,
including:
The first supplements for Dungeons & Dragons
published from 1974 through 1976, but not the
core game, which was unavailable until it was
reprinted in 1978
Dungeons & Dragons published in 1977, written
mainly by J. Eric Holmes, reprinted through
1979
The D, G, and S series of adventures modules
published in 1977 and 1978, mostly derived from
tournament play
A wide range of articles published in the first
years of The Dragon

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Monster Manual

1977, Players Handbook 1978, Dungeon Masters
Guide 1979
Arguably, non-TSR products such as Judges
Guild play aids and adventure settings, and The
Arduins Grimoire
The play-culture of this period relied on personal,
incomplete collections of the above titles and other
early role-playing games, local oral tradition, and
tournaments. As a member of this generation and
play-experience, I quickly empathize with the
authors of the earlier heartbreakers. I estimate 1982
as the last year that a pure grassroots, me-too fantasy
role-playing game could be published with any hope
of hobby attention or financial return, but none of
us knew that. Games like Fifth Cycle and Darkurthe
were published perfectly good faith based on real
experience, but by their appearance in 1990-91, their
authors had missed the winds of change which had
begun blowing in about 1982.
Those winds reached a howling crescendo in 1986,
and became the New Normal in 1989, with the publi-

172

cation of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition, the

age of what I like to call TSR Orthodoxy. Now D&D
fantasy was a whole new thing, composed of series
of novels based on games and game lines integrated
with novels. Game distribution was a new game of its
own, requiring a specific physical format, commercial
value, and production schedule, completely different
from the basement-published, stapled-pamphlet
games wed actually bought, played, and found
inspiring. Significantly, publishing RPGs lost its ties
to the original festive, underground unconstructed
context of play.
Thats where the later Heartbreaker titles in the essay
come from, considerably spiffier in their production
value and art direction, but still even more out of
water, like sincere new-generation immigrants from
the home planet naively setting up their cottages in a
dystopian landscape.

Fantasy Heartbreakers
insulting miniscule profit margin through the three-tier distribution system, the crowding-out of shelf space
by companies like TSR and FASA, the impossibility of paying for promotion and convention presence through
sales, and the impracticality of the internet. The game could have been Gods own fantasy role-playing system, the
funnest and most inspiring thing ever, and itd still be chewed up and spat out by the market-fixing of the time.
Sure, the term is critical but these games authors didnt screw it up, they got screwed over. I cant say it enough:
my essays are about the Heart, not the Breaking. (Nathan Paoletta came up with that line, credit where its due.)
Todays danger
For a bit there, Id thought the phenomenon had met its end, given digital print and print-on-demand. At least
now if your content qualified, then you werent going to watch double-digit thousands of dollars vanish into the
ether for it. However, crowdfunding has brought heartbreaking design + publishing back with a vengeance, with
its sunk-cost investment masquerading as a windfall, and its admirable but also treacherous wish for it and make
it happen message.
No one was happier than I to see the three-tier distribution system die its well-deserved, gooey death, and so
much about crowdfunding is so wonderful, but sure enough, heartbreakers are back, and I love them with great
agony still.

What does it mean exactly?

Fantasy heartbreaker is not a pejorative, and I dont
think any honest reading of the essays implies it.
Theres been an internet Telephone game, disconnected with the essays themselves, with one of the
steps being it must be an insult and from there,
people either start using it as an insult or proudly
call their work heartbreakers in defiance of some
perceived animus against D&D that someone else is
supposed to have. Theres a game now too, Fantasy
Heartbreaker (William Bargo, 2009).
The heartbreak is a conjoined twin of content and
economics. For content, merely being derivative or
imitative doesnt make a game a heartbreaker; you
cant simply tag game Z as a game-Y-heartbreaker
because game Y influenced it. The content issue is
subtler than that, its the doing it but not it, fixing
it but so perfectly it concept, a doomed endeavor but
not without its charm and taken by itself, not a bad
thing at all.
As a side point, thats why most of the games tagged
formally or informally as Old School Renaissance are
not and cannot be fantasy heartbreakers; they have
a different relationship with the inspirational material, using one or another form of D&D as a creative
constraint for some startling innovations.
For the economics, during the phases I described
above, the small-press fantasy-game publisher was
simply fucked. You would not believe the incredible
expense of printing a book during the 1990s, the

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Chapter

9H

eartbreaker

Redemption

THE FOUND OBJECT

It was an old iron spear-point, sound enough in its brief use, but long left shelved, half-forgotten, never completed
or fitted to a haft.
I was baffled and a bit shame-faced when I found the Gray Magick manuscript sitting among my old papers, years
after posting the second Heartbreakers essay. The level of denial is ridiculous. Id even criticized others for saying,
No one would be interested in that, about their older work, or for failing to mention it in ten years of intensive
on-line discussions of such things, and here I was blatantly blocking my own out.
Yet there it is, a perfect example that surely would
have sat on the store shelves with Darkurthe and Pelicar if Id had the means. I hadnt thought about it for
about a decade before writing the essays, and maybe
it never registered due to lacking elves and dwarves
and gods, but still! It positively shouts out its relevant
qualities:
The conceit of doing fantasy right
The deep distrust of anyone whos not a GM,
with its portrait of players without agency
The fascination with a complex choice/rolls
relationship in character creation
The utter failure of the reward system

Illus. Adam Schmidt

All of which were embedded with a lot of things to

appreciate. Like the two games I just mentioned, it
glows with authenticity and the underpinning of real
play. Its resolution mechanic is not too shabby, using
trade-off notions inspired by Magic: the Gathering,
paralleling Greg Porters Epiphany, and prefiguring
Jake Norwoods The Riddle of Steel. I do quite like that
magic: consequential, showy, and a little nuts. The
pumping mechanic prefigures similar rules in Forge:
Out of Chaos.
By the way, I borked the combat example; heres how
it was supposed to read:
Each allocates bonuses, from a base of +Q for both
offense and defense. The Baron starts even with +5
for both, but Charu is more bloodthirsty and allocates +12 offense and +2 defense. Each rolls 2d6; the
Barons total is 5 and Charus is 10 (!).
The Barons offense = 10 vs. Charus defense =
12; Charu doesnt even need his off-hand axe to
block.
Charus offense = 22 vs. the Barons defense =
10, hitting with a difference of 12 points. Adding

Charus Brawn 6 and the +1 bonus for his axe

gives a BQ total of 19 points.
The Barons armor stops 10 points, for 9 remaining.
4 come off the Barons Brawn, reducing it to 1. 5 come
off the Barons Quickness, reducing it to 1 as well. He
is very nearly out on his feet. Given a strong advantage in the rolls, Charus nearly total emphasis on
attack has paid off.
Lets try that again with the opposite rolls, with the
Baron rolling 10 and Charu 5.
The Barons offense = 15 vs. Charus defense = 7,
hitting with a difference of 8 points. Adding the
Barons Brawn 5 gives a BQ total of 13.
Charus offense = 17 vs. the Barons defense =
15, hitting with a difference of 2 points. Adding
Charus Brawn 6 and +1 bonus for his axe gives
a BQ total of 9 points.
Charus armor stops 7 points, and his off-hand
axe stops 1d6 more, in this case 2, so he takes 4 BQ
damage. 2 come off his Brawn, reducing it to 4. 2
come off his Quickness, reducing it to 6. The Barons
armor stops 10 points, exceeding the BQ of 9, so he
takes no damage. Given a strong advantage in the
rolls, the Barons balanced tactic has whittled away
some of Charus starting quantitative edge.

OVER AND OVER IN MY HANDS

I cleaned it up for fun, fixing the fight example, getting rid of the Tarzan talk for the spell descriptions,
and little things like that. Id seen the timing for spells
during combat work well during playtesting but had
never managed to get the instructions for it right
in the text. I knew that the unarmed combat rules
werent sound. I went through the pages and marked
such stuff, and found myself intrigued enough to
spring it onto some friends.

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Circle of Hands
Playtesting immediately showed that the culture
and genre were opaque. The Priest profession meant
almost literally nothing, so players shoveled whatever
assumptions or tropes they wanted into it, and the
Noble trait was not only equally empty, but punched
a hole into every playtest because it was mechanically
attractive. Both illustrated that no real notion of the
fictional society existed, and more generally, there
was no context for the characters, no situations at all.
Apparently various colorful people would just have
adventures.
Itd be one thing if I knew exactly how to do it but
merely omitted writing it down, but instead, the
adventure was a big void in my mind. Every playtest, I had to put them into a half-finished adventure
situation in order to play at all. But the setups had no
buy-in, and no connection to the choices people had
made in making their characters. Thats why every
time we tried it, the characters did the adventure
but went nowhere as interesting entities of their own.
This void got emptier every time I looked at it, and
I turned to refining minor procedures as they stood.

Heartbreaker Redemption

I reduced two-track accounting for both Brawn

and Quickness, a little anyway.
I got rid of Melees legacy of Quickness penalties
for armor and re-evaluated certain other The
Fantasy Trip homage in weapon types.
I restored the ability to deal out damage for a
badly-wounded character.
The opposed vs. unopposed text is pure crust.
I found that everyone preferred choosing the
Tally results rather than rolling, me included.
I added the advantage bonus for combat, with
superb playtesting results.
I still wasnt happy with the dice-rolling for attributes.
If youre using only a single die, then the law of averages isnt working for you, so getting 1-3-2 when the
other guy gets 6-6-5 isnt merely an edge case but a
foregone conclusion. But I did like the two-trait idea
juxtaposed with rolling and didnt want to lose it.
In my notes, I find the phrase making two characters and allowing use of one anothers characters is
probably OK, but definitely not elegant, originally
written to dismiss that idea.

HEAT AND HAMMER

Just as its not enough to insert new-ish dwarves and

elves, its not enough merely to get rid of dwarves and
elves. If youre making a new game, then you have to
think about how its played. I started to redeem my
heartbreakers content, thinking less like a masterful
Game Master who would transform play into story
for an audience, and instead like a person putting it
to use. I had to see and feel not only what Id written,
but what Id written it for.
I reached back, thinking about my life at that time.
It sucked. Id just earned my Masters degree, but at
considerable personal sacrifice, I was at rock-bottom
poverty, I was completely politically isolated, had
just been horribly sick for the first time in my life,
was out of shape, in a string of rotten relationship
hassles. I was full of frustration and aggression. I
lived in a rotten and hopeless world, I confused and
hurt people around me with every move, the people
around me were generally shitty or wrapped up with
enough problems of their own, it seemed anything I
did drew down waves of backstabbing I was tired
of being nice. Nice didnt work.
Thinking about all these past things focused the
setting in my mind. It was time to make it not nice.
The pre-medieval, sort of Germanic idea started to
form, without direction, but clearer with each pass,
condensing into a limited geography and cultural
context. I dialed up the harshness of the
magical war, racking up the abstract evil
represented by both sides, a subtle but
important shift, getting death removed
from Rbaja and love removed from
Amboriyon. It also meant that personal,
selfish evil becomes its own thing, without
magical justification, easily associated with
either side.

Turning the new harshness to game

mechanics, I realized the whole thing was
about Brawn. I standardized its starting
value and eliminated Toughness. In my notes I find
the phrase, Noble is an outcome, Brutal is a method,
from when I renamed the Traits.
I commissioned some art which although never
developed into final resolution nor quite right for
the setting as it was eventually refined (plate armor,
for example), deserves recognition for its power in
helping me think and playtest. I am very grateful to
Adam for providing the concept art which boosted

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Illus. Adam Schmidt

the notes-in-a-backpack into a genuine project, and

thats why its featured in this chapter.
In the new playtests, players really liked oaths, and I
finally figured out that magic should be considered
a subset of oaths, and decoupled the concepts of
wizard and scholar.
Probably because I was reading Apocalypse World a
lot and soon to play it, I kept obsessing over rules for
sex before, after, whatever and it took me a while
to realize that there was no reason for them to be in
this game.

TEMPERING THE METAL

Finally, the procedural tweaks and appropriate terminology hit a plateau, and there was no denying that I
had to think about how the setting related to play, and
how it contributed to who the player-characters were
and what kind of situations they found themselves in.
Again, the key was faithfulness to my earlier self and
his work not in the details, but in emotional and
technical goals. At this point, there was no question of
an Apocalypse World hack, or Burning Wheel, or whatever none of that speaks to the original drive to try
to find it, this thing, whatever it was, and while using
my up-to-date design skills on it, to honor it fully.
In this re-reading, the faithfulness paid off. I spotted
the two paragraphs that had been sitting in the original manuscript, waiting for me to notice:

Crystal fucking obvious (to borrow Vincents phrase)

that right here was what play was supposed to get
to, so the group could settle in and really play now.
I even flashed on my original author satisfaction in
writing those line all those years ago, as I just knew
that anyone reading them would get the message and
almost immediately bring the disparate characters
into the young kings orbit, and that anyone playing
would immediately swear onto this new Gray or Neutral moral and political aim. Right? Right!

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Circle of Hands
At least I didnt have to come up with something new,
because it was sitting right there. Which also meant
that the whole problem of what to be, what to do,
had been solved already by Prince Valiant: abandon
the whole notion of independent actors entirely,
take it straight to Rolke and the circle of influence
or agents associated with the young king, and what
would I call this circle, let me think
The old notes about multiple characters had become
the solution. The mechanical Circle concept, trading off characters, solved all sorts of problems that
confused me because they were problems, like why I
couldnt bring myself to include a dramatic advancement/improvement process, or why I didnt want to
plot-armor characters against being killed.
Now I had a concept for play, a mechanical context
for character creation, a term, a visual image, and a
rock-and-roll song: all there in one quick mental snap.
Playtesting stopped being retro noodling and became
genuine design tests as well as promotion. The cultural stuff now became enjoyable research. I scaled

Heartbreaker Redemption

the technology into the Iron Age Baltic, and centered

my mind on wrought iron and the thrown spear. It
took a long time to get the religion in place, because I
didnt want either historical institutional Christianity
or something coded as exotic because it wasnt Christian. I was mostly inspired by William W. McCorkles
Ritualizing the Disposal of the Deceased. It also turns
out Europeans probably smoked pot all over the
place during the relevant time period who knew?
The explicit Germanic thing crept in strangely, as I
kept thinking about Bavarian geography, then adapting it to a coastline, but the look and feel were more
Baltic, and it kept shifting that way until the names
list locked it down.
I hadnt seen the Game of Thrones cable-TV adaptation, nor had any idea that dark ages had become
a thing. When I did find out I was sort of annoyed,
hunkered down to stick to this emergent vision, and
redoubled the harshness. I had plenty to work with. I
was nowhere as neurotic as at that earlier time, but I
was twenty years meaner and, regarding game design
and publishing, without fear.

Circle of Hands is my eighth published game, but its

process was entirely new to me. I couldnt tell whether
I was reading my younger selfs mind or he was reading mine. The game itself seemed to demand changes
or lack of changes without explanation, the why
only appearing when some other piece was invented
later. The whole process felt less like construction
and more like sculpture, especially the romantic
notion that the image lay already embedded in the
material. The changes never felt like additions, but
like revelations of the things emerging form.

THE SPEAR

The solution to the heartbreaking factor in publishing is easy: dont stay closeted and dont throw money
away, the same message that founded the Forge. In
this case, I did something a little extra with it, in enlisting active playtests of the very early draft through
the Kickstarter campaign. They contributed quite a
lot, and although I cant know for sure, I suspect the
material needed a lot of external hitting with sticks,
more than I could do myself because it was such a
strange process. I could design the hell out of it but I
couldnt critique it well.
I might have re-forged and re-shaped it, but they led
the extensive, practical work to make it into an effective weapon, something a person can hold and use.

THEYRE ALL OVER THE PLACE

I took my own advice about playing the games Id

mentioned, and so did some other people including Clinton Nixon (Legendary Lives) and Ed Healy
(Hahlmabrea). All of us felt an odd excitement in playing them, and Clinton used the second essay as his
jump-start to write his knockout fantasy game, The
Shadow of Yesterday.

AN INVITATION

Do you have one of these? I know there are tons of

them. One friend found his neatly stored in one of
those dress-shirt cardboard boxes. A bunch are handwritten, which I suspect means they were covertly
scribbled under the pretense of taking notes in class
People are kind of weird about them sometimes.
Theres a guy I know whose aging opus sits in a thick
three-ring binder on a shelf in his house, and hes so
wigged out about it, he cant even look at it when hes
in that room; he lives his whole life specifically not
looking at that binder, and when his wife says, Hey,
can we play that again? he just twitches.
If you have one, I say, play it now, with some people.
I bet more often than not, if it looks to you now like
an old shame, then theres something to discover.
Maybe not an explicit rule or oh this is genius bit,
but rather a drive, a desire to see play happen a certain
way, or to be about something, or to revel in a specific
image, which can be rekindled. Maybe and I think
this is also more likely than not brought into open
flame.
Theres a Heartbreaker Redemption webpage at the
Adept Press site. Upload some material from your old
manuscript like Paul did, with a scan or a partial transcript, and Ill link to it; you can see how some people
have done this already. Again, the only really good
starting point is to play it yourself, but I think itll be
fun to discuss it among others with their own things.

I learned of many unpublished equally heartbreak

projects, left mysteriously unmentioned by their
authors during a full decade of no-holds-barred
discussion and design-processing at the Forge. At
first that surprised me, and then after finding Gray
Magick it didnt surprise me at all. When Paul Czege
posted his notes for his high-school game design, In
a Dimension Syncopatic with Ours, I decided there
was a whole universe of crazy play and design fun
to be discovered in all these leftovers, no matter how
much their authors claimed no one could possibly be
interested.

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Illus. Adam Schmidt

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Illus. Adam Schmidt

Glossary

Glossary of Terms
3:00: the arbitrary "go" position on the circular clockstyle diagram used to organize actions during a
complicated situation, especially combat.
Advantage: the extra die granted to one participant in
a Clash based on prior events.
Amboriyon: the metaphysical condition and location
characterized by white magic; one of the two sides of
the magical war.
Ascension: altering the status of an unnamed person
or ordinary animal to that of a named person or beast,
respectiv ely, during play. An ascended individual
gains mechanical agency based on attribute values.

Eidolon: the greater type of Amboriyon creature,

including the guide, lammasu, and silver dragon.
Enchantment: casting a spell into a more permanent
condition, with the exception of Store and Sacrifice;
enchantment requires ritual casting and the irrecoverable loss of Brawn. Enchanted items remaining in
an area for some time leave Stains upon the people
there.
Engagement: the condition in combat in which an
opponent's presence prevents free movement.

Monster: a non-magical semi-human or especially

human-affecting creature, including the manticore,
wyrm, ogre, pode, wracker, spider-hag, the golden,
and mansnake.
Named: the game status of agency, identity, and
mechanical resolution.
Oath: a magical statement committed to a goal, made
using either Rbaja or Amboriyon. An oath does not
cost Brawn nor impose Color points when it is made,
but it accrues Color points in use.

Attribute: a score which affects dice roll effectiveness

and current health or other status, including Brawn,
Quickness, Wits, and Charm.

Famberge: the northern coastal and corresponding

inland regions of the Crescent Land. "Where people
fight to live."

Oppositional spells: spells whose target is another spell

or which affect the costs and conditions of further
spellcasting, including Reflect, Absorb, Warp, Stop,
Sink and several others with more specific targets.

Avatar: the lesser type of Amboriyon creature, including the unicorn, pegasus, and valkyrie.

Fantasy Heartbreaker: a game with certain economic

and creative properties which are admirable in their
enthusiasm and creativity but self-defeating in the
context of the hobby.

Profession: the skill-set and primary medium of interaction among individuals; profession defines and
limits a person's skill-set and refines his or her range
of perception based on social rank.

Francisca: a slightly-curved, smaller axe well-suited

for throwing, characteristic of Tamaryon.

Pumping: adding more Brawn to increase the power

of a spell, usually in conditions of opposing magic.
Brawn may also be pumped to move a character to
3:00 in the order of action.

Backdrop: the general geography, populace, culture,

and magical history of the Crescent Land.
Beast: an animal with individual agency in a venture,
mechanically equivalent to a named person.
The Circle: the organization formed by individuals
committed to the young king in Rolke.
Circle knight: an individual belonging to the Circle
who dedicates his or her life to the proactive, forceful
defiance of the magical war; Circle knights uniquely
employ both white and black magic.
Clash: a subset of combat resolution employed when
an attack provides opportunity for counterattack.
Color point: units of either Amboriyon or Rbaja gained
through oaths and spellcasting, recorded on the character sheet; accumulated Color points result in Gifts.

G
9

Details: striking components of a character's appearance, including the Feature and Demeanor.

Mishap: a broken weapon or similar event; occurs

when all the dice rolled during a combat situation
turn up the same values. No mishap occurs when
only a single die is rolled.

Commitment: the moment during the resolution of a

Clash in which the participants allocate their efforts
to offense and defense (the Split).
Damage: calculated as (i) the attack roll result less 12;
(ii) in a clash, the difference between offensive and
defensive roll results; in each case, less the value of
armor protection. Divided evenly between Brawn
and Quickness, with an odd remainder going to
Quickness.
Demon: a type of Rbaja creature, including the imp,
doll, splotch, nzagg, eye, nightmare, angel, yoggoth,
and dancer.

214

Gambeson: the tunic-like undergarment necessary for

wearing mail; it may also serve as armor by itself.
Gift: an ability of either Amboriyon or Rbaja permanently gained through accumulating Color points.
Group: approximately three or more opponents acting
in concert per Circle knight, subject to local conditions. A group's actions are not resolved mechanically
and cannot be opposed by ordinary resolution.
Heartbreaker Redemption: the redesign of one's earlier
game which honors its driving enthusiasm and aesthetic features. Circle of Hands is such a resdesign of
my unpublished game Gray Magick. Also, my invitation and support for others' similar projects.
Intent: the description of a character's motions toward
his or her next action, made at the end of his or her
turn; it is not binding and may be contradicted by the
action made on the next turn.
Key Event: the circumstances under which a person
decided to become a Circle knight.
Mark: a bodily alteration of either Amboriyon or Rbaja
potentially resulting from gaining a Gift; imposes
vulnerability to the effects of the corresponding zone.

Rbaja: the metaphysical condition and location characterized by white magic; one of the two sides of the
magical war.
Ritual: a requirement for casting certain spells,
extending casting time into hour units; more than
one spell may be combined into a ritual, using the
casting time for the longest.
Rolke: the coastal mountain range and corresponding
shore of the Crescent Land.
Roll vs. 12: The standard resolution roll, using 2d6 by
default, adding the value of a single relevant Attribute; a final result of 12 or better indicates success.
The standard penalty reduces the roll to a single die.
Scenes: the smaller units of play in which fictional
actions, events, and consequences occur. Spells may
not be cast outside of scenes. Brawn spent for spellcasting or to change the order of action is recovered
at the beginning of a new scene.
Scrum: a multi-person combat situation in which
considered, targeted attacks are not possible.

Situation: the location of a venture, including its

immediate geography, inhabitants, recent events,
social circumstances, and cultural details in force;
also, the Circle knights in the venture and their current status in mechanical terms.
Social rank: the defining variable for lifestyle and
community expectations in the Crescent Land;
includes peasant, freeman, professional, and gentry.
Social rank sets the baseline for a person's range of
perception.
Spangenhelm: a helm constructed of several carburized steel struts holding plates of wrought iron.
Spell: a formally-defined magical effect, costing a
specific amount of Brawn and incurring a specific
number and type of Color points. A spell's description specifies target, duration, requirement for ritual,
effect, and other details.
Split: the distribution of the Quickness additions to
offense and defense during a Clash; the default is
+Quickness to both, but the values may be redistributed between offense and defense as desired at the
Commitment moment.
Spurr: the southern coastal region of the Crescent
Land; also, the primary port town in this region.
"Where treachery is trust."
Stain: the effect of an enchanted item's prolonged
presence upon the people of a community.
Tamaryon: the central and southern inland region of
the Crescent Land, west of the coastal mountains and
Spurr. "Where people have broad backs."
Trait: a defining, mechanically consequential component of character personality, including Brave, Brutal,
Ambitious, Cunning, and Romantic. A Circle knight
has two Traits.
Undead: one type of Rbaja creature, including the
draugr, haunt, ghoul, and lich.
Venture: the fictional situation and the scenes within
it, operating as a full unit of play.
Wizard: a metaphysical status in which a person gains
magical senses and can cast all the spells associated
with either Rbaja or Amboriyon. Circle knights who
are wizards can cast all the spells of both Rbaja and
Amboriyon.
Wraith: the form in which a killed Circle knight continues to participate in the venture.
Zone: an area strongly affected by either Amboriyon
or Rbaja.

215

CIRCLE OF HANDS: THE ABSOLUTE RUNDOWN

The thing about RPG rules is, everyone wants to know and understand everything all at once. So here you are. This is everything about
the game in a single massive, semi-ordered data-dump. After this list, everything else in the book is merely procedural explanation
and helpful detail.
The setting is called the Crescent Land. Culturally, its equivalent
to 10th or 11th century north German and Baltic Europe its not
medieval, its not feudal, and its not chivalric. Id say Dark Ages
except historians dont say that anymore screw it, the term
applies. Dark Ages fantasy.
The most common technological materials are wood, wrought
iron, and leather.
The only armor used is the mail hauberk, simple shields, and
simple helms. No plate armor, no limb armor, no barding for
horses, and no body armor at all for most people.
The chief weapon is the spear. Only wealthy people have swords.
Regional weapons include the great axe, the francisca, and the
chained mace. There are no such things as daggers, longswords,
specialized pole weapons, or longbows.
A thrown spear, or a spear used in a mounted charge, goes right
through mail, so look out.
There isnt any heraldry and no knightly culture.
Brace yourself for human horror. Its a time when torture is
on hand, power is almost entirely determined by immediate
ruthlessness, and no one knows the first thing about hygiene,
sustainable agriculture, geography beyond the immediate area,
or history besides vague legends.
Theres no education. People only know what their family circumstances and limited geographical experience provide.
The map shows an extensive crescent-shaped shoreline, with
the ocean to the east. The lands along the waters edge, north
to south, are forested Famberge (fam-BEAR-geh), mountainous
Rolke (ROLE-keh), and sea-hugging Spurr, with Famberge also
including most of the inland north. The inland to the west is
wide, rolling Tamaryon. These are not nations, but subcultural
regions within a single culture.
Regions dont have governments, only local hierarchies based
on raw power and immediate history. Its mostly about villages,
clans, banditry, fortified strongholds, and families, shaking out
into a stratified society based on who has the most wealth crops,
animals, weaponry, connections with a lot of people being miserable. Petty war among ever-changing alliances is the default
condition.

Two magical forces are at war, black and white. They are savagely
effective, diametrically opposed, utterly inhuman, and ultimately
destructive, represented by fanatical wizards, and manifested in
actual locations. They are stagnating and obliterating the culture.
Black magic is called Rbaja (ur-BAH-ja), and in its extreme form,
taints and scorches the landscape into stinking pestholes filled
with undead.
White magic is called Amboriyon (am-BOR-eeyon), and in its
extreme form, gathers in clouds from which angelic beings
descend and lead people into what looks like virtue until it
enlightens them into amorally perfect form or even erases them
from reality.
The prevailing religion of the culture is not centralized, similar to
minimally-institutional Buddhism. It is opposed to the magical
forces, directed toward steadfastness, endurance, survival, and
submission when it shifts to resistance, it gets crushed.
Cannabis is not native to the region but is cultivated where possible, and its leaves are dried and smoked in most social situations.
Its resinous extract is smoked in religious observances.
The Rolke region is newly liberated from the magical wars,
united under a young king. He has instituted extensive reforms
and sworn to defy both Amboriyon and Rbaja by using white
and black magic together.
You play characters whove banded together to support the
young king in Rolke, who opposes both kinds of magic, and you
are not only a trained fighter no matter what your social background and prior life, but you use both kinds of magic at once.
This group is called the Circle its the only one.
The Circle is the sole institution in the setting with any glimmer
of a better life free from the not-so-Cold War between Amboriyon and Rbaja. Its also unique in that no social background is
excluded.
All player-characters are outstanding physical bad-asses. If
their background doesnt indicate this, then the Circle trained
them up.
The fictional culture includes sex and gender bias. Female
Circle members, who are armored fighters, are yet another
society-challenging innovation of the Circle.

Everyone makes up two characters, and thats the Circle. For any
given adventure, you can play any Circle character you want,
although not twice in a row. There are no Circle NPCs.

Clash resolution compares mutual offense and defense simultaneously, and every exchange gives the advantage to one side or
the other.

Characters are described by four attributes, two personality

traits, one or more professions, a resulting social rank, a few
interesting details, and a Key Event. Other things follow from
their professions too.

Weapons different properties are expressed in terms of who gets

the advantage die. A knife is a superior weapon to a great-axe if
the fight takes place between the sheets in a dark bedroom.

Theres a single GM, the same person throughout play. He or she

does make up two Circle members at the start, along with everyone else. His or her job after that is to prepare the adventures,
play the various other people and foes, and monitor the tripwires
that turn a scenario vicious and horrible.

A killed Circle member becomes a wraith and still participates

in the current adventure, but is gone after that adventures conclusion.
Anyone may swear mighty oaths tapping into black or white magical power. Doing so brings great power and great consequence.

Play does not concern events at home. The young king and the
circumstances of his presence in Rolke are never seen. The characters are played during their ventures.

All Circle members know a few white and black spells. Your
character can also be a full-on wizard, who knows all the spells.
Yes, every single one.

Ventures are created using random components and a specialized process to combine and refine them. Ventures include local
people with interests of their own and difficult locations. They
also include the chance for knowledge, lurking threats, and the
fell influence of Rbaja, Amboriyon, or both.

Magic is powered by ones own bodily energy. Wizards must be

physically very tough, vital people. Magic has no other practical
limiting factors no resolution roll or anything else.

A venture offers opportunities and resources for the young king,

and the characters take these very seriously. It is not a mission;
they have no assignment or pre-arranged objective.

Spells are rated either black or white, with values of 1 to 3. Its

value is both the energy it costs and the number of color points
the caster fills in.

A ventures outcome for the Circle in general, and for the young
king in Rolke, is most likely successful by default. Its purpose in
play is to showcase the characters, develop their passions, and
bring them to fateful conclusions.

A character has nine slots to fill in with color points, from casting spells or swearing oaths. White points cancel black and vice
versa, but if all nine are either white or black, then more magical
consequences appear. Its OK to do this, but the effects are permanent. Unlike ordinary wizards, Circle members use this option
tactically, not ideologically.

Characters improve mechanically a little bit after adventures, but

change is mostly due to magical effects and significant personal
experiences. Leveling-up or its equivalent isnt a major part of
play.

Its true that wizards are more powerful and flexible than nonwizards, but the wizards tend to hurt themselves too much to
run around unsupported. The two kinds of Circle knights are the
same when it comes to plain old spear and sword mayhem.

Ordinary resolution is a 2d6 roll + a characters attribute, to equal

or beat a 12. For easier or harder rolls, add or lose a d6. Thats
familiar Im sure, but the whole fictional context for rolling is
pretty different from most games.

Few non-wizardly people can stand up to a Circle member in open

combat, but they do have local social roles and status, whereas
the adventuring Circle members are far from home.

A characters social rank and professional background dictate

what he or she knows how to do. There is no common sense or
general resolution.
In a culture based mainly on personal confrontation and immediate connections, one might commit murder and grin ones way
out of retribution, but theres no way to stop a mob from killing
you, outside of magic.
Fighting and other dynamic conflicts are organized by clashes, a
system which emphasizes simultaneity yet preserves individual,
make-or-break actions.

Monsters and dangerous beasts add danger but also pathos of

their own, unlike the outright horror of manifestations of Amboriyon or Rbaja. Creatures of Amboriyon are unbearably pure
avatars or disastrously enlightened eidolons; creatures of Rbaja
are foul, all too cunning undead or insane, disturbing demons.
Non-Circle wizards are always a threat, serving Amboriyon or
Rbaja. No one knows if the magical war is due to actual scheming overlords or to the mere accumulation of so many scheming
wizards.

GIFTS

KEY EVENT

Mark which
weapons and
a r m o r yo u
know how to
use (by Social
Rank).

Knife
Hatchet
Club
Staff

Tattooing
Slender build
Mismatched eyes
Distinctive work-related injury
One piece of bright clothing
Metal ornament
Blaze
Emblem
Facial scar
Well-groomed

ARMING

Sling
Bow
Hand Axe
Crossbow
Whip

Merchant
Outdoorsman
Priest
Sailor
Scholar
Wi z a rd ( mu s t
have at least one
other profession)

SEX

Round Shield
Kite Shield
Cone Helmet
Spangenhelm
Gambeson
Mail

Peasant (If Farmer, Fisherman or Entertainer (low))

Freeman (If Outdoorsman,
Sailor, Martial (low) or
Priest)
Professional (If Scholar,
Artisan, Merchant or
Entertainer (high))
Gentry (If Martial (high))

Spear
Sword
Francisca
Great Axe
Chained Mace

MARKS

Shy
Friendly
Blunt
Formal
Fierce
Stoic
Serene

*Can be either low or high

Artisan (specific)
Entertainer (low)*
Entertainer (high)*
Fisherman
Farmer
Martial (low)*
Martial (high)*

DEMEANOR SOCIAL RANK

PROFESSIONS

HOMELAND

Brave (+2 Quickness)

Cunning (+2 Wits)
Romantic (+2 Charm)
Ambitious (+1 Quickness +1 Wits)
Brutal (+1 Brawn +1 Charm)

FEATURE

TRAITS

NAME

CIRCLE OF HANDS CIRCLE KNIGHT

Knife
Hatchet
Club
Staff

DEFENSE

____________________________________________

_____________________________________________

_____________________________________________

_____________________________________________

_____________________________________________

I WILL ____________________________________

You can swear one Oath per venture, to either

Rbaja or Amboriyon. When you act to fulfill
your Oath, roll an extra 1d6, and gain color
points equal to that dies value in addition to
the results of your action.

OATHS

CURRENT QUICKNESS

Round Shield (4)

Kite Shield (4)
Cone Helmet (2)
Spangenhelm (3)
Gambeson (3)
Mail (6)

Number is Protection value

CHARM

CHARM

Rbaja

Amboriyon

Every time you cast a spell, you gain points on the chart below, filling in from the
appropriate end towards the middle (dark circles for Rbaja, open circle for Amboriyon).
If you have 9 points of all one color, gain a Gift and check for a Mark of that color.

Casting spells costs Brawn equal to their

point value.

Spear
Sword
Francisca
Great Axe
Chained Mace

CURRENT BRAWN

Wizards have every spell. Non-Wizards have

spell points equal to Wits, split between
Amboriyon and Rbaja. Note those spells here.

SPELLS

ATTACK

WITS

WITS

TOTAL PROTECTION

Sling
Bow
Hand Axe
Crossbow

QUICKNESS

QUICKNESS

During a clash, you have double your

current Quickness to split between
attack and defense. Use this space to
note your split values.

COMMITMENT

Note which
weapons and
a r m o r yo u
have with you
right now.

ARMING

BRAWN

BRAWN

CIRCLE OF HANDS CIRCLE KNIGHT