This document outlines the Black Nerve role playing system (BNRPG).

If this were the final draft, I might include some extended introduction going over the basics of the game ‍— I’ve written and discarded several ‍— but here I’m going to assume that if you’re reading this, you know what roleplaying is.

I’m also going to assume that other concepts that inform BNRPG’s design ‍— rule 0, fiction first, rolling when there are stakes ‍— are so commonplace that I don’t need to spend the time explaining and justifying them.

I’m finally going to assume you’re familiar enough with my original xenofantasy setting that gives this system its name, Black Nerve[Lore Archive]. If not, I trust you’ll be able to pick up on things, or field questions at me.

Introduction

This is a game for telling a particular kind of story. It’s for stories set in a dark fantasy world with sapient bugs, unnatural corruption that consumes light and matter, giant bats that bleed hypermutagenic blood, and post‍-parasitic power‍-granting symbionts called vespers.

The protagonists of these story are the praying mantes made host to the vespers ‍— conscripts made killers by their elected rulers, scholars studying the mysteries of black nerve and red ichor, and the scoundrels scraping by so long as they have the bones to.

In short, vesperbanes: mercenaries and magicians who kill people just by existing.

As a player, you’re here to portray one of those bugs, and work with other players to have a good time telling these stories.

While vesperbanes are a very specific creation of my own, if you’ve ever enjoyed stories like Naruto, Tokyo Ghoul, or Fullmetal Alchemist, vesperbanes aren’t ninjas, ghouls, or state alchemists, but as a touchstones they tell you some of what to expect.

For the heartlands themselves, the biopunk horror of John McCrae’s Twig, or the rule‍-bound worlds of Brandon Sanderson are not inspirations, but I think there is some affinity, at least in aspiration.

With all that said, why would you play BNRPG?

play to discover and exploit weird and grotesque magical effects;
play to find out what happens when mercenaries grasp for money and hope in a murderous and monstrous world;
play to explore a land where the sky above crawls with black corruption and the horizon is broken by trees of chitin and cuticle.

Basics

This game is concerned first and foremost with constructing and elaborating a scenario in fictional world. The system is augmented with game mechanics to allow the fiction to challenge and surprise you, and furnished with rules to ease the burden of simulating a world as complex and alien as the heartlands. Put another way, when asked what happens next,

Say what’s surely implied by what’s established; then
Say what the rules propose should happen; then
Say what you think would be most interesting.

The rules come second to the fiction, not for the sake of freeform roleplay or pure storytelling, but faithful simulation.

In this document, I will speak of “the players” and “the meta”.

The meta is a role, which a single person can fill, but some of its responsibilities may be shared among the players, decided by the table. The rules don’t care how you fill the role, just that its responsibilities are handled.

Put simply, the goal of the players is to imagine a character in the world, and say what they do; the goal of the meta is to envision a world and say what happens in it. Put another way, has authority over different parts of the story in an interlocking way.

The player has the authority to:

say how a character thinks, interpets events, and feels about the world;
say what a character tries to do; and
say who a character is, but with flexibility.

The meta has the authority to:

say what your character sees, hears, senses;
say what’s true and false in the world; and
say what happens next, but with flexibility.

Play, then, takes two basic forms: you, a player, ask a question, and the meta answers with their authority if they must, or want to; or the meta asks you a question, and you answer with your authority if you must, or want to.

It’s a conversation, as you’ve probably heard it said before.

Putting these two together, the fundamental loop goes something like this:

Proposal. A player says what they do, and asks what happens.
Framing. The meta says what details are relevant to the action, and asks questions to clarify the positioning and stakes.
Decision. The player decides if their character will still do it, and how.
Resolution. The meta says what happens, and asks what the players do next.

To frame an act, we must determine what details are potent ‍— which is to say, what details have both a cause and an effect in the fiction. Often, this is enough to suggest outcomes, but we often lack the fidelity to always faithfully resolve it. In this case, we say the outcome is in doubt.

Doubt means that you could get what you propose but risk something getting in the way, risk things going awfully wrong.

Doubt can be resolved in three principal ways:

Give a reason: say your case, and if you have a good reason, you can reduce or avoid the risk.
Pay the price: ask what it could cost, and decide if you accept the risk.
Roll the dice: check the risk, and let fortune decide.

Rolling

But how do you roll dice? In BNRPG, rolls are always a number of six sided dice. For most actions, you check the action rating, and roll that many d6s.

The specifics of the roll depends on the action. If you don’t face active opposition, it’s a test; if you do, it’s a contest. Rolls can determine two things: fortune and impact.

To get the impact, count the dice showing 4‍-6 (called hits) plus the dice showing 6 (called crits). Thus, 6s are counted twice.

To get the fortune, select the highest rolled die. For a test, if it’s 3 or less, the action yields a complication; if it’s 4 or 5, the action yields a tradeoff; if it’s 6, the action yields a breakthrough.

Contested rolls are a little bit different. Instead of just taking the highest, you subtract your highest die from your opposition’s highest die, add your crits and subtract their crits. Then, the fortune is one rank higher than it’d be with uncontested rolls.

That is to say, if the result is (from your perspective) less than 0, the contest yields a complication; 0‍-3, and it yields a tradeoff; 4 or greater and it yields a breakthrough.

Note that fortune is not strictly the same thing as success or failure, though it’s highly correlated. Fortune answers whether the action goes much worse than expected (complication), more or less as expected (tradeoff), or much better than expected (breakthrough).

A complication could mean failure, or success at a terrible cost, or the introduction of a new threat that escalates the stakes, or simply a followthrough on an existing threat.
A tradeoff could be a minor success, or a success at cost, or a choice between different kinds of success, or even a failure that nonetheless grants some advantage.
A breakthrough means major success, or success with side benefits, or the attainment of a great advantage.

If you’re unsure, treat a breakthrough as a full success at that action; a tradeoff as success mixed with failure, and a complication an outright failure. Still, not all actions, even dramatic actions, can succeed even in the best case, and not all can fail; always check the fiction for the the reasonable range of outcomes.

Some questions and terms that are useful when discussing the position:

Must this action achieve something even in the worst case? (is it effective?) Does this approach face unavoidable consequences? (is it costly?)
Is this an exercise in attrition? (is it marginal?) Or is this a chance to turn everything around? (is it critical?)
Is this a huge gamble? (is it desperate?) Is it a controlled risk? (is it calculated?).

This shorthand allows the meta to quickly communicate important factors.

Elements

Before we can talk about what actions do, we have to introduce how we will represent it.

There are three ways to describe a feature of the game world: through details, through statistics, and through aspects.

Details represent simple, defined elements of the fictional world. You can always extrapolate new details from existing details through logical reasoning, and indeed an entire game could be played this way.

The remaining two elements are fruitful shortcuts, but they should always be something that could be expressed in details, albeit too many with too much complexity to be practical.

Statistics represent complex, quantifiable elements of the game world. They abstract over features that would be difficult to effectively establish through details.

How much more beat up is someone after six punches than four? How exactly does someone’s moment to moment movements differ after several months of training in a skill?

It’s difficult to say, and thus, we can make tally marks to represent more or less of some complex quality, called scores. When these statistics tally progress towards the fruition of some endeavor, they are instead called tracks.

Finally, aspects represent indefinite, evocative elements of the game world. They are the narrative sensibility that undergirds the selection of details and statistics.

If we give this character so many ranks in martial arts, we may be intending them to be a grandmaster martial artist ‍— but there’s so much more to being a grandmaster than a large number, so we give them the aspect “Grandmaster Martial Artist” to bridge the gap between the statistics and our intuition.

Aspects are, more than anything else in the system, narrative devices, representing storytelling utility.

But all that may have told you little. Aspects may be thought of as details with a mechanical effect, and thus in that sense, poised halfway between details and statistics. Just what those mechanical effects are will have to wait for a later section.

Actions

There are four basic actions you can take: advance an endeavor, overcome an challenge, setup an advantage, and resist opposition.

When you advance an endeavor, success allows to mark a progress tracks as established.

Greater impact here means marking more progress. Simply put, you advance when you interact with the elements already present on the terms established.

When you set up an advantage, success allows you to introduce new details, create an aspect for yourself or others with a tag on it, or gain a tag on an existing aspect.

Greater impact here allows for more consequential advantages, or granting additional tags. Simply put, you setup when you change the terms of the situation to your benefit.

When you overcome a challenge, success allows you to impose aspects on others or alter their existing aspects.

Greater impact here means more consequential changes, or more granted tags on the aspect. Simply put, you overcome when you take decisive action to conclude a endeavor.

When you resist opposition, success allows you to modify the actions of others.

Greater impact here means reducing or transforming more of the progress they would have marked, or altering the aspect they created. Simply put, you resist when you interfere with another action.

Aspects

What was that mechanical effect of aspects earlier mentioned?

Aspects can be invoked. When you invoke an aspect, you spend a point of resolve or a tag you have on this aspect, and assert the aspect is relevant to the current situation. Then, you can choose one of:

Reroll misses after an action roll; or
Increase impact as appropriate (or by 1); or
Introduce details, creating an aspect if needed.

Aspects can be exploited, if they are not your own. This represents an aspect being used to the benefit of someone other than its bearer. Invoke it like any other aspect, but the point of resolve you spent will be given to the bearer of the aspect after the scene is over.

Aspects can be compelled. When an aspect could prompt some interesting, complicating course of action, you may be offered a point of resolve if you accept the preposed action.

If the compel doesn’t fit with the aspect or your character, you can negotiate its terms. If the compel is found invalid or against the spirit of the game, it should be retracted at no cost. However, if the compel does fit, you may still refuse; but you must then spend a point of resolve instead.

When you refuse, you’re drawing a line in sand, refusing temptation; therefore you may create a situational aspect relating to this dramatic rejection, or get a tag on an existing aspect.

As you may have gathered, Resolve is the currency spent to interact with aspects. You have have any amount of it. In addition to receiving resolve from exploits and compels, you have a Refresh score.

Whenever a refresh happens, set your resolve to your refresh. A refresh may happen after completing major mission objectives, or in the downtime between missions, or at the beginning of each session; whenever the table deems appropriate.

Consequences

When you suffer physical or mental harm, you can mitigate it in two ways. The first is to mark damage on a stress track according to the impact; the other is to fill a consequence slot with a new aspect scored according to the impact.

These can be done simultaneously, with part of the impact being absorbed by the stress track and the rest marked as a consequence. These aspects may be used like any other, though they will mainly be exploited. Certain contexts may offer additional means of mitigation, but if you can resist something, you can always do one of these two.

Stress tracks are marked according to the impact of the incoming attack. You cannot mark more damage than the relevant stress track can hold ‍— their limit score.

Stress tracks and consequence slots tend to come in pairs; each filled consequence slot reduces the relevant stress track’s limit score by one.

Consequence slots come in four tiers: mild slots can store consequences of up to 2 impact; moderate slots can store consequences of up to 4 impact; severe slots can store consequences of up to 6 impact. Extreme slots can store consequences of any impact.

Consequences must go in a slot big enough to hold them. As you recover from consequences, you can reduce their impact and freely slot them between slots.

If you would gain a consequence and have no slots to hold them, you cannot resist it. Whatever the source of the consequence is determines your fate.

Characteristics

Besides consequences, there are five types of aspects a character can have.

A role aspect is a broad descriptor of your skillset and profession. E.g. very simple roles might be “fearsome warrior” or “ruthless manipulator”.

A style aspect describes how you prefer to go about doing things. Some examples are “shock and awe”, or “patient attrition”

A status aspect describes how others view you, your mannerisms and affect, your reputation or titles. “Known troublemaker”, or “bleeding heart”.

These are easy to confuse, but a way to keep them straight: ‍- a style aspect is for things you do (it’s procedural); ‍- a status aspect is for ways you act (it’s social); ‍- a role aspect in a sense is both, but importantly, it’s tied to specific skills an knowledge.

A “fearsome warrior” can fight, and that aspect can be invoked for fights (and perhaps in arguments about your skill as a fighter or knowledge thereof).

Contrast this with “aggressive”, which is too broad, not tied to concrete skills, and thus is inappropriate as a role. Be specific!

A fourth type of aspect is the trouble. As the name suggest, it’s something that challenges and looms over the character ‍— it will be compelled or exploited far more often than it is invoked. E.g. “wanted in six provinces”, “can’t keep their mouth shut”.

There’s no mechanical difference between the difference in aspects, but the taxonomy is useful for creating well rounded characters ‍— a meta may request that you have at least one aspect of each type, for instance.

Designing Aspects

Before discussing the last type of aspect, there are some things to keep in mind when designing the above aspects:

First, aspects are noteworthy things of narrative significance. At an extreme, “can walk” isn’t appropriate as an aspect; most characters will be able to.

As a heuristic, you should be able to think of scenarios where you can say “most wouldn’t be able do this, but because I have aspect, I can do something cool”.

If most can do this, or what it lets you do isn’t cool, it might be inappropriate as an aspect. If you can only think of one scenario (or a small, similar set of scenarios) it might be too narrow.

Aspects should be specific, but not too specific, or they just become details. “Lost one leg” isn’t inappropriate as a character aspect, although “tragically lost one leg” is at least a little better ‍— it could be compelled to have you avoid risking another, perhaps.

Which is second thing to keep in mind; you should look to whether you can say the inverse: “most wouldn’t have to, but because I have aspect, I must do this.”

Give it a drawback, a twist. This allows the aspect to be compelled ‍— which helps you generate more resolve, and often results in more interesting characters.

You might even say it’s what makes them compelling.

Third, resist being meta, clever, or witty when designing aspects. The tone of this game aims to be serious, and the aspects are intended to serve the integrity of the fiction. Similarly, aspects should be designed at as reflections of a coherent character first and mechanical tools second.

When a refresh happens, look over your aspects, and see if there are any you never used ‍— consider if they could be rewritten to be more effective.

With that said, there’s one last aspect type to talk about, and it’s a bit more involved.

Ideals

Ideals are represented as special aspects with a score and a track. They represent the motives and philosophy the drive your character, above all else, and thus can be invoked TODO: in what context?

When you invoke the ideal, you mark 1 progress for the resolve you spent. When you would mark more progress greater than the score, you mark faith in that ideal instead. When a refresh happens, you must erase faith and increase the score by 1, erasing all progress.

Ideals can be defied when you act against them. Defiance has the same effect as an invoke, but it’s free; instead, you can erase progress for that ideal.

If you would erase an ideal that has no progress marked, mark doubt instead. You cannot defy an ideal that has doubt marked. You can’t invoke it either. When a refresh happens, you can erase the doubt mark and decrease the score by 1, marking progress equal to the new score minus one.

Ideals can be tempted. This is the opposite of a compel. If you refuse a temptation and act according to your ideals, you must spend resolve, marking progress; if you accept the temptation, you gain resolve and erase progress.

On refresh, you may choose to cross out any ideal with a score of 0 or 1; it becomes an eroded ideal, and cannot be defied or compelled, but you can invoke it for no benefit; doing so allows you to mark faith, and uncross it next refresh.

If you must increase an ideal past 6, it instead becomes an enduring ideal. Enduring ideals cannot decrease. Enduring ideals cannot be defied. When a enduring ideal is compelled, you cannot refuse. (You must still pay the resolve cost.)

If you would decrease an ideal past 0, it instead becomes an corrupted ideal. Rewrite it to reflect some manner of twisting, distorting, or inversion of the original ideal. Corrupted ideals can be defied and tempted, but not invoked. Thus, corrupted ideals cannot increase again. However, corrupted ideals may go further negative; use their absolute value where relevant.

Advancement

Advancement happens at the GM’s discretion (at the end of an arc, say, or in the downtime between missions). During advancement, you can rewrite any of your primary traits as appropriate to reflect narrative progression; you may swap the scores of two attitudes (but not swapping highest and lowest). You can pay a resolve cost and lose 1 refresh to:

gain or improve a trait. (cost according to trait)
gain a new aspect (cost 1 cumulative, up to 4 times)
improve your highest attitude (cost 1 cumulative, up 4 times).
improve a middling attitude (cost 1 cumulative, up to 4 times).
improve your lowest attitude (costs 1 cumulative, up to 4 times).
increase the limit of a stress track (cost 1 cumulative, up to 4 times per track)
gain a mild consequence slot (cost 1 cumulative, up to 3 times)
gain a moderate consequence slot (cost 2, up to 2)
gain a severe consequence slot (cost 4, once)
gain a single use lethal consequence slot (cost 8, cannot have more than 1)

(You cannot have more slots of a certain tier than you have slots of a lesser kind.)

// Of particular notes, traits distinguish your character in specific circumstances; most of a character is expressed in their traits. For instance, to represent a strong character, you might give them a strong trait that gives them +1 impact when performing feats of strength.

Getting Started

The Mission Grind

Just as other games center around a certain loop of behavior (e.g. a dungeon crawl), BNRPG centers around the mission grind.

Abstractly, it has three phases:

Prepare for missions. This includes buying supplies, training, and finally, finding a job.
Pursue mission objectives, to success, failure, or abandonment.
Reap the benefits or cope with the consequences of your mission.

Black Nerve cycles through these three phases until one of two things happen. Either you can no longer take missions, or you retire.

You can’t take missions if you’re dead, obviously. You can’t take missions if your reputation is unsalvageably tainted. And you can’t take missions if you’re no longer a countenanced vesperbane ‍— either because you lost countenance, or lost your vespers.

You can’t retire if you don’t have the savings to. You can’t retire if someone or something’s out for your blood. You can’t retire if something’s driving you to keep struggling.

So long as these conditions aren’t satisfied, the grind continues.

Opening Moves

The game starts like this:

First, the meta describes the location of interest. This is the setting where the player characters will operate in. This opening description must give the players answers the following questions:

1a. What sort of jobs do the people here need vesperbanes for?
1b. What are they willing to offer them to do these jobs?
1c. What sort of vesperbanes, if any, live here? What would bring a vesperbane from elsewhere to here?

After the opening description, the players should ask questions until there’s a shared understanding, at least commensurate to what a character in the setting would know.

Second, the players say who their characters are. The characters proposed must be maverick vesperbanes and should fit with the answer to 1c, and the meta must be clear about any other constraints on the player’s characters.

Players should answer:

2a. Who are you? What’s your name? What do you look like?
2b. What can you do? What natural talents, vesperbane skills and abilities, and social connections do you boast?
2c. What do you need? All vesperbanes hunger, for food above all, but often for more: do you need better equipment, stronger abilities, wider renown? Why are you taking missions, what brings you in contact with the other characters?
2d. Why do you stay in this business, above those immediate needs? What ideal drives you?

Above all, the goal is an interesting exploration of the question: will these vesperbanes live long enough, work hard enough, get lucky enough, to retire comfortably? Characters for whom the answer is too obvious ‍— so strong it’s a definite yes; so weak it’s a definite no ‍— undermine this goal. To that end, some questions the players should be able to answer:

How could you plausibly succeed at your goals? How could you plausibly fail them?
Why do you need the help of the other characters? Why do they need your help?

These questions need not be answered if the answer is clear, but if a player cannot answer them, it may be a sign their character concept needs some work.

Third, the meta may say if, in the location of interest, there is a special opportunity or state of affairs that demands the characters’ response ‍— something that promises to fulfill or worsen their needs, challenge their ideals, or serve to bring characters into contact with one another. If not, the players may say what they do first of all within the location of interest, to prepare for jobs or seek them out. In either case, whatever the players say will constitute actions, and gameplay will proceed.

For more detail, see the Mission Moves section.

Character Creation

Diamantid Names

This is a fantasy setting, and your characters aren’t human, so their names shouldn’t be overly similar to those of modern anglophones. There’s no complete phonology or hard aesthetic for mantis names, but a few guidelines to keep in mind:

Hard consonants like ‘t’, ‘k’, ‘d’ are good.
‘f’, ‘tl’, ‘th’, and (consonant) ‘y’ also crop up frequently
Ending on a vowel is good
The long o (spelled ‘oo’) is good to lean into.
Avoid consonant clusters, especially with non‍-liquid vowels.
Avoid diphthongs, especially more than one.
Avoid the long ‘i’ and long ‘a’ sound.
Avoid silibants (‘s’, ‘z’, ‘sh’).

It doesn’t take much effort to get something usable; one character in a Black Nerve story is named "Marka" which is a relatively simple modification of a existing name, and another character is simply named ‘Yufemia’, an odd spelling of a (uncommon) real name.

Surnames can follow the same rules as names, but a few other guidelines are helpful:
‘‍-brood’, and ‘‍-theca’ are common suffixes, proceeded by normal names (e.g. ‘Eneksbrood’, ‘Ibotheca’). ‘‍-nymph’ is less common, but similar
‘‍-bane’ is a common suffix for names of vesperbane families, typically proceeded by an english word. (e.g. ‘Goodbane’, ‘Swiftbane’)
the following profession names are common among mantids: hunter, keeper, dancer, gamble, climber, guard, tracker, trapper, chaser, singer,

Diamantid Looks

A female (formel) diamantis imago is about a meter long from mesothorax to cerci, and about a meter tall from head to tarsus, and weighs about 20 kg. Picture them as a mantis the size of rather large dog. A male (tiercel) imago will tend to be about 3/4s as big in most bodily proportions.

There are a few apparent differences from a realworld mantis:

Their legs are thicker, and not sprawled.
Their second pair of legs point straight down, and typically walk on a curled up tarsus (think apes’ arms).
Their third pair of legs are bent (think velociraptors’ legs).
On each tarsus, they have 3 dactyls like fingers.
They have two ocelli between their eyes, rather than three.
They have a pair of frilled auricles enclosing a membraneous tympanum, placed on on either side of the neck, for hearing sound.
They have highly developed and dextrous maxillary palps for stridulation.
They have long setae growing in various places, especially the head, similar to body or facial hair.
Their chitin is not all sclerotized: parts of their flesh are soft and lightweight.

To customize your diamantis character consult [tables not present in this draft].

Vesperbane Attitudes

Unlike conventional heroes, vesperbanes are defined by what they lack, rather than what they have.

Lethality. A vesperbane is unflinching. They are familiar with death, as both its agent and its victim. You act with lethality when you kill or face death. You act against lethality when you save a life, or spare one.

Arrogance. A vesperbane is undaunted. They are practiced and confident. You act with arrogance when you know how powerful and important you are, and act like it. You act against arrogance when you do tasks beneath you or take disrespect of your abilities.

Control. A vesperbane is unfazed. They know everything; they have plans within plans, and keeps secrets beneath secrets. You act with control when you read situations or reduce complex problem to simple solutions. You act against control when you leave things up to chance and ambiguity, or let others take the reigns where you know better.

Subterfuge. A vesperbane is uncaring. They may use people like tools if the mission calls for it, and don whatever mask or affectation is needed. You act with subterfuge when you meddle with what people perceive, believe and desire. You act against subterfuge to reveal what you really think, or let your mind be changed.

Disillusion. A vesperbane is unburdened. Their ideals are tempered, their cynicism deeply instilled, and their morality is flexible and faltering. You act with disillusion when you choose grim practicality over heroic striving, when you look with piercing analysis, when you defect. You act against disillusion to hold true to hopes and ideals.

Occlusion: A vesperbane is unordained. They face obstacles beyond comprehension, strive chimerically in pursuit of the unnatural and impossible. You act with occlusion when your acts and their stakes defy categorization. You act against occlusion when you fail to face ambiguity on its own terms, or force the esoteric into a conventional frame.

Starting characters can set one attitude to 3, two to 2, and the remaining 3 to 1.

Lay Features

For physical stress & consequences, you have a Grit track & Flesh slots. For mental stress & consequences, you have a Will track & Psyche slots.

Your Grit track clears whenever you spend about half an hour taking no strenuous activity. Similarly, your Will track clears whenever you spend about half an hour relaxed, without mentally taxing endeavors.

Each day you don’t aggrieved a wound, you can make a recovery tally against it. When there’s more tallies than the wound’s impact, the tallies can be erased and the impact decreased by one. This gains a point of Resolve.

Mental consequences are different; to recover, you must spend a point of resolve or a tag you have on that aspect. You can gain tags on mental consequences by processing your feelings, venting them through action, or during downtime.

When taking an important, crucial action, you can push yourself, marking a 2‍-impact mental consequence and gaining a point of resolve.

Vespertine Features

You start with 6 dyarhiza, which you can invest in Coils, Veins or Roots. Each of these stats give you a number of slots in which to store substances called essential components. (Respectively: umbra, ichor, and fungi.)

Mission Moves

When you have no idea what to do next, look for a job. The heartlands crawl with monsters, and defectors prowl in their midst. The shadows are strung through with conspiracies and factions weaving more schemes than you could unravel in a hundred lifetimes. The vespers themselves cry out to be appeased and avenged. It’s never a question if there’s something fit for a bane’s skills, it’s whether you’re willing to get it done at the market’s price.

Because there are so many possible missions, it would be tedious for both the players and the metas to enumerate the details of every mission their team even considers ‍— and indeed, so often, missions begin with a distorted rumor, a misleading summary, a promise of a full briefing if you take the time to sit down with the client.

This confusion of vague and shifting possibilities, therefore, is represented by a notion of leads.

But before we detail that, it’s worth discussing a more central statistic for gaining missions.

Infamy is a score shared by all players; it represents how widely known, respected, and feared your team of vesperbanes is. (Note that it depends on the location of interest; a crew infamous in one city will not be so should they arrive in a new province; before you look for missions, ask what your infamy is. It’s easy to gauge: who reacts when your name is spoke? How many bugs double take when they see your face?)

Reputation is a related pool. Rather than a quantity, it’s a set of qualities. Hunt enough defects, and you gain a reputation as killers. Fuck up a heist, and you gain a reputation as criminals and incompetent ones at that.

Stride of Palps: Whenever you’re in town after a mission, roll infamy. On miss, nobody seems to pay you any mind. On hit, check if your last mission was a success. If it was, the players make this move. If it was a failure, the meta makes this move.

Word of your deeds have spread, for good or ill; there are eyes on you, and auricles listening for your moves.

On tradeoff, choose:

It’s the sort of work you’re known for. Pick a tag from your reputation to define the mission.
Your reputation makes it easier to find opportunities, or trouble. Take +1 leads or +1 plots.
The rumor mill has redefined you. Add or change a reputation tag.

On breakthrough, someone’s looking for you specifically. Choose as many as applicable:

Spend a hit to pick a tag from your reputation to define the mission.
Spend a hit to take +1 leads to spend defining the mission.
Take +1 plot to gain a hit.

When you boast of your deeds, roll arrogance.

// you can change your rep, or gain leads

// subterfuge → networking move?

// occlusion: consult the vespers for spiritual leads (e.g., someone doing a ritual to summon bane assistance)

// meta specifies how many dice to roll when doing this or that to gain leads

// check the mission board

Objective Skeleton

// forgot the details of this, it breaks down a mission into a series of nodes where you overcome challenges through a) investigation, b) travel, c) combat, d) talking, e)

Combat Procedure

Combat occurs when, and lasts so long as, two or more characters (the combatants) are willing and able to fight each other.

The active question of combat is: who has the initiative, and what will they do?

To take action in combat, declare your approach and your techniques. Your approach determines which stat you roll, and your techniques determines the effect.

After rolling, check your fortune:

On breakthrough, you may use one mastered technique and one proficient or mastered technique, or use one untrained technique at a cost.

On tradeoff, you may use a mastered technique, or a proficient technique at a cost.

On complication, ask if you can use a mastered technique at a cost.

Your initiative restricts what you can do (you either have it or don’t). On breakthrough, your actions gains you initiative over your opponent. On tradeoff, your action loses you initiative after you take it. On complication, you lose initiative before you take action.

Certain techniques are restricted to certain approaches. The basic techniques every character knows are:

With any approach: move, or speak.

With lethal approach: assault, endure, payback, or menace.

With arrogant approach: hold back, evade, redirect, or taunt.

With controlling approach: analyze, setup, outwit, or predict.

With manipulative approach: feint, bluff, trick, or influence.

With disillusioned approach: observe, disengage, struggle, or concede.

The different approaches have different abstract resources ‍— menace, combo, tactics, insight, and nothing, respectively. You can only hold one of these stocks at a time. If a move tells you to gain another, you either gain nothing or lose all of your other stock.

Lethal actions

You assault when you attack with lethal force. You must have initiative. On hit, If the target has no potent means of resisting, they die.

On tradeoff, deal damage as impact. Gain 1 menace. You may spent it here to:

Force the target to move.
Seize something from the target.
Deal extra damage (+1i).

On breakthrough, same as tradeoff, but choose 1:

Take +1d forward
Take +1 menace
If they dodged, they must choose: let you say where they end up, or grant you a boost.
If they blocked, they choose: let you say what you damaged or destroyed, or grant you a boost.
If they took a consequence, they choose: let you say what the consequence is, or grant you a boost.

You endure when you face down a foe’s attack without fear. Resist with your lethal roll. On breakthrough, take +1 menace. On breakthrough or tradeoff, you can spend menace here to make your foe flinch or hesitate, imposing ‍-1 impact.

You payback when you give as good as you get. On tradeoff, choose 1. On breakthrough, choose 2:

If your foe did more damage than you, deal +1 damage.
If you did more damage than your foe, take ‍-1 damage.
You make it hurt. +1 menace.

You threaten when you loom, posturing to intimidate your opponent. If your menace stock is less than impact, set it to impact. You may spend any amount of this to inflict morale damage here.

Afterward, at any time, you may spend 1 menace to:

Take +1d on a lethal roll, if it involves the target of your menace.
Resist +1 if the threat you pose would make the target hesitate.
Deal +1i on any inflicted morale hit, if the threat you pose makes it more intimidating.

Bonuses:

+1 if they’ve taken grit damage
+1 per consequence inflicted by you

Arrogant actions

When you make an arrogant action, you can spend any amount of combo to gain that many bonus d6s. When you roll a complication, lose all combo. When you roll a tradeoff, lose 1 combo.

You challenge when you engage a foe with less than lethal intent.

You evade when you dance around a foe’s attack,

You redirect when you parry or subvert a foe’s action. Resist.

You posture when you boast or

// give them insight

Controlling actions

You setup when you make plans and set them into motion. If your tactics stock is less than impact, set it to impact. For each point of tactics held, you may slot it with contingency: briefly write down a condition that may or may not arise and a possible way you might counter or exploit it. If it does arise, that point of tactics is spent and you gain a boost. For each point of tactics not holding a contingency, you may spend when reacting and say you planned for this and gain +1d if you can backfill a believable plan.

You outwit when you anticipate and plan around your target’s moves. Name an action. On tradeoff, choose 1; on breakthrough take both.

If they take the action, get a boost.
If they don’t take that action, you may resist it.

You analyze when you evaluate your foe’s capabilities. Ask one:

Can they perform a certain technique? How well can they perform it?
Do they possess a certain feature or equipment? What condition is it in?
Pose a hypothetical. Is it plausible or implausible?

If they answer truthfully, gain 1 tactic. If they refuse to answer, gain 2 tactic. If they answer falsely, gain 1 tactic but when the deception is apparent, you gain a boost.

When you reveal the depth of your schemes, gain an impact bonus equal to tactics held. Foe takes a morale hit.

Manipulative actions

You feint when you mislead a foe about your action. You must have initiative. Before making your combat roll, you may choose another approach and another action to roll. If your foe reacts to that action, you may then reveal the feint after they’ve chosen their response. Otherwise you take the true action.

You read when you gain insight into their motives and desires. You must have initiative. Hold 1 insight, or spend your hold and ask one:

What are they going to do next?
What nonobvious pattern exists in their behavior? (Gain a boost if the answer is not actionable)
What is their reason to fight? What would cause them to stop?
What aspect do they have that you don’t already know about? (

They may choose whether to answer; if they don’t, they take a morale hit.

You can spend insight to reroll 1 dice against your foe.

You trick when you manipulate your foe, getting them to do as you like. Name the action you’re manipulating them into choosing, then choose one:

Foe gets +1d if they take that action; or
Foe suffers a morale hit if they don’t take that action. (Spend insight for impact)
Foe must name an possible action or other requisite for them to choose to take the action, and must do it if that requisite is fulfilled
You gain insight equal to impact if they don’t take the action.
Foe must resist your roll (spend insight for +1 each)

If you exploit an aspect, they cannot refuse to take named action.

You provoke when you pressure their mental weakpoints. They suffer a mental hit. Spend 1 insight to get a bonus equal to total insight held (at least +1).

On breakthrough, they choose 1:

You gain +2 insight;
They reveal an aspect and grant you a tag, or give you a boost;
They must give a brief answer to any question you ask.

Disillusioned actions

You bluff when you deceive a foe into hesitating or disengaging. Name any action, even impossible ones. Roll dice as if you could make that action. Your foe may react to avoid it, but if they don’t, instead of resolving your action is revealed to be a bluff. // unlike feint, you do nothing

You disengage when you

You struggle when you

You concede when you suggest an alternative to fighting. Target must be amenable to reason. Judge if the reasons are compelling; if they are, target must take a morale hit.

// occluded moves?

Vespertine Moves

Techniques require components.

The essential components are represented by dice pools, each die taking up one slot. Dice from these pools are used in techniques. Techniques have a rank specifying how skilled you are in using them, ranging from trained, proficient, to mastered.

When you use a vespertine technique, you invest a number of dice as specified. These dice are rolled in opposition; the invested dice can trigger backlashes. For trained techniques, dice showing 3‍-6 trigger backlash; for proficient techniques, dice showing 6 trigger backlash; for mastered techniques, invested dice cannot trigger backlash, and need not be rolled.

After rolling, you can spend invested dice. This empowers the technique, but spent dice may be unavailable afterward, or otherwise entail a cost according to the technique. If you spend an invested die that triggered backlash, the backlash is negated.

Dice can be put into a number of states according to the technique. Techniques that discard dice render the dice reduced or degraded, but they can be restored to functionality with a certain action. Techniques that exhaust a dice renders them irrecoverable by any means.

For each kind of die, there’s one additional result of spending a dice.

Umbra can be saturated, giving you points of aura.
Ichor dice can be metaplazed, giving you points of clot.
Fungi dice can be composted, giving you points of rot.

Each behaves differently. These special dice are rolled alongside invested dice, but do not count as invested dice.

You cannot have more aura dice than umbra dice. Aura dice do not occupy coil slots. When you invest umbra dice, also roll at least that many dice from your aura pool. Aura dice always backlash on 4‍-6. Aura dice can be spent; this will exhaust them. During a rest, you can turn aura dice back into umbra dice.

Each clot takes up a vein slot. Whenever you invest ichor dice, you must roll at least that many clot dice if possible. Clot dice count as ichor dice for the purpose of ichor requirements. Clot dice always backlash on 4‍-6. You cannot spend clot dice individually unless they roll a 1; however you may choose to negate all backlash on ichor and clot dice in exchange for metaplazing an ichor dice, turning it into a new clot die.

Techniques

Umbral Techniques

Wretch

Bane blast: the user charges their tarsi with enervate, feeding it to bursting with energy. They then unleash a blast of concussive force. This is often accompanied by a spray of enervate, and the shape, range, and intensity of the blast are among the many variables distinguishing each vesperbane’s style.

Procedure. Prep 1 (coil). Mold 1+ (umbra). Attack as melee weapon. On hit, deal concussive damage with potency. Exhaust 1 umbra and deal 1 umbral damage. For each exhaust after the first, choose:

You empower the blast. Say what you destroy, or +1 concussive damage.
You knock them back where you want them. Say where, or take a boost.
You carefully control it. +1 impact if dodged

Backlash options:

Saturate 1 dice.
The blast falters. ‍-1 impact on hit.
You’re knocked back. Ask where, or give a boost.
You lose control. ‍-1 impact if dodged.

Force grip: the user charges their tarsi with enervate, starving it of energy until it hungrily leeches at the world. Doneat the feet, this allows to cling to even vertical surfaces, in addition to its combat grappling potential.

Procedure. Prep 1 coil and mold 1 (umbra). Say what you hold onto. Impact equal to prep. If you can hold it normally, treat your strength as greater by impact. If not, treat your strength as impact. When using this technique to climb on surfaces, you move no faster than a crawl. For each die invested, you can cover a short distance before needing to recast.

For each spend, saturate 1 dice, and choose:

+1 impact for the purpose of adhesion.
Ignore the movement penalty, or move faster, taking a boost.

For each backlash:

Discard 1 dice, discharging enervate. Check if it damages what you’re gripping.
Loosen hold of what you’re gripping, taking ‍-1 impact.
If climbing, make no forward movement, spending a movement wheeling or securing your footing.

Melter Ball. Prep 1. Mold umbra. Say your target, and threaten with Ranged Weapons. On impact, deal umbral damage with potency.

For each spend:

‍- Discard 1, and increase the size of the projectile, threatening +1 and +1 potency.

‍- Exhaust 1, and deal kinetic damage with nervecasting.

For each backlash:

‍- Threaten ‍-2 or ‍-2 potency.

‍- Suffer 1 umbral damage.

Shell Shroud: Prep N. Mold N umbra. When you would suffer kinetic or umbral damage, you may resist with potency. Saturate 1 dice, or reroll a dice.

When cast, each spend:

‍- Saturate 1. Potency +2 when resisting.

‍- Discard 1. Target takes +2 umbral damage when you resist their attack.

For each backlash:

‍- Suffer 1 umbral damage when you resist.

‍- Potency ‍-1 when resisting

Beta compass: the user releases a dark wave of enervation, which alternately self‍-attract into lines like dark rivers, or branch out like lightning. If enervate is nearby, the lines will curve toward them, allowing this technique to locate enervate bodies.

Procedure.

Sanguine Techniques

Mending Clot: Mold ichor. For each dice, remove 1 bleeding, closing a wound as though it were bandaged.

For each spend:

‍- Metaplast 1. Close a larger wound?

Chyma bleed: During rest, spent 1 ichor to hold 1 prep. Mold ichor. Roll prep & ichor. For each [dice], remove 1 bloodloss.

Fungal techniques

Legersnare