Ether
mastery of astral projection & spiritual communion
The Astral Plane hums beneath reality like a second heartbeat, and Ether specialists have learned to slip between the two. They project their souls into a watercolor world of drifting shades, scouting the spaces between planes and coaxing the dead into small acts of service. Mastery demands a price: the deeper you go, the harder it becomes to remember which plane you belong to.
Domain Talents
Astral Projection
Instant: You become Projected. You may end this effect as an Instant.
Action (cultivate):
Success: A shade in your zone or an adjacent zone performs one small task for you: manipulate an unattended object a single person could carry, or operate a simple mechanism (a door, lever, switch, latch); or answer one question truthfully to the best of its ability. You may spend 1 Zeal to upgrade this to a Critical Success.
Crit Success: The shade performs three tasks. You may choose the same task more than once.
Projected: Your soul inhabits the Astral Plane. Your body becomes inert (cannot move or act in the physical plane). You may sense and communicate with shades and other Projected souls within your zone. Shades are generally willing to talk about themselves (especially how they died, their unfinished business, and events they witnessed) but are less cooperative about interactions with the physical world. The DM determines what a shade knows and how coherent it is.
You slip into the Astral Plane, where the physical world fades to watercolor and shades drift in rushing silence. The dead are stubborn, half-remembered things, but with the right words they can be persuaded to lend a hand.
Astral Communion
Here · self or 1 friend
Prerequisites: One talent from Ether
Instant: When you or a friend in your zone declares a risky Cultivate roll, spend 1 Zeal to add 1 die to the roll. If you are Projected, add 2 dice instead of 1.
You press warmth and certainty through the veil between planes. Your ally feels it as a presence at their shoulder, a whispered reassurance from somewhere just out of reach.
Astral Step
Prerequisites: One talent from Ether
Passive: While Projected, your spirit occupies its own position. When you become Projected, your spirit starts in your body's zone. Your Ether domain talents use your spirit's zone in place of your body's zone for targeting.
Instant: Move your spirit to an adjacent zone.
Instant: Spend 1 Vigor to move your body 1 zone closer to your spirit.
Most who project are anchored above their sleeping body, watching the astral like light through a window. You learned to cut the tether. Your spirit slips between zones like smoke through a grate, scouting ahead while your body waits behind.
Astral Anchor
Prerequisites: Two talents from Ether
Reaction: When you suffer a hit while Projected, you may spend 1 Wit to deal 1 light hit to the attacker and gain 2 Protection before the hit is applied.
Soul sailing pilots call it "the snap." Most spirits flee when the body is threatened. Yours doesn't flinch. It bites back.
Spectral Assault
Here
Prerequisites: Two talents from Ether
Action (cultivate):
Success: Deal 1 light hit to up to 3 foes in your zone. You may spend 1 Zeal to turn one of the light hits into a hard hit.
Crit Success: Deal 1 hard hit to up to 3 foes in your zone.
You channel your will through nearby shades, borrowing their grief and rage to move the physical world. Objects lift, scatter, and strike.
Spectral Snare
Here
Prerequisites: Two talents from Ether
Action (cultivate):
Success: One foe in your zone becomes Snared. You may spend Zeal to Snare additional foes equal to the amount of Zeal spent.
Crit Success: All foes in your zone become Snared.
Snared: This foe cannot move out of its current zone. The DM may spend 1 Interruption Token to end this effect.
You whisper to the shades clinging to this place and they obey, wrapping themselves around your enemies like cold silk. The living feel it as a reluctance in every limb, as though the dead themselves refuse to let go.
Spectral Ward
Here · self or 1 friend
Prerequisites: One talent from Ether
Instant: Spend 1 Zeal to give yourself or a friend in your zone 2 Protection. If you are Projected, give 3 Protection instead.
You reach into the astral and gather shades around someone you want to protect. The dead cluster close, a shimmering pressure against the skin that deflects what might otherwise land true.
Dual Existence
Prerequisites: Three talents from Ether
Passive: While Projected, your body is no longer inert. You may move and take actions normally. However, all action rolls you make with your body while Projected must be risky rolls.
Behemoths exist in both planes at once. So do you, now. The cost is that every action becomes a gamble, your attention forever split between what is and what lies beneath.
Forge
mastery of technology & creativity
Every piece of wreckage is a solution waiting to be assembled. Forge is the domain of jury-rigged brilliance, turning scrap into tools and tools into advantages under the kind of pressure that makes most people forget how screws work. The results are rarely elegant, but in a firefight, "works" beats "pretty" every time.
Domain Talents
Improvised Tools
Cutscene (craft, 2 segments):
Failure: Gain 1 charge of Improvised Tools.
Success: Gain 2 charges of Improvised Tools.
Crit Success: Gain 4 charges of Improvised Tools.
Passive: Maximum Improvised Tools charges equal to your Wit maximum.
Reaction: When you fail a safe action roll, you may spend 1 charge of Improvised Tools to immediately attempt the action roll again as a risky roll with 1 additional die.
Where others see debris, you see potential. A handful of scrap, some jury-rigged connections, and suddenly you have something that works well enough.
Guided Hand
Here · self or 1 friend
Prerequisites: One talent from Forge
Instant: When you or a friend in your zone declares a risky Craft roll, spend 1 Wit or 1 charge of Improvised Tools to add 1 die to the roll.
You spot the flaw in their technique, hand them the right tool, or mutter the one insight that makes the whole project click. Forge work is half knowing what to build and half knowing when to shut up and let someone else hold the wrench.
Make It Work
Here
Prerequisites: One talent from Forge
Action (craft):
Success: Apply your fix, paying the effort in any combination of Vigor and Improvised Tools charges. You may instead decline the fix and gain 1 balance token.
Crit Success: Apply your fix at no cost.
The doorway is collapsed, the bridge is sagging, the cargo lift is jammed three floors up. You see the wedge, the brace, the load-bearing bolt nobody else noticed. It won't be pretty, and it might not last the hour, but it'll hold long enough to matter.
Structural Vulnerability
Prerequisites: One talent from Forge
Instant: After declaring a risky weapon talent roll, spend 1 Zeal or 1 charge of Improvised Tools. If the roll is a critical success, deal 1 additional hard hit. If it is a critical failure, deal 1 light hit.
You've trained to read the gap, the seam, the loose joint nobody welded twice. Spotting them is the easy part. The hard part is buying the half-second to make their eyes look away.
Field Modification
Here · self or 1 friend
Prerequisites: Two talents from Forge
Cutscene (craft, 1 segments):
Failure: You may spend 3 charges of Improvised Tools. If you do, the target chooses a weapon talent. They may use the chosen weapon talent with one of their weapons until the next intermission, ignoring any handling restrictions.
Success: You may spend 2 charges of Improvised Tools. If you do, the target chooses a weapon talent. They may use the chosen weapon talent with one of their weapons until the next intermission, ignoring any handling restrictions.
Crit Success: The target chooses a weapon talent. They may use the chosen weapon talent with one of their weapons until the next intermission, ignoring any handling restrictions.
A bit of wire, a counterweight here, some grip tape there. Suddenly that blade moves like it was designed for techniques its smith never imagined.
Lash-Up
Here
Prerequisites: Two talents from Forge
Action (craft):
Success: Create 1 Rig in your zone. You may spend 1 Wit or 1 charge of Improvised Tools to create an additional Rig.
Crit Success: Create 3 Rigs in your zone.
Rig: A persistent object placed in a zone. When created, choose one of the following effects. You or any friend in the Rig's zone may interact with the Rig as an Instant to gain the chosen effect, then the Rig is consumed. Brace: Gain 2 Protection. Foothold: Cross 1 edge, ignoring difficult terrain. Trap: Deal 1 light hit to a foe in the Rig's zone. You may spend 1 Vigor to deal 1 hard hit instead.
You kick a crate into a gap, lash a cargo strap to a beam, wedge a length of pipe across a hinge, all of it ugly, all of it fast, all of it exactly where someone is about to need it.
Shunt Valve
Here · self or 1 friend
Prerequisites: Two talents from Forge
Instant: Spend 1 Wit or 1 charge of Improvised Tools. You or a friend in your zone may immediately spend 1 Vigor, Wit, or Zeal to gain 2 of a different capacity.
The body hoards energy in the wrong places. A pressure brace, a nerve-point grip, a jury-rigged shunt: you convert waste into working fuel.
Adaptive Engineering
Prerequisites: Three talents from Forge
Passive: You may spend your Improvised Tool charges instead of balance tokens.
You've reached the point where the boundaries between tools dissolve. Screwdriver becomes lever becomes pry bar becomes weapon. The material doesn't matter. Only the problem and your solution.
Glass
mastery of investigation & hidden truths
Every crime has a thread. Every lie leaves a seam. Pull at either long enough, and the whole tapestry unravels. Glass rewards careful attention and patient accumulation of knowledge, the slow construction of certainty from a thousand scattered fragments that nobody else thought to pick up.
Domain Talents
Keen Observation
Passive: At the start of every scene, name a number between your Wit minimum and Wit maximum. This is your Inspiration number. While your current Wit score equals your Inspiration number, you are Inspired.
Action (judge):
Success: Ask the DM one question about a person, object, or detail in your zone. The DM answers truthfully.
Crit Success: Ask up to three questions. If Inspired, the DM cannot evade with vague half-truths.
Inspired: When you make a safe Judge roll, a result of 3 or lower counts as a critical success.
Most people look. You observe. Every glance catalogs details others miss: the dust pattern on an untouched shelf, the weight shift before a lie, the single stitch pulled loose in an otherwise perfect seam.
Adjusted Lens
Prerequisites: One talent from Glass
Instant: If your current Wit is above your Inspiration number, spend 1 Vigor to set your Inspiration number to your current Wit score.
Your focus was calibrated for a different angle. When the variables shift, you don't fight the new data. You refocus, and what was blurred snaps sharp again.
Clear the Mind
Here
Prerequisites: One talent from Glass
Action (judge):
Success: Gain 1 Wit. You may spend Zeal to let additional friends in your zone each gain 1 Wit, one friend per Zeal spent.
Crit Success: Gain 2 Wit. You may spend 1 Zeal to let all friends in your zone each gain 1 Wit.
Every investigator hits the wall where the evidence stops making sense. The trick isn't pushing harder. It's knowing when to breathe, reset, and let the connections form on their own.
Loose Thread
Here · self or 1 friend
Prerequisites: One talent from Glass
Instant: When you or a friend in your zone declares a risky Judge roll, spend 1 Wit to add 1 die to the roll. If you are Inspired, add 2 dice instead of 1.
You spot the one detail that doesn't belong and call it out before the moment passes. It's remarkable how fast everything clicks when someone points out which piece was upside down.
Calculated Certainty
Prerequisites: Two talents from Glass
Instant: When you declare a risky roll, spend 1 Wit. Your Inspiration number also counts as a critical success result for this roll.
You've run the numbers a thousand times. When the moment arrives, you don't hope. You know.
Methodical Assessment
Prerequisites: Two talents from Glass
Instant: After declaring a safe roll, spend 1 Wit to turn it into a stacked roll. If you succeed on the roll, gain Wit equal to the dice remaining in your stack.
You don't guess. You eliminate possibilities one by one until only the answer remains. It takes longer than intuition, but it has the considerable advantage of being right.
Pressure Point
Here · up to 3 foes
Prerequisites: Two talents from Glass
Action (judge):
Success: One foe in your zone becomes Analyzed. You may spend up to 2 Wit to Analyze an additional foe for each Wit spent.
Crit Success: Up to three foes in your zone become Analyzed.
Analyzed: When this foe suffers a hit, it suffers 1 additional light hit. Then Analyzed ends.
You've cataloged every tell, every hesitation, every gap in the armor they think you can't see. One glance to your ally is all it takes. They know exactly where to strike.
Pattern Recognition
Anywhere
Prerequisites: Three talents from Glass
Action (judge):
Success: Add 1 segment to or remove 1 segment from a game clock of your choice.
Crit Success: Add or remove 1 segment from game clocks twice. You may affect the same clock twice or two different clocks.
The threads of cause and effect become visible to you. You see where they converge, where they fray, and precisely where to pull to unravel the whole tapestry.
Grit
mastery of endurance under pressure & pain
When the boons run dry and the steel breaks, something older remains: the refusal to stop. Grit is the oldest survival mechanism in the Kosmos, the body's stubborn argument with its own collapse. Spend everything. Burn past the floor. Your lowest moment is your most dangerous.
Domain Talents
Second Wind
Passive: While you are Exhausted, you may use Instant talents. Each time you do, raise your Vigor minimum by 1. Your Vigor minimum returns to its baseline at the start of each intermission.
Exhausted is where most people stop. You've found there's a deeper well below it, and the only price is what you'll feel tomorrow.
Adrenaline Surge
Prerequisites: One talent from Grit
Passive: Whenever you become Exhausted, gain 1 Protection.
The moment everything goes wrong, something primal kicks in. Your instructors had a clinical term for it. You just call it not dying.
Nothing Wasted
Here · self or 1 friend
Prerequisites: One talent from Grit
Instant: When you or a friend in your zone declares a risky Clash roll, spend 1 Vigor to add 1 die to the roll. If your Vigor minimum is above its baseline, add 2 dice instead of 1.
When you've got nothing left to burn, every swing has to count. You strip the hesitation from an ally's stance and leave nothing but clean, committed violence.
Won't Close
Here · 1 foe
Prerequisites: One talent from Grit
Action (clash):
Success: Deal 1 light hit. The foe is Bleeding (1).
Crit Success: Deal 1 hard hit. The foe is Bleeding (2).
Bleeding: After this foe uses a free ability, it suffers 1 light hit. Bleeding ends when the DM spends Interruption Tokens equal to the number in parentheses.
You strike where the armor doesn't reach. The cut isn't the worst thing they'll feel. The way it keeps reminding them is.
Bones Still Ringing
Here · 1 foe
Prerequisites: Two talents from Grit
Action (clash):
Success: Deal 1 light hit. You may spend 1 Vigor to deal 1 additional light hit; if your Vigor minimum is above its baseline, that additional hit becomes a hard hit instead.
Crit Success: Deal 1 hard hit. You may spend 1 Vigor to deal 1 additional hard hit, or 2 hard hits if your Vigor minimum is above its baseline.
Every blow you've already taken hums in the marrow, waiting for somewhere to go. The next strike carries all of it forward.
Drive Through
Here · 1 foe
Prerequisites: Two talents from Grit
Action (clash):
Success: If your Vigor minimum is equal to your Vigor maximum, upgrade this to a Critical Success. Otherwise, deal 1 light hit. You and the foe cross 1 edge, ignoring difficult terrain. You may spend up to 2 Vigor; you and the foe cross 1 additional edge per Vigor spent.
Crit Success: Deal 1 hard hit. You and the foe cross up to 3 edges, ignoring difficult terrain. If you end in a zone alone with the foe, choose one: immediately use an Instant talent, or gain 2 Vigor, Wit, or Zeal.
The line breaks the moment you decide it should. You drop your shoulder, drive your weight forward, and the foe in front of you discovers that your stopping distance is on the other side of theirs.
Old Wounds
Prerequisites: Two talents from Grit
Reaction: When you make a Protection roll, raise your Vigor minimum by 1 to automatically succeed instead.
Your body has been broken so many times it's learned the shape of breaking. You brace before the blow lands, riding it instead of meeting it, and the scars know exactly where to take the weight.
No Witnesses Standing
Here
Prerequisites: Three talents from Grit
Instant: Once per scene, deal hard hits equal to your Vigor minimum minus its baseline, distributed among foes in your zone as you choose. Then your Vigor minimum returns to its baseline.
Every reflex you've burned past the floor, every breath you stole from tomorrow, every blow your body filed away for later. Later is now, and it leaves the zone.
Honey
mastery of influence & social manipulation
Words are weapons, and Honey is the art of wielding them with surgical precision. Reading desires, exploiting insecurities, turning conversations into conquests. The right phrase at the right moment can accomplish what armies cannot, and it leaves far less mess to clean up afterward.
Domain Talents
Standing Ovation
Reaction: After a friend you can see makes an action roll, spend 1 Zeal. They may reroll 1 die showing a result greater than your current Zeal score. You may only use this once per roll.
The voice is gone, the knees are shaking, the makeup is running. The room is still on its feet, and you are still finding a way to keep them there.
Setup Line
Prerequisites: One talent from Honey
Cutscene (seduce, 2 segments):
Success: Name 1 friend; they become On Cue.
Crit Success: Name 2 friends; they become On Cue.
On Cue: After this friend succeeds on a safe action roll, they may upgrade this to a Critical Success. Then On Cue ends. On Cue also ends at the start of the next intermission.
You take a friend aside before the work begins and remind them, in language only the two of you would recognize, exactly who they are when they are at their best. They walk in already knowing the line they will land.
Take a Bow
Here · 1 or more friends
Prerequisites: One talent from Honey
Action (seduce):
Success: If you are Demoralized, upgrade this to a Critical Success. One friend in your zone gains 1 Vigor, Wit, or Zeal.
Crit Success: Each friend in your zone gains 1 Vigor, Wit, or Zeal.
You turn the room toward someone else, the way a good lead steps aside so the company can be seen. Whatever the night cost you, they walk out of your shadow ready for theirs.
Whispered Edge
Here · self or 1 friend
Prerequisites: One talent from Honey
Instant: When you or a friend in your zone declares a risky Seduce roll, spend 1 Zeal to add 1 die to the roll. If this spend reduces your Zeal to its minimum, add 2 dice instead of 1.
A compliment shaped like a blade, a murmur pitched to find the seam in someone's composure. When the silk runs out, the truth underneath cuts twice as deep.
Center Stage
Anywhere · 1 foe who can see or hear you
Prerequisites: Two talents from Honey
Action (seduce):
Success: If you are Demoralized, upgrade this to a Critical Success. Target foe becomes Fixated (2).
Crit Success: Target foe becomes Fixated (4).
Fixated: When a friend declares a safe weapon talent roll against this foe, any die result equal to or under the number in parentheses is treated as a Critical Success. Fixated ends when this foe suffers a hard hit or you use this talent on another foe.
You become the only thing in the room worth watching. A cutting remark, a knowing smile, the tilt of a shoulder; whatever it takes, their attention is yours and their composure is forfeit.
Heartened
Here · 1 friend
Prerequisites: Two talents from Honey
Action (seduce):
Success: If you are Demoralized, upgrade this to a Critical Success. Target friend becomes Heartened. You may spend up to 2 Zeal; for each Zeal spent, an additional friend in your zone becomes Heartened.
Crit Success: All friends in your zone become Heartened.
Heartened: When this friend declares a safe action roll, they may use their Instant talent to treat the action's proficiency as 8. Then Heartened ends. Heartened also ends at the start of the next intermission.
You tell them the truth, the unflattering one, the one that costs you something to say out loud. Strange how a friend stands taller once they've seen you flinch first.
Muscle Memory
Prerequisites: Two talents from Honey
Passive: While you are Demoralized, you may spend 1 Vigor or 1 Wit to pay any Zeal cost.
The heart is the first thing to go, and the last thing anyone in the room notices. You keep the night moving on what's left: gritted teeth, cold calculation, whichever you can still afford to spend.
Ensemble
Prerequisites: Three talents from Honey
Passive: While you are Demoralized, you and friends in your zone may pay each other's talent capacity costs.
When the lead is breaking, the company carries the number. Spent voices borrow from rested ones, a steady hand props up a shaking one, and somewhere between you the show keeps moving.
Salt
mastery of preparation & self-reliance
The only reliable constant in the Kosmos is yourself. Salt is the philosophy of radical self-reliance: plan for the worst, prepare for worse than that, and when both plans fail, improvise from whatever's left. It attracts the kind of person who packs three backup options and considers that optimistic.
Domain Talents
Wake-Up Call
Passive: Whenever you become Reckless, gain 1 balance token. When you critically fail a roll while Reckless, you may gain 1 Wit instead of the balance token you would normally gain.
The cushion of options runs out, the lies you told yourself stop landing, and the lights come on. Funny how clearly you see the next move once there's nothing left to lose.
Cold Read
Here · self or 1 friend
Prerequisites: One talent from Salt
Instant: When you or a friend in your zone declares a risky Augur roll, spend 1 Wit to add 1 die to the roll. If this spend reduces your Wit to its minimum, add 2 dice instead of 1.
You size up a situation in the time it takes others to blink. When your reserves are spent and the stakes are highest, that clarity goes from sharp to surgical.
Forewarned
Prerequisites: One talent from Salt
Cutscene (augur, 2 segments):
Success: You and each friend gain 1 balance token.
Crit Success: You and each friend gain 2 balance tokens.
You walk the route, mark the angles, and brief the party on every way it could go wrong. By the time the scene begins, nobody is surprised but the trouble.
Knew I'd Need This
Prerequisites: One talent from Salt
Instant: Once per scene, choose one: gain 2 Wit, gain 1 balance token, or cross up to 2 edges, ignoring difficult terrain. If you are Reckless, make two different choices instead.
You reach for the right tool without looking, because you've been waiting for this exact moment since you packed the bag. Other people call it luck. You call it Tuesday.
Contingency Protocol
Prerequisites: Two talents from Salt
Reaction: Once per scene, when you fail or critically fail an action roll, you may take another turn in the spotlight instead of the DM taking the spotlight. The DM still gains an Interruption Token on a critical failure and they gain the spotlight at the end of your turn (even if you succeed).
You never bet everything on a single plan. When Plan A falls apart, Plan B is already in motion.
Covered
Here · 1 or more friends
Prerequisites: Two talents from Salt
Action (augur):
Success: One friend in your zone becomes Covered. You may spend up to 2 Wit; for each Wit spent, an additional friend in your zone becomes Covered.
Crit Success: All friends in your zone become Covered.
Covered: As long as you can see this friend, you may spend your balance tokens on any roll they make. Only one balance token may be spent on any given roll, regardless of whose. Covered ends when you spend a balance token on their roll, or at the start of the next intermission.
You've already walked into the mistake a friend is about to make, probably twice, and the scars are still itching. Now you're the overwatch you wish someone had been for you, hard lessons loaded and aimed at their next bad step.
Resourceful
Prerequisites: Two talents from Salt
Instant: Spend 2 Wit to restore 1 use of a talent that has limited uses or a charge for a talent that generates charges.
Nothing in your kit is ever truly spent, just set aside for the right moment. A forgotten trick, a held-back favor, a charge you've been pretending wasn't there.
Clarity of Exhaustion
Prerequisites: Three talents from Salt
Passive: While you are Reckless, when you spend a balance token to reduce a die result, reduce it by 2 instead of 1.
There's a strange clarity that comes when you've spent everything. No second-guessing, no overthinking. Just pure reaction honed to an edge.
Shrine
mastery of devotion & divine connection
The gods don't owe you anything. But they do keep track. Shrine is the art of making that ledger work in your favor, learning which rituals catch divine attention, which offerings please, and how to stretch every scrap of celestial goodwill into something meaningful. You won't wield divine power yourself. You'll just make sure it's always within arm's reach.
Domain Talents
Devout Prayer
Cutscene (assert, 2 segments):
Failure: Gain 1 charge of Divine Grace.
Success: Gain 2 charges of Divine Grace.
Crit Success: Gain 4 charges of Divine Grace.
Passive: Maximum Divine Grace charges equal to your Zeal maximum.
Instant: Spend 1 charge of Divine Grace. You or a friend in your zone gains 1 Vigor or 1 Zeal.
The gods notice mortals who take the time to ask properly. Your prayers carve deeper channels through the astral plane, and divine grace pools in the hollow places of your spirit.
Hallowed Ground
Here
Prerequisites: One talent from Shrine
Action (assert):
Success: Your zone becomes Hallowed. You may spend 1 Wit or 1 charge of Divine Grace to upgrade this to a Critical Success.
Crit Success: Your zone and up to 2 adjacent zones become Hallowed.
Hallowed: When you or a friend uses a boon while in a Hallowed zone, treat the boon-user's Favor with the boon's god as 1 higher (maximum 5). The increase applies to the boon's effect only, not to any Favor prerequisite. Then Hallowed ends in that zone. Hallowed also ends at the start of the next intermission.
You consecrate the ground around you with a hurried benediction. Prayers spoken inside the circle reach a touch farther. The gods don't always notice mortals, but they always notice their own house.
True Believer
Prerequisites: One talent from Shrine
Instant: After declaring a safe weapon talent roll, spend 1 Vigor or 1 charge of Divine Grace and name a god with whom you have at least 1 Favor. If the roll's result is equal to or under your Favor with that god, treat the roll as a critical success.
You strike with the unflinching certainty of someone who has, frankly, already decided how this ends. The god agrees. The foe gets a vote, but it doesn't count for much.
Voice of the Faithful
Here · self or 1 friend
Prerequisites: One talent from Shrine
Instant: When you or a friend in your zone declares a risky Assert roll, spend 1 Zeal or 1 charge of Divine Grace to add 1 die to the roll.
You speak with the borrowed weight of something greater than yourself. When divine conviction backs a command, even the hesitant find steel in their spine.
Cast the Bones
Prerequisites: Two talents from Shrine
Cutscene (assert, 1 segments):
Failure: Roll a d12 and set it aside as an Omen die.
Success: Roll 2 d12s and set them aside as Omen dice.
Crit Success: Roll 4 d12s and set them aside as Omen dice.
Instant: When a friend in your zone declares a risky action roll matching the chosen action, you may apply one of your Omen dice to the roll. If any die in the risky roll shows the same result as the Omen die, treat the roll as a critical success. Omen dice persist until used or until the next intermission. Using Cast the Bones again discards any unused Omen dice from a previous use.
You scatter knucklebones, marked dice, or a fistful of votive coins across the nearest surface and read which way the next moments want to fall. The pattern doesn't lie. It just doesn't always tell you what you wanted to hear.
Drawn Eye
Here · up to 3 foes
Prerequisites: Two talents from Shrine
Action (assert):
Success: One foe in your zone becomes Watched. You may spend 1 Zeal or 1 charge of Divine Grace per additional foe to make that foe Watched as well.
Crit Success: Up to 3 foes in your zone become Watched.
Watched: When this foe deals a hard hit, it suffers 1 hard hit. Then Watched ends. Watched also ends at the start of the next intermission.
You point out the foe to a god whose patience already runs thin, and remind that god whose side you take. Divine attention turns. The cosmos, briefly, finds the foe inconvenient.
Held in the Palm
Prerequisites: One talent from Shrine
Reaction: When you make a Protection roll, you may spend 1 Zeal or 1 charge of Divine Grace and name a god with whom you have at least 1 Favor. Roll under your Zeal score plus your Favor with that god instead of your Protection score.
When the body fails, faith holds. The blow that should have ended you glances off something the gods have not yet given permission to break.
Favored Thread
Prerequisites: Three talents from Shrine
Passive: Name a god with whom you have at least 1 Favor. Treat your Favor with that god as 2 higher (maximum 5). During an intermission, you may switch this effect to a different god with whom you have at least 1 Favor.
The gods don't have favorites. Officially. But your spiritual tapestry has caught someone's attention, and they've decided to invest.
Silk
mastery of evasion & mobility
Why take a hit when you can simply not be there? Silk treats the battlefield as a dance floor, trading armor and divine favor for pure kinetic grace. Every dodge is a repositioning, every retreat an advance from a different angle, and every enemy swing connects with the space you occupied half a second ago.
Domain Talents
Quick Feet
Passive: You have a Momentum clock with 4 segments. Whenever you cross an edge or succeed on a Maneuver action roll, add 1 segment to your Momentum clock. Your Momentum clock resets at the start of each intermission.
Action (maneuver):
Success: Deal 1 light hit to a foe in your zone. You may remove any number of segments from your Momentum clock to deal that many additional light hits, distributed among foes in your zone.
Crit Success: Deal 1 hard hit to a foe in your zone. You may remove any number of segments from your Momentum clock to deal that many additional hard hits, distributed among foes in your zone.
You vault debris, slide under obstacles, and spring off walls without breaking stride. The textbooks call it efficient locomotion. Everyone else calls it survival.
Flowing Steps
Prerequisites: One talent from Silk
Action (maneuver):
Success: Cross up to 2 edges. Crossing a difficult zone or edge counts as 2 edges. You may spend 1 Wit to ignore difficult terrain.
Crit Success: Cross up to 3 edges, ignoring difficult terrain.
Rubble, wreckage, the desperate hands of the fallen. None of it slows you. Your feet find the clear path as if the ground itself were guiding you through.
Harrying Strikes
Here · up to 3 foes
Prerequisites: One talent from Silk
Action (maneuver):
Success: One foe in your zone becomes Harried. You may spend Zeal to Harry additional foes equal to the amount of Zeal spent.
Crit Success: All foes in your zone become Harried.
Harried: When this foe leaves the zone, it suffers 1 light hit. You may remove 1 segment from your Momentum clock to deal 1 hard hit instead. Harried ends when the foe leaves the zone.
You circle your targets with quick, stinging strikes that punish any attempt to disengage. Leaving costs more than staying.
Set the Pace
Here · self or 1 friend
Prerequisites: One talent from Silk
Instant: When you or a friend in your zone declares a risky Maneuver roll, spend 1 Vigor to add 1 die to the roll. If your Momentum clock has 2 or more segments, add 2 dice instead of 1.
A tap on the shoulder, a shift of weight, and your ally reads the opening you've created. Moving together is easy once someone knows where to look.
Flash Point
Here · 1 foe
Prerequisites: Two talents from Silk
Instant: Spend 2 segments from your Momentum clock to deal 1 hard hit to a foe in your zone.
All that built-up motion, collapsed into a single strike delivered between one breath and the next. Your foe never saw a wind-up because there wasn't one.
Redline
Prerequisites: Two talents from Silk
Passive: When you'd add a Momentum segment while the clock is full, gain 1 Vigor or 1 Protection instead.
There's a threshold where speed stops being a choice and starts being a state. Past it, the energy has nowhere to go but back into you.
Untouchable
Prerequisites: Two talents from Silk
Reaction: When you suffer a hard hit, you may remove 2 segments from your Momentum clock to negate the hit.
The moment danger crystallizes, you're already moving. By the time the blow lands, you've slipped past it.
Terminal Velocity
Here
Prerequisites: Three talents from Silk
Passive: While your Momentum clock is full, add 2 dice to risky Maneuver action rolls.
Action (maneuver):
Crit Fail: You suffer 1 hard hit and your Momentum clock resets.
Crit Success: Remove all segments from your Momentum clock and deal hard hits to target foe equal to the number of segments removed.
Everything you've built, released in a single devastating strike. Arena veterans call it "cashing out." Clean, final, and worth every second of patience that preceded it.
Tower
mastery of defense & protection
Kill counts are for glory hounds. Tower measures success in allies still breathing at the end of the fight. Bodyguard, battlefield commander, living wall: whatever the role, the job is the same. Nobody gets past you to reach the people you've sworn to protect.
Domain Talents
Bulwark Reserves
Cutscene (overwhelm, 2 segments):
Failure: Gain 1 charge of Bulwark.
Success: Gain 2 charges of Bulwark.
Crit Success: Gain 4 charges of Bulwark.
Passive: Maximum Bulwark charges equal to your Vigor maximum.
Instant: Spend 1 charge of Bulwark to gain 2 Protection.
You reinforce armor joints, adjust shield angles, check every strap and buckle. The ritual looks obsessive until the first ambush, when everyone else is scrambling while you're already braced.
Brace for Impact
Here · self or 1 friend
Prerequisites: One talent from Tower
Instant: When you or a friend in your zone declares a risky Overwhelm roll, spend 1 Vigor or 1 charge of Bulwark to add 1 die to the roll.
A shouted warning, a half-second to plant their feet, and your ally meets the blow like a wall instead of a target.
Cover Formation
Here · 1 or more friends
Prerequisites: One talent from Tower
Action (overwhelm):
Success: One friend in your zone becomes Guarded. You may spend 1 Wit or 1 charge of Bulwark per additional friend in your zone to grant Guarded to that friend as well.
Crit Success: All friends in your zone become Guarded.
Guarded: When this character would suffer a hard hit, the hard hit becomes a light hit. Then Guarded ends. Guarded also ends if this character or you leave the zone.
You press forward with purpose, positioning your body between your allies and whatever's coming. The threat can still reach them. It just has to go through you first.
Standing Challenge
Here · up to 3 foes
Prerequisites: One talent from Tower
Action (overwhelm):
Success: One foe in your zone becomes Marked. You may spend 1 Zeal or 1 charge of Bulwark per additional foe in your zone to Mark that foe as well.
Crit Success: All foes in your zone become Marked.
Marked: This foe may only use abilities that target you or move closer to you. The DM may spend 1 Interruption Token to end Marked. Marked also ends if you leave the zone.
You plant yourself in their line of sight, weapon raised, and dare them to look anywhere else. The shame of refusing the challenge would outlive them. So would you.
Close Ranks
Here · up to 3 friends
Prerequisites: Two talents from Tower
Action (overwhelm):
Success: Choose up to 3 friends in your zone. Each gains 1 Protection. You may spend 1 Vigor or 1 charge of Bulwark to give each chosen friend 2 Protection instead.
Crit Success: Choose up to 3 friends in your zone. Each gains 3 Protection.
Other commanders shout orders. You push into the threat, and your allies know to fill the space around you.
Hold the Line
Here · 1 edge of your zone
Prerequisites: Two talents from Tower
Action (overwhelm):
Success: You may spend 1 Vigor or 1 charge of Bulwark per foe to push up to 3 foes in your zone across 1 edge of your zone. That edge becomes Held.
Crit Success: Push up to 3 foes in your zone across 1 edge of your zone. That edge becomes Held.
Held: No foe may cross this edge. When a foe attempts to cross, the DM may spend 2 Interruption Tokens to end Held. That foe suffers 1 hard hit. Held also ends when you leave the zone or declare a safe roll.
A doorway, a bridge, a corridor mouth. You set your feet, square your shoulders, and announce by your presence alone what the cost of passage will be.
Iron Constitution
Prerequisites: Two talents from Tower
Passive: While wearing armor, you may distribute up to 3 points of reduction across any capacity minimum penalties from your equipped armor.
Most warriors complain about the weight. You've forgotten there's weight to complain about.
Unbreakable Resolve
Prerequisites: Three talents from Tower
Passive: Gain +1 soak. This soak does not require aetherial armor and restores at the start of each intermission.
Reaction: When a friend in your zone would suffer a wound, you may spend 1 charge of Bulwark to suffer the wound instead.
The medics have stopped asking how you're still standing. They've stopped asking why anyone behind you is.