RON EDWARDS

BY RON EDWARDS

Illus. Amos Orion Sterns

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
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
Ǯ Phillip Simpson, coroflot.com/plsimpson4225
Ǯ Rachel Kahn, portablecity.net
Ǯ Amos Orion Sterns
Ǯ Juan Ochoa, juanochoascrapbook.blogspot.com
Ǯ Tony Dowler, tonydowler.com
Ǯ Dyson Logos, rpgcharacters.wordpress.com
Ǯ Sarah Jacobs-Tolle, racerxmachina.deviantart.com
Ǯ Jez Gordon, gibletblizzard.blogspot.com
Ǯ Adam Schmidt, misteradam.com

Circle of Hands is part of the Heartbreaker Redemption Project

ADEPT-PRESS.COM/HEARTBREAKER-REDEMPTION-PROJECT
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Table of ConTenTs - p.3

auThor’s noTe - p.5
CH 1 ORIGINAL METAL - P.9 CH 7 LIGHT AND DARKNESS - P.137
The absoluTe rundown - p.10 using This - p.137
all abouT play - p.12 ordinary and everywhere - p.138
beginnings - p.16 named people and beasTs - p.139
CH 2 IRON FOLK - P.19 monsTers - p.141
The baCkdrop - p.19 a quiCk referenCe - p.159
The CresCenT land - p.19 CH 8 FANTASY HEARTBREAKERS - P.161
CH 3 FORGING STEEL - P.43 aT The Time - p.161
CreaTing The CirCle - p.43 The firsT essay - p.161
preparing a venTure - p.54 The seCond essay - p.166
play geTs going - p.68 a look baCk - p.171
CH 4 CIRCLE OF STEEL - P.71 CH 9 HEARTBREAKER
REDEMPTION - P.175
Talking - p.72
The big piCTure - p.73 The found objeCT - p.175
beTween venTures - p.78 gray magiCk - p.181
resoluTion: rolling diCe - p.80 GLOSSARY OF TERMS - P.214
CH 5 KILLING - P.93 CharaCTer sheeT - p.216
seTTing iT up - p.94
fighTing named
CharaCTers - p.94
The killing - p.99
fighTing unnamed people
and groups - p.102
Tools of violenCe - p.104
injury, reCovery, and
deaTh - p.109
CH 6 GRAY MAGIC - P.111
meTaphysiCs - p.111
oaThs - p.115
wizards - p.116
spellCasTing - p.118
spell lisT - p.121
 AUTHOR’S NOTE
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.
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. It’s 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:

I’m horribly disturbed by the way our television programming harvests and renders up human emotions and life
dysfunction for audience consumption. I’m disturbed by the Jerry Springer Show. I’m 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. We’re emotionally dead American couch potatoes who can’t feel alive without
consuming the emotions of youth and life trauma. We’re vampires.
I think RPGs can activate us in productive ways, by engaging our creativity, by putting us in human proximity, col-
laborating over something meaningful. An RPG doesn’t need the base, disgusting packaging of human trauma for the
consumption of others to be a powerful experience.
I’ve done my best to hear Paul’s 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. It’s 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 PARTNERS IN CRIME

○ Steve Perrin and Greg Stafford for RuneQuest
and its supplements Cults of Prax and Cults of
Terror, published by The Chaosium
○ (The American) Steve Jackson for Melee, Wizard,
and The Fantasy Trip: In the Labyrinth, published
by Metagaming
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

○ Michael Moorcock and Howard Chaykin for
The Swords of Heaven, the Flowers of Hell, pub-
lished by HM Communications
○ (The British) Steve Jackson for Sorcery! from
Fighting Fantasy, originally published by Pen-
guin Books
○ Greg Stafford for Prince Valiant: the Story-Telling
Game, published by The Chaosium
○ Jonathan Tweet for Over the Edge, published by
Atlas Games
○ 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
○ Clinton Dreisbach-Nixon, author of The Shadow
of Yesterday
○ Vincent Baker, author of Apocalypse World:
Dark Ages
○ Erik Bernhardt and Marek Jones, authors of
Crone
○ Rafael Chandler, author of Lusus Naturae
○ Nathan D. Paoletta, author of Annalise
○ Keith Senkowski, author of Conspiracy
of Shadows
○ 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, Czigány Péter, 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 Schiött, 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
Carré, 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 Wäss, Spencer Keoppel, Alessandro Riccó, Jonathan Davis, Jason Paul McCartan, Joe Prince,
Robert Rees, Fabien Hildwein, Sage LaTorra, Adam Tannir, Nat Barmore, Brendan Conway, Paul Hedrick, Klaus Ole Kristian-
sen, Radek Drozdalski, Flavio Mortarino, Guy Shalev, Vladimir Filipović, Fabian Stroh, Luigi Amedeo Bianchi

hard cOre
Judd Karlman, Chris Bloxham, Douglas Bailey, Martin Ralya, Mark Malone, Jürgen Mayer, Adams Tower, Simon Brunning,
Ed McW, Edoz, Jonathan Korman, Lawrence “Saker” Collins, Larry Lade, Filthy Monkey, Robert Strickland, Patrice Mer-
moud, 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 Wal-
lace, Sean Bourke, Charles Perez, Brazil808, Clyde L. Rhoer, Timothy “TravelingTim” Salisbury, Wayne Rossi, Okerampa, Rich
Karpusiewicz, Christian Müller, 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 Härenstam, Martin Fröjd, Moreno Roncucci, Michele Gelli, Giorgio Grigio, Antonio Caciolli, Raf-
faele 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.
I’ve 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 PERIPHERY

– lo these many years past, in play and design! PHILOSOPHY
To the playtesters, many of whose notes and sug- Feel free to check out Arthur Schopenhauer’s Die
gestions you’ll see credited right where they had the Welt als Wille und Vorstellung (The World as Will and
most influence. Representation) and Friedrich Nietzsche’s Jenseits von
Gray Magick ~1993: Margie Klugermann and several Gut und Böse (Beyond Good and Evil). The rules include
people whose names have passed from memory little references to other writers here and there if
you’re looking for them.
Gray Magick, 2012: Peter Charnley, Megan Pederson,
Sam Rivier MUSIC
Circle of Hands, 2013-2014: Rasmus Lundholm, Rick- The game was written to the tripping-out throb and
ard Elimää, Johan Kemi, Sarah Richardson, Brian wails of heavy prog from a specific period of rock history.
Wille, Mark Malone, Mark Delsing, Joe Beason, Per ○ A song from Uriah Heep’s album Demons and
Fischer, Moreno Roncucci, Alessandro Riccó, Mauro Wizards (1972) inspired the game title.
Ghibaudo, Vern Ryan, Joshua Bearden, Gethyn ○ For what it’s like to be at the table, playing the
Edwards, Benjamin Edwards, Joseph Edwards, Jus- game, I think of Paladin’s second album Charge!
tice Platt, John Willson, Peter Liaw, Mitchell Rozen, (approximately 1970-1972), and Pinnacle’s only
Christian Scarlato, David Réti, Keith Senkowski, album Assassin (1974, re-issued as Cyborg Assassin).
Nathan D. Paoletta, Eric Mersmann, Tim Koppang,
○ For what it’s like to be a Circle knight on a
Larry Lade, Mike Holmes, Jen J. Dixon
venture, I think of Comus’ first album First
To Mike Holmes for fifteen years of dialogue con- Utterance (1971).
cerning 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 dia-
logues are archived at the website.
To the Inner Circle backers, listed above.
To the Kicksnarkers (you wretched, ruthless bas-
tards), especially Eric Franklin and Caius Ward.
To Caias Ward, again, for help with the poetic text on
the back cover.
Illus. Jez Gordon
 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 beauti-
ful 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, there’s 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 “in-
setting,” not a designated nobility, not a spiritual guide or personage, not a developed ideology, not a modern ideal.
There’s something, but it’s 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 thOusand Bad reasOns, yOu will die. his lined face
through many and hooded
rocky ridges, eyes more fit-
thick with scrub and cut by gorges as if chopped with ting for a man his father’s age – he should be tilling
an axe, having switched back and forth up the moun- his own land somewhere, laughing with his family
tainsides to reach a saddle only to see more ahead, at who’ve survived the harsh winters, speaking for his
last, at this crest, you see what you’d only glimpsed clan at the moot to decide about herds and water.
during the past morning’s 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 stretch- fire, 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 hori- and 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 Don’t call it a “mission.” You and your fellows heard
curves winding its way through the hills and final about this place and decided to come here: to help the
plain to the shore. The complex of villages lies there, young king’s cause, or to defy both warring powers, or
and the scout says you can arrive by later afternoon, to find momentary peace in the thick of danger. Some
or perhaps next morning. A beast dripping with slime of you think of the good you may do. Others envy that
stalks the fields, or the valkyries gather overhead, or hope. If necessary, you will kill, and too, for any of
the raids open the door for an alliance … You know a thousand bad reasons, you will die. The culture is
only a little bit, enough to bring you here – for the unforgiving, its people grim and often desperate, so
king, for your newly-forming sense of purpose, for the you will not be the first or last arrivals to find your
haunted drives that jolt your sleep. death at the end of spears. The powers you may face
are cosmically inhuman and malevolent, and you
Your mail and weapons ride with you in the common
may even be consumed when you wield those same
wagon. Your tough mountain horses stamp as they’re
powers in defiance.
saddled. One of your companions is a young man
9
 CirCle of Hands
1 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, it’s
equivalent to 10th or 11th century north German and
Baltic Europe – it’s not medieval, it’s not feudal, and
it’s not chivalric. I’d say “Dark Ages” except historians
don’t 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 isn’t any heraldry and no knightly culture.
Brace yOurselF FOr human horror. It’s a time when
torture is on hand, power is almost entirely deter-
mined by immediate ruthlessness, and no one knows
the first thing about hygiene, sustainable agriculture,
geography beyond the immediate area, or history
besides vague legends.
there’s nO educatiOn. People only know what their
family circumstances and limited geographical expe-
rience provide.
the map shOws an extensive crescent-shaped shore-
line, with the ocean to the east. The lands along the
water’s 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 dOn’t have governments, only local hierar-
chies based on raw power and immediate history.
It’s 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 alli-
ances 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 central-
ized, 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 who’ve 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 – it’s 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. It’s also unique
in that no social background is excluded.
all player-characters are outstanding physical bad-
asses. If their background doesn’t 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 that’s 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 per-
sonality traits, one or more professions, a resulting
social rank, a few interesting details, and a Key Event.
Other things follow from their professions too.
there’s 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 vari-
ous 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 seri-
ously. It is not a mission; they have no assignment or
pre-arranged objective.
a venture’s OutcOme for the Circle in general, and
for the young king in Rolke, is most likely success-
ful 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. Level-
ing-up or its equivalent isn’t a major part of play.
Ordinary resOlutiOn is a 2d6 roll + a character’s
attribute, to equal or beat a 12. For easier or harder
rolls, add or lose a d6. That’s familiar I’m sure, but the
whole fictional context for rolling is pretty different
from most games.
a character’s sOcial rank and professional back-
ground dictate what he or she knows how to do.
There is no “common sense” or general resolution.
in a culture based mainly on personal confronta-
tion and immediate connections, one might commit
murder and grin one’s way out of retribution, but
there’s 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 adventure’s conclusion.
11
 CirCle of Hands

1 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 one’s 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. It’s OK
to do this, but the effects are permanent. Unlike ordinary wizards, Circle members use this option tactically, not
ideologically.

it’s 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 manifesta-
tions 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 game’s 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 ses-
sions, chosen from a “circle” of characters created
prior to play, and everyone switches to a different
character at the outset of a new session.
MULTIPLE VENTURES
As more ventures are played, you’ll see they have the
same basic structure, and you’ll 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
don’t travel across wildly diverse exotic lands, but
rather “do it again,” richer and more nuanced each
time. You’ll keep seeing similar places but with differ-
ent 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.

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 don’t play “toward,” you play “in.”
12
As the succeeding ventures carry more and more
comparison with those which have already hap-
pened, as the characters become more and more
known, and as the cultural details become more and
more solid as genuine setting, the emergent themes
 Original Metal
crack wide open, becoming a tapestry of different
dramas. The setting becomes fleshed out and defi-
nitely 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. They’re about in-crisis drama and the develop-
ing portraiture, the realization of heroism as gained
and as failed.TUFF
I’m not messing around, this setting is rough. But let’s
dissect that word “setting” a bit. It’s too damn vague.
I’m 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, it’s distant
and not really touched, imagined as the land-
scape 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 gen-
eral description, before preparing scenarios or
making up characters.
BACKDROP
○ Maps and regions SITUATION
○ Ecology ○ Location and time
○ Culture ○ Immediate geography
○ History ○ Immediate history
○ The magical war ○ The people present
○ Technology ○ Cultural details in force
○ Values ○ The creatures present
○ Ethnicities ○ The played characters
○ Creatures
situatiOn: This is what you’ve prepared – the
location, time, and individuals for the fiction
during play, the causes and circumstances
specific to this spot and this particular his-
tory, 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 conse-
quential actions, and what can happen there,
○ Only in scenes is action possible – specifi-
cally, 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 it’s like to do it.
SCENES
○ A particular spot
○ A time of day or night
○ Who’s there
○ What just happened
○ Actions and responses
○ Crises and threats
○ Opportunities
○ Consequences
13
 CirCle of Hands

1 Keith Senkowski insisted that I

include a big overview of play here.
Keith also says “You and your diagrams,”
so here’s the diagram version:

PROCEDURAL OUTLINE
1 Make your Circle: the number of characters =
twice the number of people
1 MAKE YOUR CIRCLE
Ǯ Number of characters = 2x the number of
Ǯ Individual work people (including GM)
Ǯ Group work Ǯ Individual Work
2 Preparation Ǯ Group Work
Ǯ The GM prepares the first venture
Ǯ Each player chooses one of the characters he
or she made to play for the first venture 2 FIRST PREPARATION
3 First adventure Ǯ The GM prepares the first venture
Ǯ Deaths, tripwires, tallies Ǯ Each player chooses one of the characters he
or she made to play
Ǯ Immediately after: roll to increase scores
4 Preparation
Ǯ GM preps next venture
Ǯ Players choose characters: any they didn’t 3 FIRST VENTURE
Ǯ Deaths, tripwires, tallies
just play; revise spells as desired
Ǯ Immediately after: roll to increase scores
5 Next venture
Ǯ Deaths, tripwires, tallies
Ǯ Immediately after: roll to increase scores
6 Back to #4, and cycle through #4-6 4 PREPARATION
Ǯ The GM prepares the next
AWFUL STUFF, RESPONSIBILITY
AND SOCIAL CONTRACT
venture
Ǯ Each player chooses a character
6
they didn’t play in the last

REPEAT
In developing and crowdfunding Circle of Hands, I
venture, revise spells as desired
discovered how strongly setting material is perceived
as play instructions: if it’s described, then it’s “what
you’re supposed to do” and “what’s going to happen
to you.” But that’s why “setting” is too vague, because
it’s totally mixing up scenes vs. backdrop.
5 NEXT VENTURE
Ǯ Deaths, tripwires, tallies
Ǯ Immediately after: roll to increase
In playing, you (the group) and I have entered a long-
scores
distance consensual…. something. I’m definitely
responsible for the backdrop’s content. But what
gets into the prepared situations and the characters’
histories is what you choose from it, according to your So that’s kind of cool, actually, because you can take
standards for content and threat. something in the backdrop and invert or subvert it as
in-play content, or you can leave it in the backdrop
The good news is that if you don’t like something in as “it happens in the world” without wallowing in it.
the backdrop, or like or not, you don’t want it in your That also means that soaking up and engaging with
face during play and maybe even happening to your the backdrop isn’t threatening, because it’s not hap-
character, then you don’t have to. “It’s in the setting!” pening, and it can never touch you without your leave.
is a cop-out. The only way, ever, for seeing something
in a situation and especially in a scene, is because a The other news – neither bad nor good – is that
real person at your table put it there. I had my reasons direct responsibility also lies at your table. By “your,”
for putting it in the backdrop and you have yours for I mean anyone and everyone there. Real people are
seeing it in play. not governed by in-game fiction or rules categories
14
 Original Metal
like GM/player. All such talk has it completely inside- When 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
scene, made of who these people are and why they’re
hanging out together. This scene includes everything
imaginable about how people
relate to one another, specific to
this particular group at this par- i will nOt aBandOn yOu you’re accepting responsibility for
ticular time, whether they know it
or not, or say it out loud or not.
Let me tell you the fundamentals of this thing, I’ll
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 we’re
talking about people doing anything with each other,
it’s there. Anyway, as with most fun things people
gather to do, the following have to be included for
role-playing.
○ They want to do something fun with one
another, at this time, more than with anyone
else they know.
○ 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.
If these are happening, then everyone’s responsible to
take care of their own fun, and to expect that everyone
else is happy to help with that. Also, it’s everyone’s
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, confron-
tational, or even transgressive.
○ No One Gets Hurt is perhaps the more straight-
forward: personal limits are made explicit in
the beginning, and play includes an overt social
acknowledgment that we’ll 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.
book, then your choices about preparation are valid,
socially assertive means of getting those limits into
play. Given the second concept above, I Will Not
Abandon You, that also means
that whatever you do put in there,
others possibly finding it at their
limits.
TECHNIQUES
What does all that mean for real play? That’s 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 won’t 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 one’s personal limits to content being
in the fiction at all.
○ Veils are one’s personal limits to content being
explicitly depicted, implying that its presence is
acceptable as long as it’s narrated and imagined
less directly.
I’m even butting into your game myself because I can’t
fathom or stand crossing certain Lines in playing
Circle of Hands, so I’m injecting some built-in Lines for
player-characters into the rules, for different reasons
in each case. It’s 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 initiat-
ing 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

1 Chapter 4 includes rules and best practices for work-

ing 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 it’s 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 it’s a good one.
Reality and real people in it are messy, uneasy, desper-
ate, 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 defy-
ing opposed poles of purity, they seem like relativists,
but they’re actually struggling into a different, richer
framework for moral action.
It’s 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. They’re not sure where they’re going or what
it’s 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 let’s not start with good and evil; Amboriyon and
Rbaja respectively claim they’re good and evil, but the
Circle knows that’s 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 tra-
verse 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 who’ve reached the limits of their local knowl-
edge or time away from home, trading out as they’ve
done throughout the journey, word traveling ahead.
When you arrive at the villages dotting the conver-
gence of several creeks to swell the river, the chief
knows of you. You’ll move in for a while, as any travel-
ers would, in the age-old exchange of hospitality for
civility, underscored by threat of outlawry and execu-
tion. Gebhard joins with the men clearing the rocks
from their recent tumble into the northern village’s
stream, soon to sit quietly as a guest at the freemen’s
council. Krimhilde, whom they call Baron Falk from
her emblem, shares word of chieftains’ battles, mar-
riages, 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 Krimhilde’s
sword stay in their wagon. Everyone knows they’re
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 power-
ful magic that wasn’t limited in multiple stifling directions. I wanted characters to be vivid at the start, but also to be

16
 Original Metal
unfinished, to have some-
where to go. I wanted in 1990, i wanted Fantasy rOle-playing
all of us playing to care and it just was nOt happening.
about the characters.
I wanted to get to know the party, experience the
events that would become its collective memories,
see its members develop and the whole membership
change. I wanted to see things happen in adventures,
not because “the GM says if you get the silver widget,
the realm is secure,” but because some player decided
to do something and made it happen. I wanted play-
ers to decide for themselves whom they wanted to
kill. I wanted awesome cosmic forces in opposition,
but characters who were not pawns. I wanted stuff
to happen in our very first session, and never to let
up. I wanted to look back on a game with grim pride,
remembering moments of breaking-points, fury, trag-
edy, and shared joy at the table.
A few influences kept me thinking I could somehow
get this. RPGs like The Fantasy Trip, Fighting Fantasy,
or Prince Valiant were out of print or on the fringe,
but I saw something there which diverged from my
long experience with the Hero System, GURPS, Role-
master, and BRP. Magic: the Gathering hit me as hard
as anyone else with the perfect evocation of a setting
wracked by color-coded magical war.
Like many role-players, I have a personality disorder
called “Must write games.” My first real efforts came
to about six distinct designs, from 1986 to about 1994,
almost all obviously founded on whatever I was
playing at the time. Soon after Magic: the Gathering
was released, I wrote one called Gray Magick and
playtested the hell out of it.
It wasn’t the most ambitious of those various designs
– that would be “Bullshit-Less Role-playing” or BSL,
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 I’d totally chucked fantasy role-playing
out the window considering my long history with
Champions and my disgust with mainstream fantasy
fiction of the time. But I hadn’t. Like so many others
of approximately my age and approximately my pop
culture history, I was trying to redeem it by “starting
over,” doing fantasy role-playing “right.”
Ten years later, I wrote two essays about this dis-
tinctive branch of RPG publishing called “Fantasy
Heartbreakers” and “More Fantasy Heartbreakers”
– you can find them in this book too, with some anno-
tations. Briefly, they’re about publishing games which
are sincerely intended to solve mechanics associated
with a well-known fan-
tasy RPG, typically the
most institutionalized
D&D, and to inspire
audiences with a home-grown fantasy setting – but
so strongly buy into the assumptions of the play
they’re fixing that the mission is subverted. Tons of
games like this have been published, peaking in the
late 1990s.
They’re less common now and less heartbreaking
because digital print doesn’t require you to pay for
five thousand copies to set a reasonable price-point.
D&D-inspired design and publishing has also taken
on several new forms with plenty of creative and
publishing savvy, quickly spawning a whole library
of games about dungeons and elves with not a heart-
breaker in sight. However, crowdfunding has brought
its new versions of deadlines, promises, high hopes,
and a big opening outlay of funds.
In a dialogue about my essays, Mike Holmes wrote,
“Everyone should write a heartbreaker,” which means
their own heartbreaker, in part to expose and resolve
personal ambiguities about fantasy role-playing.
At the least, it’s a lot of fun. Moreover, in doing so,
knowing what they know now, a person may find its
heart and bring it whole into a retooled design. Some
of those authors I wrote about hit it right away long
ago, e.g. Kathleen and Joe Williams with Legendary
Lives, and some other people have done it right out of
Mike’s advice, such as Clinton Dreisbach-Nixon with
The Shadow of Yesterday and Ralph Mazza with Blood
Red Sands.
The crazy thing is that at the time of writing those
essays, I totally forgot this Gray Magick thing of mine,
which almost certainly must be some form of denial.
while looking for BSL. It totally qualifies as a Fantasy
Heartbreaker and should have been front-and-center
in the second essay. Playtesting it again, I was struck
by its power, and how easily the heartbreaker-ness
blazed into what I really want with a bit of loving care.
Now it’s time to take Mike’s advice myself, the way
I failed to do when writing the essays. In my case –
and perhaps yours too – it takes the form of dusting
off a manuscript from one’s youth to discover that its
embarrassing features can be forgiven and forgotten,
or may not be such bad ideas after all, and that you
can discover that it’s not about the breaking, it’s about
the heart.
17
Illus. Tony Dowler
 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 isn’t 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
SCENES
○ Maps and regions SITUATION
○ A particular spot
○ Ecology ○ Location and time
○ A time of day or night
○ Culture ○ Immediate geography
○ Who’s there
○ History ○ Immediate history
○ What just happened
○ The magical war ○ The people present
○ Actions and responses
○ Cultural details in force
○ Technology ○ Crises and threats
○ The creatures present
○ Values ○ Opportunities
○ The played characters
○ Ethnicities ○ Consequences
○ Creatures

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 isn’t a gazetteer. It’s 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. That’s 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. It’s 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 aver-
age, 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 tempera-
ture difference between night and day is extremely
19
 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
2 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.
The society most closely resembles 11th century cen-
tral and northern Europe. It’s not medieval: there is no economic decisions, freely combining trade with
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 character-
ized 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
called Rolke, and the southern it’s not medieval: there is
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-man’s law body of practices, which could sustain
a formidable society but for the constant disorganiza-
tion by white magic. Amboriyon is strong here, with
the cloud-citadels a common sight overhead. Raid-
ers 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
Sienkiewicz’s With Fire and Sword, Poul Anderson’s
Hrolf Kraki’s Saga.
Famberge (fam-BEAR-geh) is a forested land of wind-
ing low ridges and lowland swamps, with a soggy
coast. It’s 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, sub-
ject to ruthless trade practices and raids from Spurr.
20
Literary reference: Zoé Oldenburg’s The World is Not
Enough, David Drake’s 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
punitive and destabilizing expeditions, often empow-
ered 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 Wagner’s Kane sto-
ries, especially “Undertow” and “Dark Muse” in the
Night Winds collection.
Rolke (ROLE-keh) is a forested
mountain land, with a rocky
rough coast that nevertheless
includes some maritime com-
munities. 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 Fam-
berge, 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 experi-
ence 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 Shelby’s The Knights of Dark Renown and The
Kings of Vain Intent, specifically the protagonist Lord
Balian.
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.
 Iron Folk
Food is extremely local; the only food that gets trans-
ported 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.
Illus. Amos Orion Sterns
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.
Today’s population is descended mostly from people
who migrated into these lands, cleansing or absorb-
ing 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 pat-
terns. The people of today’s 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 dark-
skinned person with smoky
grey eyes.
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 aren’t happen-
2 ing 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 inter-
mittent, 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 it’s
not associated with other places, or correlated with
social rank, economics, or designated subcultures.
Everyone is wearing similar clothes, speaking simi-
larly 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 “fork-
beard.” 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
wasn’t using the term “Anglo-Saxon,” when so much
of the look and feel was obviously based on it. I
explained that first, I didn’t 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. It’s
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”
doesn’t apply at all. I’ve chosen “peasant” as the most
generic, least economically loaded term.
22
THEIR WAYS
SOCIAL RANKING
Society and its practices are not founded on princi-
ples-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.
peasants live 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 consid-
ered anyone’s 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 treat-
ment as a peasant.
Freemen are not above many peasants’ tasks,
especially farming, but they exert author-
ity 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.
prOFessiOnals in this coin-less society are best
understood as contractors for highly skilled, dif-
ficult, 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.
gentry enjoy the most material privileges, by
definition, as they are the few people in com-
munities 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; it’s 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 one’s identity, and although
it’s certainly consequential in every way, it’s 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 “that’s 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 man’s 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 opin-
ion 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, it’s 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 it’s 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 don’t 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
leader’s 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 community’s 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 abso-
lutely absent as concept or practice. Language like
“lord” doesn’t 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 con-
sistent authority is “chief.” “Knight” is a surprisingly
generic term that does not even carry the implication
of combat, let alone hereditary status. “King” is noth-
ing 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 trim-
ming one’s facial hair in various ways is an individual
thing, although shaving one’s 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 fine-
grained 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
men’s 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 men’s but may
be cut differently as a gender tag.
Leather is a primary material: shoe soles, belts, straps,
hats, reinforcements for work clothing, woven con-
tainers, 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, you’ll bring it back in a those discovered helping him or her are punished. An
bulging bucket made from this. Various applications outlaw is effectively an un-person as far as the social
are seen across most animal-oriented equipment network is concerned; killing an outlaw typically

2 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. It’s not very com-
plete and isn’t a snapshot of a person’s whole life, but
to people in the same community, it’s a strong orienter.
The Circle knights all wear such an emblem indi-
cating their membership, as well as any other a
particular character wants to retain from his or her
former life (see Details in Chapter 3).
doesn’t bring much social criticism, if any, so some-
times being pronounced outlaw is a tacit invitation
for someone to execute the person.
Outlawry may seem to be a time-release death sen-
tence, 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.

CRIME AND JUSTICE FREEDOM AND SLAVERY

The culture doesn’t include ownership of or com-
There is no written or even widely-acknowledged
merce in people. The edge of more far-flung human
system of law of any kind in the Crescent Land. Prac-
trafficking shows up in the intermittent contact
tices for privileging acceptable acts and preventing or
with other cultures in Spurr, but no local practices
punishing non-acceptable ones correspond roughly
preserve this status. Most raiding in the Crescent
to the four main regions and are strictly customary,
Land concerns goods, and bringing captive people
used without much reflection but also in force only
home with you is a good way to get killed one day,
in the literal meaning of that phrase.
so thralldom isn’t an acknowledged status. Even if
Some beginnings of common-law have begun in such a captive were to be kept in servitude, and if
Tamaryon via seasonal and emergency moots, in this situation were to be sustained for him or her, no
Spurr via mercantile contracts, and in Rolke via social collar would be involved and no one would assume
upheaval and allegiance to the new king. It’s all still the person’s children would be in the same position.
not much more than proposed modifications for
Since money isn’t especially developed, there are no
custom backed by organized violence. In Famberge,
weregild mechanisms, with their connotations of the
even such talk is no more than a faint hope, as com-
monetary value of a human life.
munities there are characterized by violent feuds,
forced labor, massacres, savage revolts, and famines. None of this speaks to a cultural value favoring “lib-
erty” or the concept of human rights. It’s merely the
The most recognized and punished crimes include
way resources and population are playing out in this
habitual theft, shirking, the passing-off of inferior
place and time.
goods or services, betrayal of kin or clan, and the
various forms of assault including rape and outright MEN AND WOMEN
murder. In many cases, the perpetrator, or person
Gender roles and expectations are deeply entrenched.
presumed so, is simply maimed or murdered by
On the one hand, women own property and the cul-
people who feel injured, and most of the time, the
ture does not prevent a woman from, for example,
“justice” is then acknowledged as finished without
speaking in a public discussion, but on the other, a
further review. When it comes to more organized
daughter’s sexuality is thought to be under her par-
punishment, imprisonment is unheard of. By far the
ents’ control, and a wife’s is thought to be under her
most common social criticism-and-control method
husband’s. In practice, “thought to be” is not always
is ostracism, permitting a person to live and work
true – people are generally pretty good at skating
in the community but with minimal reciprocity and
around presumed barriers to having sex. Sometimes
giving them no effective voice or recognition. The
the outcome of doing so is not problematic, and
most extreme form of ostracism is outlawry, in which
sometimes, perhaps more often, it leads to simmering
a person is cut off from work and social support, and
social strife, punctuated by murder and feuds.
24
 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 full-
length 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 acciden-
tally, she wouldn’t scream or feel ashamed. A man
changing his clothes doesn’t care whether others are
in the room or not, but he’ll turn away and every-
one 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
Illus. Rachel Kahn
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” doesn’t mean
friendly acknowledgment, access to power, and cur-
tailment 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 aren’t any terms or social mechanisms
for helping anyone cope or even talk about their feel-
ings 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
25
 CirCle of Hands

to an extended network of cousins and other marriag- twelve, everyone has worked, everyone has fought in
es well past the range of genetics. Personal surnames some way, everyone has seen at least one bad winter
typically refer to this network and one marries into and one dry summer, everyone has seen family and

2 it as much as or more than marrying that particular

person. The constellation of social ranks and pro-
fessions within it is practically a community of its
own, itself networked with other such groups. When
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 couldn’t
keep her milk down, or the nicest guy in the village
this extended family become widely-known for any who broke his ankle and didn’t make it back from the
reason, positive or negative, it’s called a clan. woods that night – and everyone holds onto life both
fanatically and fatalistically.
So marriage isn’t the unit, nor is it an expression of
a special emotional relationship. It’s a feature within
Everyone knows how babies are made, and everyone
this larger, more significant unit. Not everyone mar- has made hard choices about that – or been overtaken
ries or has kids, but everyone belongs to an extended by it – by about age fifteen. Remember that when you
family and probably to a clan. role-play any character. He or
she made knowledgeable and
Childbirth is both constant
let me tell yOu a Bit mOre aBOut likely desperate life-decisions
and special throughout childhOOd in the crescent land. about sex, marriage, and birth
everyone’s lives. Most women there are nO innOcents here. which in our culture are often
become pregnant and given a
delayed to the mid-thirties.
stable community and some
luck regarding illness and scarcity, many may deliver This is why kin ties become fanatical, whether posi-
up to ten or eleven children. Most of the women of the tive or negative.
Crescent Land are sturdy and healthy – after all, they
Although the death-rate doubles after about age
are still alive – and no one grows up naïve, to be taken
forty, a few people every generation make it to sixty
by labor unexpectedly and without first-hand, eyewit-
and beyond. If a person is hale enough to get that far,
ness experience. Midwifery is not a specific profession
barring accidents, he or more likely she may well last
or even considered a ritualized or special role; the
into the eighties, getting only thinner, tougher, and
skills are readily available across most adult women
smarter with every year, and dying after a very brief
– much like butchery, farming, and making clothing.
decline. However, if and when an older person suc-
The risks are real: there is no anesthetic, no good way
cumbs to senility or to injuries that make him or her
to staunch hemorrhage, no well-understood practices
feeble, ruthless customs set in which slightly reduce
for helping infants born at risk. Tragedy always awaits
his or her care, warmth, and other necessities. It’s not
labor, and of those ten or eleven, perhaps seven will
outright deprivation, and people might not fully know
live to adulthood. But the bodies, will, and commu-
that they’re doing it, but it’s effectively euthanasia.
nity are there, and such tragedy doesn’t occur unless
it cannot be stopped. MONEY AND WEALTH
At first glance, children are locked into social ranks Money barely exists. Food, clothing, shelter, and all
and professions, and that’s true in terms of high per- the basics of life are produced and exchanged in a way
centages, but the exceptions are consistent: peasant that’s difficult for modern people to understand. It’s
children may be adopted into other ranks, gentry not “barter” in the sense that three chickens equals
children typically become professionals with gentry- a pig equals half a goat, nor is it communitarian in
style combat training, and freeman children stay an organized or fairness-oriented sense. Everyone’s
close to their home power structure but are some- living and working and using the stuff that results as
times mentored up to professional status. Children a matter of relationships and proximity.
of the wealthiest families are frequently sent to live
It sounds pretty nice in some ways. If you’re part of
with kin or allies away from home, creating a system
a network of villages, you’re going to be busy doing
of acquaintances and marriages that doesn’t exist for
daily work, you’ll have a place to live and food to
other social ranks.
eat, and people will enjoy your company and share
Let me tell you a bit more about childhood in the opinions with you. Given some stability in the area,
Crescent Land. There are no innocents here. By age leaders and organizers spread around opportunities

26
 Iron Folk

and exchange of all kinds. Given some resources
and some skilled labor available, merchants, priests,
entertainers, and artisans can be supported and pro-
vide a stimulating environment.
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.
Furthermore, the culture has little if any infrastruc-
ture 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 commu-
nity aren’t 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 it’s personal and
social, not legal. The only real recourse against one’s
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 overrid-
den 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-
merce. High quality of this kind arises from some
combination of workmanship, durability, or cultural
history, even for things which are not made of any-
thing special.
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 isn’t known. Gold or rather elec-
trum (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 isn’t known.
Worked items in these metals are very precious, the
more so once they’ve 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 aren’t dispos-
able currency at all. They’re 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 another’s repu-
tations, and rarely made. Having one without being
these people or their known associates is regarded
as theft, and it wouldn’t do you any good anyway,
because such things are not used in general exchange,
and they’re absolutely worthless to anyone else.

SPIRITUALITY
Religion as such isn’t 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, it’s always couched in local history and geography. The idea of standardizing
doctrine hasn’t 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. It’s also not ecstatic and doesn’t concern
contacting the divine or anything like it. When all is said and done, it’s pretty boring in whiz-bang miracle or
spectacle. Instead it’s 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 fac-
tored into the practices, sometimes with startling results, simply because the people there know “that’s how
it is” and don’t 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
2 professional to officiate. The oldest family member
or local chief can do that.
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.
They’re 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 indis-
pensable skill is nothing more than dialogue.
A priest doesn’t act or dress differently from most
people, most of the time. There aren’t 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 commu-
nicates a lot per emblem. In an official conversation
(“gathering,” “service,” “ritual”), he or she wears a
special hat. They are also notable for preparing resin-
ous extract from cannabis, smoked in rituals with a
distinctive long pipe.
So visually at first glance, a priest is not much to talk
about except for the emblem, but his or her profes-
sion 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.
That’s why religion is not very centralized; the clos-
est 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 explic-
it 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
scholars and some scholars like to collect the sayings
of priests, so there’s an extensive library or at least
assortment of available text to discover. No one has
yet tried to compile a definitive, let alone authorita-
tive summary in text form.
At first glance, it’s a loser’s creed: suffer, keep your
chin up, and don’t make waves. Perceiving it as such
is probably why wizards don’t dedicate themselves to
annihilating priests in the first place. Under the sur-
face, though, the religion serves as a social connector
and as a language for steadfastness, the ability to
endure overt abuse while developing and maintain-
ing practical power.
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.
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 organiz-
ers, 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 lich-
centric 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 doesn’t 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 prac-
tices become among community, clan, and kin.
In line with the “soft,” or non-explicit religious culture,
the person’s 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 nev-
ertheless expected by and including all participants.
The body may or may not displayed during the funer-
al, 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, it’s
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 death-
lodge 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 mer-
ited, 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/expo-
sure, 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 invent-
ed them
TECHNOLOGY
People live in villages, not towns in any sense we
think of them, and not cities. A village’s permanent
population ranges from about 100 to about 500
people. Villages aren’t isolated, but are found dot-
ting a geographical region with a common ecological
resource base; people work fields, haul goods, or herd
animals among all of them. Such a community typi-
cally 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-inhab-
ited 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 it, stacking it; chipping tinder, making charcoal,
themselves. laying aside promising pieces for construction and
tools …
The people live in cottages, gather in longhouses, and

2 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
Light is primarily a matter of daylight. Although
blowing glass is a known art, it’s mostly for jewelry –
windowpanes and casings for lamps are not present.
and stone-reinforced cliff-face. They serve as meeting Therefore lamps are not much more than a long-
venues, temporary refuges, and for battened-down burning candle set in oil. The most sophisticated are
defense, but are not necessarily where people live or wheel-made clay oil lamps, open at the top but with
of much interest at peaceful times. a rolled, almost closed spout for the wick – a lot like
a modern gravy boat. Poorer folk use cruder, hand-
A modern visitor to the Crescent Land would be
made simple saucers with one or more pinches to
struck by the time and effort expended regarding fire
hold wicks. Once the sun goes down, most industri-
and heat. The defining feature of a home, rather than
ous activity ceases across the strata of society.
a hut or wretched warren, is the hearth, built of stone
and featuring a chimney – even if it’s hardly bigger HEALTH
than a modern oven, it’s there. Bigger building like
Fortunately, this is not a disease-ridden culture; in
longhouses and halls are only functional insofar as
this, at least, the Crescent Land’s current isolation is a
their hearths burn wood, at multiple points in the
blessing. Cholera, typhus, and plague are unknown, as
building. Hearth fires are kept going all day, every day,
are gonorrhea and syphilis. The most well-known and
all year long; in hot weather they may be no more
feared disease is smallpox, but the ecology does not
than charcoal embers, but they don’t go out. Constant
support reservoir populations so it does not reach epi-
tasks concern wood: gathering it, carting it, chopping

30 Illus. Amos Orion Sterns

 Iron Folk
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.
Isolation is the population’s 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 don’t “live in shit”
or go about caked with mud. But they are helpless
against undetectable or intermittent sources of infec-
tion, and genuine water management is a matter of
local geography and luck.
Although populations typically aren’t devastated
by pestilence, personal tragedy is common. Child
mortality doubles at the very least during flu sea-
sons, especially for those under a year old. A family
without at least one such event in its recent history is
deemed lucky indeed.
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 aren’t 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 griev-
ously sick and injured is rarely acknowledged for
what it really is: euthanasia, including family coun-
seling 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 embed-
ded in cement, but new work of this kind hasn’t been
undertaken for generations, and the architectural
skill for it is scattered at best. Fortresses do include
underground cellars, but they’re 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-
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. It’s also
used for architecture and boundary-walls where it’s
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 ver-
tical 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 it’s 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 what’s 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. It’s 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 fundamen-
tally 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 carburiza-
tion: heating shaped wrought-iron pieces in charcoal,
then quenching them in water, which turns the outer
layers into steel. It’s 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.
2 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 it’s bronze or pewter. Since tin isn’t
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 doesn’t amount to much more than digging a lot.
Every ore deposit has its own characteristic percent-
ages. The more copper, the more malleable it is and
can be worked cold; the less, the more brittle and cast
with heat. Brass isn’t 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 indi-
viduals, so animal care is real but entirely pragmatic.
Objectively speaking, outright abuse of animals is
rare and considered disturbing, but common use isn’t
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 ani-
mals, found everywhere in a bewildering variety of
accidentally-distinctive local colors and sizes. Sheep
are generally easier to tend, but they’re also useless
for work and prone to sudden die-offs, so they’re
more common in rugged mountain areas where
32
herding cattle isn’t possible and animal labor is more
costly than it’s 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 aren’t 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 haul-
ers, 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.
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 stan-
dards, 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. It’s 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 Fam-
berge, and any horse from this region is generally
assumed to be meaner than ordinary, with some justi-
fication. It’s 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.
 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 Fam-
berge 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.

Illus. Phillip Simpson

33
 CirCle of Hands
NARCOTICS AND
PSYCHOACTIVE SUBSTANCES
No human culture has lacked its drugs and alcohol.
2 Every edible grain and fruit yields its well-known
fermentable magic throughout the land in a thou-
sand 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 it’s not native and doesn’t thrive too well,
produces low and inconsistent yields. It is therefore
utilized socially and in small amounts. By modern
standards it’s 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 isn’t 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 don’t pull
their weight in some way, and the most common
social solution to severe addiction isn’t exactly
humanitarian: simply to reduce and ultimately to
deny the ordinary helping upon which every person
in the Crescent Land relies. This results in miser-
able 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 educa-
tion 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 don’t have are schools or even less a school system.
Modern concepts of writing and literacy don’t 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 that’s specific to their professions, both
quantitative and verbal. Such information technol-
ogy 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 farm-
ers 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 trav-
eler 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.
Scholars write and read more in the sense we under-
stand 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 calf-
skin, 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.
 Iron Folk
The term “book” means a collection of related docu-
ments 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. It’s a rather large,
hefty thing, not easily portable, that you keep on a
table or a lectern. It’s certainly a prized possession. If
you own one and aren’t 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 entertain-
ment or leisure. Planting and harvest time bring lots of
harmonic work singing among the freemen and peas-
ants, 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. They’re used mainly
ceremonially, usually for gentry functions, but hardly
ever in music.
Illus. Rachel Kahn
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 dis-
tinctive local craftwork. They’re really loud and the
rhythms wouldn’t 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 lead-
ing enjoyable group fun. They aren’t jesters and don’t
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,

2 “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 doesn’t
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 occasional rise of a charismatic warchief who

THE SOCIAL CONTEXT FOR FIGHTING
Raiding and other offensive violent efforts focus on
scattering people, seizing goods, and destroying habita-
tions and habitat – it’s 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-and-
trading 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 one’s 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
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 isn’t true: people aren’t
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.

36
 Iron Folk
In a land without much institutional memory and
without accountable social responsibilities, few orga-
nized 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 some-
times 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 desig-
nated professions and families. They’re 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. Don’t 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 pock-
ets 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 raid-
reprisals, 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 can’t defend themselves. Some become com-
bined work-slaves and rape camps, similar to the
farm village in The Seven Samurai. Some are simply
brutalized, including mass maiming and mass execu-
tions by spiking six-inch iron nails into people’s 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 person’s anus and then
posted into the ground, such that the person’s
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 per-
son’s 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 don’t 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 enemy’s hall, or given no food and raped
daily until dying. Again, these are displays; they aren’t
carried out in a “chamber” somewhere and require no
special professional skill.
TOOLS OF VIOLENCE
Weapons are rarely manufactured in bulk and dis-
tributed 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 devel-
oping 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
offs once damaged in combat.
The other exception is the sword, which is typically
taught and used only among the gentry, being the

2 to places where people plan to fight. Spontaneous

personal violence typically employs whatever comes
to hand, usually something that’s also a tool like a
quarterstaff, an axe, or especially the knife.
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,
The only metal armor is mail, fashioned as a loose probably due to the lack of mass production and
rustling hauberk (tunic) that reaches to about the distribution, as there is no “military” and massed
elbows and knees, sometimes with a coif (hood), training and weapons supply are flat out of the
worn over a similar cloth garment called a gambe- picture. Similarly, there are no “daggers,” including
son. There are no such things as scale or ringmail, misericordes and other armor-specific forms. An
leather armor, or plate armor. No limb armor is worn, ordinary knife is a tool, not a dedicated weapon.
let alone gauntlets or articulated chausses. Only the
Short bows are common but used in war only
wealthiest and most powerful people in a region have
regionally in Rolke, and there are no longbows at
mail, and a few people they trust. A person who owns
all. Crossbow technology is simple and cumbersome
mail also typically uses the relatively sophisticated
and they are used only briefly in battles; however, the
spangenhelm, built on a steel framework. A recent
revolving nut mechanism has recently been invented
fashion has added ornamental face-masks to the
in Spurr.
spangenhelm in Famberge.
Axes and hatchets are readily available in any
Everyone else fights without protection
community and often employed as weapons.
beyond a round wooden shield, easily
Designs specialized for fighting are most
manufactured; and head protection not
common in Tamaryon, where the Danish-
much different from a wrought iron pot,
style great axe is used by the gentry; it is
called a cone helm. People with mail and
not, however, a fantasy-style double-bit-
spangenhelm also use these shields, as
ted monster but rather a bit lighter than
well as the newer kite design when
a woodsman’s axe. The area is also known
on horseback. All shields are made
for the widely-used and wicked
from wood and are considered
francisca, a smaller axe that
throwaway tech, as a shield
can be thrown at
hardly ever survives a fight. In
lightning
fact, almost all the weapons of
speed.
the Iron Folk are daily tools with weapon
capacity Similarly,
the chained
The main exception, and the primary
mace or flail is
dedicated weapon of the culture, is the
adapted from
spear, used overhand to stab down or to
agricultural
throw. There is no design distinc-
tools into a vicious, effec-
tion between infantry and cavalry
tive weapon by the gentry
spear, and no such things as the
in Spurr, composed of two
ultra-long or jousting lances, or
or more long chains with
the footman’s pike. Spears are
small heads.
dangerous enough as they are –
thrown or used in a mounted
charge, they go
right through
mail as if it didn’t
exist. Similarly to
shields, spears are
considered write-
38
Illus. Sandy Jacobs-Tolle
 Iron Folk

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,
Magic’s 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 power-
Warding spells to Pestilence or Sacrifice is usually
ful and ruthless, knowing no compromise. The lands
straightforward. Rbaja’s 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 swoop-
clear 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
various sizes. The competing magic is a shOcking, cOnsequen- pleas for help and black
wizards can expect fear.
forces are eager to bring these tial FOrce; it cannOt Be easily
lands under their control. hidden nOr dOes the ideOlOgy However, the truth about
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 domi-
throughout the lands, and it is
nated by the Amboriyon
certain that each is up to something, usually thwart-
mages and overseen by the cloud kingdoms is just as
ing one another’s 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 they’re 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 wiz-
Magic 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 practi-
cleansing 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 benevolent-
specific 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
○ Along the coast (Famberge. Rolke, Spurr): scari- type of magic or both, leading to a culture of defiance.
fication, especially on the lower arms, hands, Such efforts typically come to sad ends against magic
and face itself, but they can also topple or rearrange the local
○ In the mountains (inland Rolke): long tangled power structure.
hair
○ Far inland (Tamaryon): iron ornaments, either
worn or used as piercings

39
 CirCle of Hands
SOMETHING NEW
Recently in Rolke, a young man has wrested power
in the region from warring chiefs, themselves
2 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 anyone’s
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 dras-
tic reduction of the effects of Amboriyon and Rbaja
upon the land.
The young leader is called the “king in Rolke,” mean-
ing an acknowledged chieftain of chiefs, a status
which depends solely upon this continued acknowl-
edgment. The verbal construction “king of Rolke,” or
anywhere else, doesn’t exist. Neither is there a court,
an organized tax structure, nor a judiciary or constab-
ulary. It’s 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 raiders-
and-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 king’s efforts were and are notable for its inclu-
sion 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 that’s 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 remi-
niscent of Kurosawa’s 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 com-
mitted to the venture’s 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 char-
acters 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, espe-
cially in its magic mechanics. Therefore for every
character, the route taken depends on what the char-
acter 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, you’ll 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 plan-
ning 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 don’t exemplify it, they will prompt it, or
struggles about it.
The backdrop is good fuel because I’ve 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, you’ll 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
Illus. Phillip Simpson
 Chapter 3F Orging Steel

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

BACKDROP SCENES
○ Maps and regions SITUATION
○ Location and time ○ A particular spot
○ Ecology
○ A time of day or night
○ Culture ○ Immediate geography
○ Who’s there
○ History ○ Immediate history
○ What just happened
○ The magical war ○ The people present
○ Actions and responses
○ Technology ○ Cultural details in force
○ Crises and threats
○ Values ○ The creatures present ○ Opportunities
○ Ethnicities ○ The played characters ○ Consequences
○ Creatures

whO are the circle knights? where have they traveled, and which Ones? what is happening there?
It’s 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: Forget nearly everything you know
about the word “knight.” There are
○ They first meet to create the Circle knights who will serve as a no squires, no chivalry, no flowery
common pool to draw upon when the ventures begin. language, no feudalism, no kingdoms,
Ǯ Everyone, GM included, creates two knights. no castles, no code of honor, no plate
armor, no heraldry on shields or any-
○ The GM prepares the venture for each session. where else, no jousting, no warhorses,
Ǯ Each player chooses a Circle knight from the common pool no Crusades, and no Catholicism.
to play in this venture.

CREATING THE CIRCLE

The player-characters are veteran Circle knights, not
recruits or newcomers. They are experienced and com-
mitted, the core. The Circle includes others but none so
proven, and those others are not identified or played.
If you’re 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 game’s Circle.
The characters are first built through individual work,
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 ven-
ture, but otherwise absent. The GM never plays any
members of the Circle.
If you’re 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:
Ǯ Attributes
Ǯ Homeland
Ǯ Traits
Ǯ Professions
Ǯ Social Rank
3
Ǯ Sex
Ǯ Magic
Ǯ Details
Ǯ Name
Ǯ Arming
Ǯ 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 pres-
ence 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 one’s own
○ Brutal (+1 Brawn +1 Charm): at home with physi-
cal 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 character’s pri-
mary 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, you’re from Tamaryon, whose
people have broad backs.
If Quickness is highest, you’re from Famberge, where
people fight to live.
If Wits is highest, you’re from Spurr, where treachery
is trust.
If Charm is highest, or if the highest score is shared
by one or more attributes, then you’re 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 over-
hanging 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)
Ǯ Some applications: valuable crafts (smithy-
ing, leatherworking, stonemasonry,
shipwright, brewing), assessment of materi-
als, repair, invention
○ Entertainer (low)
Ǯ Some applications: rope-walking, juggling,
exhibitionist dancing, improvisational humor,
dirty fighting, drumming, crowd-pleasing
Ǯ One cannot be both a high and a low enter-
tainer
○ Entertainer (high) – literacy, history
Ǯ Some applications: literacy, highly technical
singing and dancing, playing a rare musi-
cal instrument, knowledge of poetry, high
drama, and literature
Ǯ One cannot be both a high and a low enter-
tainer
○ Fisherman
Ǯ Some applications: boat construction and
use, practical natural history such as tidal
action, ropes and nets, survival at sea
○ Farmer
Ǯ Some applications: agriculture, draft and
meat animals, field medicine, practical
natural history
○ Martial (low)
Ǯ Some applications: camping, hard labor,
pragmatic animal care, very basic first aid,
looting
Ǯ A person may be trained in high martial or
low martial, but not both
○ Martial (high)
Ǯ Some applications: command organization,
battle-relevant decision-making, care and
management of horses, signaling, negotiating
Ǯ A person may be trained in high martial or
low martial, but not both
○ Merchant
Ǯ Some applications: literacy, finances,
trade-relevant geography, varying customs,
practical languages, appraisal of merchan-
dise, people management
○ Outdoorsman
Ǯ Some applications: hunting, living with
minimal shelter, practical geography, swim-
ming, knowledge of animals and plants,
horses and dogs
○ Priest
Ǯ Some applications: liturgical literacy, theolo-
gy, symbology, doctrinal history, counseling,
leading discussions, preparation and use of
cannabis resin
Ǯ To be a Circle knight, one has broken with
the traditional priesthood and to some, is
effectively a heretic
○ Sailor
Ǯ Some applications: shipboard tasks, navi-
gation and practical geography, organized
leadership and teamwork, survival at sea
Ǯ Surprisingly, many sailors cannot swim,
although Circle knights with this back-
ground may be considered among the
exceptions
○ Scholar
Ǯ Some applications: genuine literacy, philos-
ophy, languages, textual history, map-based
geography, natural history
○ Wizard
Ǯ Some applications: magical sensing, knowl-
edge (other wizards, magical creatures,
Rbaja and Amboriyon in general)
Ǯ Wizard cannot be a character’s sole profession.
Social rank is set by the character’s lowest profession
according to the following list.
○ Peasant: Farmer, Fisherman, Entertainer (low)
○ Freeman: Outdoorsman, Sailor, Martial (low),
Priest
○ Professional: Scholar, Artisan, Merchant, Enter-
tainer (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 character’s 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.
3 My character’s Wits of 4 means a single profession.
Although I know “knight” doesn’t 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 char-
acter is a member of the gentry, which in Tamaryon,
means a network of relatives whose members consis-
tently 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 can’t be faked except through Enter-
tainer skills or magical deception.
A few points of interest: professionals can have
Martial (high), such as mercenaries or others who’ve
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 defy-
ing a common enemy, both in pre-Circle experience
and shared venture since. Therefore you may define
your character’s 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 her-
self 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 analysis-
paralyzed don’t 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 that’s 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 char-
acter inspiring groups.
Sometimes a set of spells jumps out at you as just
right for a character, but it’s 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 character’s Wits score.
Ǯ Magic sword: Blade, Envenom, Righteous-
ness (5 points)
Ǯ Flesh shaping: Balm, Scar, Itch (4 points)
Ǯ Working with things: Ruin, Repair, Master,
Noxify (5 points)
Ǯ Crowd control: Throng, Hate (5 points)
Ǯ Master of the dead: Walk, White Light, Black
Speech (5 points)
Ǯ Forest walking: Vine, Trailtwister, Forward (6
points)
Ǯ Combat control: Haze, Confuse, Step, Shin-
ing ( 5 points)
Ǯ All-purpose: Bless, Curse (4 points)
Ǯ Minor magic mastery: Stop, Store, Reflect (5
points)
 Forging Steel

DETAILS ○ 13-14 Facial scar – at least two inches long

The three details are Demeanor, Feature, and Name. ○ 15-16 Well-groomed – notably clean, combed,
Roll the black, white, and red dice again. and kempt, a practice introduced by travelers
from foreign lands
demeanOr: add the black die’s result to Charm.
Each list is presented in ascending value of cultural
○ 3-4 Shy – even if everyone else has spoken once favor, which should give you an idea of the values
already, or stepped forward to be noticed uncritically held by most people. For example, a
○ 5-6 Friendly – a bit distrusted in this culture in scar of this kind merits respect and is not considered
the absence of shared hardship disfigurement.
○ 7-8 Blunt – not vicious or insulting, merely lack-
ing 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 instruc-
tion, but see the notes to understand their precise
meanings, and especially consider that they are the
character’s habits, not utterly locked-in obligations.
Feature: add the white die’s 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 Pan-
anthuri
○ 5 Mismatched eyes – a common genetic quirk
○ 6 Distinctive and permanent work-related
injury – scars of specific sorts, minor amputa-
tion
○ 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 one’s
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 addi-
tion to the Circle emblem ordinarily worn by
the player-characters
Illus. Sandy Jacobs-Tolle
47
 CirCle of Hands

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
○ 5: two syllables

3
○ 6: three or more syllables
Single-vowel syllables are voiced, so “Silke” is two syllables, not one.
Apply the appropriate constraint from social rank:
○ 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 parent’s name, a
husband’s, 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

ADALBERT adal “noble” beraht “raven” ECKBERT “edge of sword,” “bright”

“bright” BJÖRN “bear” EC K H A R D, EC K E H A R D,
ADALWULF adal “noble” wulf BRUNO brun “brown” ECKART, ECKHART ekka “edge”
ALBRECHT hard “brave, hardy”
BURKHARD burg “protection”
ALWIN hard “brave, hardy” EDMUND ead “rich, blessed”
mund “protector”
ANSELM ans “god” helm “helmet, DETLEF þeud “people” leib
protection” “heritage” EDUARD
ANSGAR ans “god” gar “spear” DIETER þeud “people” hari EGON eg, “edge of a sword”
ARNOLD arn “eagle” wald “power” “warrior” ELMO
ARNDT ○ DIDI EMMERICH ric meaning “power”
ARNE DIETRICH, DIETERIK þeud ERDMANN
“people” ric “power” ERHARD, EVERARD era “honor,
ARTUR
○ DIRK, DIERK respect” hard “brave, hardy”
BALDUR bald “bold”
○ TILL, TILLO ○ EVERT
BARTHOLOMÄUS
DIETFRIED þeud “people” frid ERICH, ERIK
BERNHARD bern “bear” “peace, protection” ERNST
○ BENNO DIETHELM þeud “people” helm ERWIN hari “army” win “friend”
○ BERND “helmet, protection”
EWALD ewa “law, custom” wald
BERTHOLD beraht “bright” wald DIETMAR þeud “people” meri “rule”
“rule” “famous”
FALK “falcon”
BERTRAM beraht “bright” hramn EBERHARD eber “wild boar”
FILIBERT filu “much” beraht
○ EBBE “bright”

48
 Forging Steel

FREJ HEINO KURT

FRIEDEMANN frid “peace” man HEINRICH KUNIBERT kuni “clan, family”
“man” ○ HENRIK beraht “bright”
FRIEDHELM frid “peace” helm ○ HEINER ○ KUNO
“helmet, protection” LAMBERT, LAMPRECHT land
○ HEIKE, HEIKO
FRIEDHOLD frid “peace” wald “land” beraht “bright”
○ HEINZ
“rule” ○ LAMMERT
HEILAGR “holy, blessed”
FRIEDRICH frid “peace” ric LANZO
“power” ○ HELGE
LEBERECHT lebe “live”
○ FRITZ HELM helm “helmet”
recht “right”
GEBHARD geb “gift” ○ ELMO
LEOPOLD leud “people”
hard “brave, hardy” HELMFRIED, HELFRIED helm bald “bold”
○ GEBBERT “helmet” frid “peace”
LOTHAR hlud “fame” hari “army”
GERD, GERT HELMUT, HELMOLD helm
LUDOLF hlud “fame” wolf “wolf”.
“helmet” muot “spirit, mind”
GEORG LUDWIG hlud “fame”
○ MALTE, MALTHE
○ JÖRG wig “warrior”
HENDRIK
○ JÜRGEN ○ LUTZ
○ HENNING
GERALD, GERHOLD ger “spear” ○ WIEBE
wald “rule” HERBERT, HERIBERT hari “army”
LUITGER ger “spear”
beraht “bright”
GERO ○ LUDGER
HERMANN
GERFRIED ger “spear” frid “peace” MANFRIED magan “strength”
HERMENEGILD
GERHARDT frid “peace”
HILBERT, HILDEBERT hild
○ GEERT MARWIN
“battle” beraht “bright”
GERNOT ger “spear” hnod “crush”. MEINARD, MEINHARD magan
HILDEBRAND hild “battle”
GERULF ger “spear” wulf “wolf”. “strength”
brand “sword”
GILBERT gisil “pledge, hostage” ○ MEINE, MEINO
HORST “wood, thicket”
beraht “bright” ○ MENNO
HUBERT hug “heart, mind”
GISBERT beraht “bright” beraht “bright” MEINRAD magan “strength,
GREGOR might” rad “counsel”
○ HUPPERT
GÜNTER gund “war” hari ORTWIN ort “point” win “friend”
INGO
“warrior” OSKAR
○ INGE
GUNTRAM gund “war” hramn OSWALD os “god” weald “rule”
INGOLF, INGULF ing “god”
“raven” OTMAR, OTTMAR, OTTOMAR
úlfr “wolf”
GUSTAF od “wealth, fortune”
ISIDOR
HAGAN ○ ODO, OTTO
IVO iv “yew”
HARALD RAGIN “advice, counsel”
KAI
HARTMANN hard “brave, hardy” ○ REIN
KARL, KARLMANN
man RAIMUND, REIMUND
KASPAR
HARTMUT hard “brave, hardy” RAINER, REINER
muot “mind, spirit”. KNUT knútr “knot”
RALF
HARTWIG hard “brave, hardy” KOLOMAN
RAMBERT hram “raven”
wig “battle” KONRAD kuoni “brave”
beraht “bright”
HARTWIN hard “brave, hardy” rad “counsel”
ROBERT
win “friend” ○ KORD
○ RUPRECHT
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 CirCle of Hands

RODOLF, HRODOLF SIEGHARD, SIEGWARD sigu VEIT

○ ROLF “victory” hard “brave, hardy” VOLKER folk “people” hari “army”
○ RUDI, RUEDI SIGISMUND WERNER warin “guard”
ROGER, RUDIGER hrod “fame” SIGISWALD sigis “victory” hari “army”
ger “spear” wald “rule” WERTHER wert “worthy”
ROLAND hrod “fame” land SÖREN hari “army”
SIEG sigu “victory” TORBEN WIELAND wela “skill” land

3 ○ SIGI
SIEGBERT sigu “victory”
beraht “bright”
ULRICH uodal “heritage”

○ UTZ
ric “power”
WULFGANG
WULF
WOLFRAM wulf “wolf ”
SIEGFRIED UWE hramn “raven”

Female names

ADELA, ADELE ERMENTRUD HELGA, HELLA

○ ADA ERNA HENRIKE
ADELHEID FRAUKE “little lady” HERMINE
○ ADELINA, ALINA FREJA HERTA, HERTHA
○ ALEIDA, ALIDA F R I E DA , FRIEDE fried, HILDA, HILDE hild “battle”
○ ALEIT frid “peace” HILDEGARD hild “battle” gard
○ ELKE FRIEDERIKE “enclosure”
○ HEIDA, HEIDI ○ FRITZI HILTRAUD, HILTRUD hild
GERDA “battle” þruþ “strength”
AGATHE
GERHILD ger “spear” hild “battle” HULDA hulda “hiding, secrecy”
ALFREDA
GERLINDE ger “spear” linde IDA id “work, labor”
ASTRID
“soft, tender” INA
AVA avi, “desired”
G E RT R AU D, G E RT RU D INGE, INGA
BERTA, BERTHA beraht “bright,
ger “spear” þruþ “strength” INGEBORG ing “god” björg
famous”
○ TRUDI “protection, help”
BRIGITTA, BRIGITTE
GISELA INGRID ing “god” fríðr “beautiful”
○ GITTA, GITTE
GISA IRMENTRUD, IRMTRUD ermen
B R U N H I L D b r u n “ a r m o r,
GU D RU N g u ð “go d ” r ú n “whole, all” þruþ “strength”
protection” hild “battle”
“secret lore” IRMHILD ermen “whole, all”
DAGMAR dagr “day” mær “maid”
GUNDULA gund “war” hild “battle”
DIETLINDE þeud “people” linde
○ GUNDA IRMINGARD ermen “whole, all”
“soft, tender”
gard “enclosure”
EBBA HEDWIG hadu “battle, combat”
wig “war” ○ IRMGARD
EDITH ead “rich, blessed”
○ HEDY . ISOLDE
gyð “war”
HEILWIG heil “happy, hearty, JESSIKA
EMMA, IRMA ermen “whole” or
“universal” healthy” wig “war” KARLA
○ IMKE, IMMA HEINRIKE KATJA
ERIKA ○ HEIKE KLARA

50
 Forging Steel

KORA ORTRUN ort “point” rún “secret” TABITHA

KRIMHILDE grim “mask” RAIMUNDE ○ TABEA
hild “battle” ROSWITHA hrod “fame” THERESE
KUNIGUNDE kuni “clan, family” swinþ “strength” ULRIKA, ULRIKE
gund “war” SABINE ○ RIKE
○ KINGE SASKIA UTE
LINDA SIEGHILD sigu “victory” VILMA
LUITGARD, LUTGARD leud hild “battle”.
VERENA
“people” gard “enclosure” SIEGLINDE sigu “victory” and
○ VRENI
○ LULU linde “gentle, soft”
WA L B U R G A wald “rule”
MARTHE ○ SIGI
burg “fortress”
MATHILDE, MECHTILDE SILKE
WA LT R AU D w a l d “ r u l e ”
ODA SWANHILD swan and hild “battle” þruþ “strength”

I roll 6, 5, and 1 for the three dice in order. This knight’s 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 knight’s physical description ○ Freemen are familiar with the staff and with
at this point, if you haven’t already. The Iron Folk’s weapons pertaining to their jobs. An outdoors-
most common features are thin-stranded straight man is necessarily skilled with the sling, bow,
hair, blonde or light brown hair color, blue or gray and hand axe, carrying whatever is needed that
eyes, light skin color, high cheekbones, and epican- day.
thic folds. However, much darker curled hair, dark ○ Every character with martial (low) can use the
brown or black hair color, dark brown eye color, staff, hand axe, sling, spear (on foot), bow, and
medium to dark brown skin color, a wider range of crossbow. He or she is armored with the round
facial structure, and no epicanthic folds are also evi- shield. Such characters from Tamaryon are also
dent, usually as a couple of these features at a time. familiar with the francisca.

ARMING ○ A professional without either martial profession

Establish what weapons and armor the character
knows how to use. This isn’t what’s 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 peas-
ants 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.
is unskilled in fighting, but player-characters
receive Circle training (see below).
○ 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 indepen-
dently of their individual backgrounds. First, determine
from the list above what kind of arms or fighting is
appropriate for the person’s 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 don’t
care, choose the spear. Such characters are also trained
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 river’s defenders
hacked its demonic captain apart, axe against axe.
She was equally afire with wrath as her husband

3 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 Tama-
ryon also grants the great axe and francisca; and like
everyone she has a personal knife. She doesn’t 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 lan-
terns 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 com-
mitted to the Circle. Don’t describe it philosophically
or in the abstract. Describe the scene in 150 words or
less. Do not include summaries or directives of the
character’s current behavior.
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 foe’s head high,
that it was her husband’s. Krimhilde’s exulted cry,
and the answer of those who followed her, shriveled
into silence.
It may be tempting to conclude the Key Event descrip-
tion with a motivational or summarizing statement.
Resist this. Describe the scene, and that’s 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 Ambi-
tious 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:

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
○ Social rank
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 character’s actions or by another’s; 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.
Describe that vividly remembered moment in 150 words or less.
52
 Forging Steel
○ The character gets two professions, and think-
ing 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 character’s 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, he’s 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.
Illus. Sandy Jacobs-Tolle
○ 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 who’d warned him that the snow-haired
women from the clouds could not be trusted,
the one who’d 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 other’s
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.
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
doesn’t affect homeland, professions, details, or any-
thing else). The single character with the lowest total
scores gets a Gift of the player’s 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 Trait-
modified 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 (Mein-
rad), 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 Krimhilde’s C to 6. The lowest-scoring
character with a total 18, now 19, also gets a Gift
of the player’s choice. As Meinrad is included in the
higher half of scores, his numbers do not change.
A LOOK AT
THE CHARACTER SHEET
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 Ambori-
yon, oaths, tracks for injuries and other changes to
Attributes, and tools for managing options in combat.
53
 CirCle of Hands
PREPARING A VENTURE
If you’re 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 it’s most definitely a matter of personal
choice and responsibility. A lot of the preparation is determined by dice, but a lot isn’t, most especially those things
skirt along the Lines.
SITUATION, NOT SCENES
3
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 man-
ager or even the primary entertainer. His or her role is
merely one part of the division of labor among people
who’ve 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 “I’m 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 doesn’t even and
shouldn’t 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 cre-
ation. 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 inter-
est, 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 person’s name
Ǯ alternately, one of the root-words for names
○ Or a feature of the land or community
Ǯ Geography: -ach, -au, -bek, river or stream;
-furt, ford; -ey, -wert, island; -bühl, hill; -berg,
mountain; -tal, valley; -wald, forest; -hagen,
wood or hedged field; -halde, hillside
Ǯ Community: -roth, -rode, clearing; -brück,
bridge; -feld, field; -um, home; -hof, farm-
houses; -hut, guard; -burg, keep, fortress;
or area associated with it; -stedt, steading;
-dorf, village
Ǯ Historical: -wend, historically evocative of
the Pananthuri
If it’s 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; lütten-, unter-, lesser;
nien-, new
○ Descriptive: lichten-, open, grun-, green, schön-
, good or nice
It’s perfectly all right to be completely literal. Most
exotic-sounding names world-wide don’t mean much
more than “Bob’s Town” or “Rocky Hill” anyway.
I look at Rolke and decide upon the mountains,
thinking about a fortress. The civil war has shat-
tered the long-standing gentry there, but it but it still
has their name. I go with Magan- (“strength”) and
–burg (“fortress”).
 Forging Steel
COMPONENTS
Don’t 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 follow-
ing list.
1 Humanitarian crisis
Ǯ Massacre, battles, natural disaster, famine,
ethnic cleansing, oppression – as bad as one
may imagine, given the standards for this
venture
Ǯ Focus on human agency in either perpetra-
tion or in response.
Ǯ Circle knights try to solve obvious problems
to garner good will
2 Social rank tensions at a crisis point
Ǯ Economics, local history, and brewing group
violence; and as a group, no social rank is a
pushover
Ǯ Local war is an excellent example, but for
less atrocious circumstances, ordinary eco-
nomic tension can drive people to equally
extreme acts
Ǯ Circle knights are themselves demolishers
of social rank and recognize an opportunity
to extend it, even if they can’t explain it
Ǯ Circle knights from this region have some
insight into the history of the situation once
they get there
3 Opportunity for Rolke
Ǯ A chance for peace, trade, cooperation of
any kind
Ǯ All else being equal, this seems easy, a nice
chance for trade or friendship, but it’s also
easy to screw it up
Ǯ Circle knights try to secure clear possible
advantages for Rolke
4 Knowledge
Ǯ A piece of foreign technology, a historical
fact, an informational document like a map,
or something similar
Ǯ 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
Ǯ It’s not just sitting there, but in use or in con-
tention, or with strong potential for either
Ǯ Circle knights try to secure clear possible
advantages for Rolke
5 Monster or similarly dangerous specific threat
Ǯ Beast, monster, avatar, or undead
Ǯ It’s more than a wumpus to hunt; it’s fixated
on or related to the local community in some
way
Ǯ Circle knights try to solve obvious problems
to garner good will
6 Rbaja interference, covert or overt
Ǯ Pure horror, nightmare fuel
Ǯ An Rbaja wizard, a demon, an enchantment,
or an Rbaja zone
Ǯ Circle knights are at war with Rbaja
7 Amboriyon interference, covert or overt
Ǯ “The light which blinds”
Ǯ An Amboriyon wizard, an eidolon, an
enchantment, or an Amboriyon zone
Ǯ Circle knights are at war with Amboriyon
By design, neither a humanitarian crisis nor Ambori-
yon 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 opportu-
nity 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
3
– this is what the little maps are for
○ Tripwire – conditions which provoke extreme
actions or an event
WITHIN EACH COMPONENT
It’s time to decide what exactly each component is,
simply and quickly. First, think of the precise loca-
tion, to get an idea of the kind of thing you’d 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 compo-
nent, using the open circles above as the lists
for phenomena
○ Two: A doubled phenomenon for the highest-
numbered component, e.g. two demons, or a
demon and a wizard
Ǯ For #2, this result means three social ranks
in conflict
○ Three: A tripled phenomenon for the highest-
numbered component, e.g., three demons, or a
demon and two wizards, or a demon, a wizard,
and a zone
Ǯ 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 there’s just one phenomenon in each component.
For comparison, the 3 6 6 roll mentioned earlier
would yield two phenomena involved in the oppor-
tunity, even though it’s still only a single component.
56
The knowledge: I’m 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. It’s just an animal,
but once in “go” mode, it’s a shocking threat.
As this is a grim venture, both components begin
soaked in blood – people had been especially unhap-
py 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) you’re using, stay with them
alone. This is a really tempting creep: some playtest-
ers wound up piling four or five components into
their preparation when they’d rolled just one or two,
because they were distracted by some of the details in
Chapter 7 that are intended for in-scene rules. That’s
not a situation-preparation concern; you don’t 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,
don’t 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 every-
one else is long over. If one of my components were
#2, you can bet it’d still be hot and fierce, but without
that component, it’s a dead issue, now merely part of
the back-story.
AMONG THE COMPONENTS
If you have more than one, yes, they’re in the same
spot and potentially affect one another. However, do
not go down that road during preparation. It’s tempt-
ing to weave them together instantly. Stop and don’t
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 isn’t always a bad thing but in this case, given
the description of the wyrm in Chapter 7, it’d 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 work-
ing 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 don’t have soap opera, because it’s what the
people are for. They’re 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 compo-
nents; make separate ones for each. They don’t
even have to know one another.
○ Always conceive of them relative to the compo-
nents 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 attach-
ments; just one or two thoughts are fine at this
point.
○ Add one more named person to a given compo-
nent 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, who’s managed to pre-
serve it. An actual son of the gentry is tempting, but
social rank isn’t concealable and it’s safe to say all of
them were killed, especially since I’m 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 he’s 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 who’s 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 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.
I’ll go with the later step, because I like the idea of
someone who’s allied with the wyrm, supplies it
periodically with neat items, and uses it against
enemies. I’m 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
I’m thinking about a freeman who’s fought in many,
57
 CirCle of Hands
many battles for others, and is now a scarred, cyni-
cal, 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 community’s neck.
3 Although Eckhart’s tough and obviously cruel
toward those outside his sphere of leadership, his
son is his real problem: a young man who envies
his father’s 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; out-
doorsman + 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 father’s 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 sec-
tion 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.
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-
58
tion with his or her social rank, and you’re all set,
especially when the game mechanic called ascension
gets going, as explained in Chapter 4.
Circle knights do not arrive to solve anyone’s per-
sonal 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, that’s all, and
they have specific actions and agendas wrapped up
with the overall component concept they’re 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 compo-
nent, with any degree of soap opera, will do.
MAPS AND LOCATIONS
I don’t 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. I’ve done a lot of rough camp-
ing 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.
I’m thinking of the terrifying maze-map in Ursula
K. LeGuin’s The Tombs of Atuan. If I were to show the
players that map for a few seconds and say, “Yeah,
that’s what you’re 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!
 Forging Steel

Famberge: Church In The Woods

Illus. Dyson Logos

59
 CirCle of Hands

Famberge: Mountain Lake

Illus. Dyson Logos

60
 Forging Steel

Spurr: Lich Citadel

Illus. Dyson Logos

61
 CirCle of Hands

Spurr: Spurr Proper

Illus. Dyson Logos

62
 Forging Steel

Rolke: Mountain Fortress

Illus. Dyson Logos

63
 CirCle of Hands

Rolke: Coastal Town

Illus. Dyson Logos

64
 Forging Steel

Tamaryon: River Cut

Illus. Dyson Logos

65
 CirCle of Hands
I also use any of the many little maps available on-
line 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 per-
3
fect. It features simple huts, confusing pathways and
dense forest. Wulf lives here.
For the location associated with the wyrm, no prob-
lem here – I seize upon the mountain pass flanked
by a fortress including a rampart spanning the pass
presented in this book (“Rolke: Mountain Fortress”).
It’s 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.
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
66
in play – boils over into more explicit, uncompromis-
ing 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,
“That’s 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 wyrm’s private lair is disturbed. Triggering
this tripwire means that the wyrm goes wild with
rage. This doesn’t 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
I’m still honoring the point that nothing should nec-
essarily combine any details of the two components,
in that neither tripwire includes both the map and
the wyrm.
Tripwires aren’t there to be either goals or as hidden
traps, so the GM isn’t obliged to drive toward them or
manipulate players into them. Similarly, the players
don’t know what they are, so no one will be seeking
or avoiding one.
They’re merely … there. Waiting patiently.
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.
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 loca-
tion and any key words to help me remember its
features, and the third states the tripwire. An example
diagram is on the next page.
Review the standard for tone, adding briefly-described
events, groups, and back-story to drive it home.
I look it all over, remembering that the ordinary
harshness of Iron Folk life is considerably worse here.
This isn’t a very functional community. The social
upheavals haven’t settled into a viable farming,
hunting, and trade structure yet, and Eckhardt’s
use of the wyrm has worked in the short term, but
certainly hasn’t contributed to better relations or
 Forging Steel

sustainable commerce with anyone else. Illness, A BIT AT SEA?

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 one’s hands are clean here. Eckhart has mas-
sacred neighboring communities with the wyrm at
least once. Ivo’s 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.
Think viscerally and sympathetically with the peo-
ple’s priorities, and understand why they are the way
they are. Even if they are cruel, vicious, selfish, violent
people, don’t make them psychopaths.
It’s 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 desig-
nated 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. There’s plenty of
danger here, but exactly what sort, and from whom,
and why, is left to the events of play.
Good! Your preparation is not a puzzle or a problem,
so don’t solve it by imagining what anyone will do after
play begins. There are plenty of in-play game mechan-
ics that will take care of all the people’s 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 don’t have to find anything out, or to
complete an assigned task, or to stop any of the people
there from doing what they’re doing.
Not one of those named people is inclined simply to
give them the map. Yet every one of them is poten-
tially interested in what the knights can do for him
or her. There’s tons of room for judgments and deci-
sions 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, it’s a pretty benign one
after all.
Beware habits of story-making!
Again, my treacherous mind instantly suggests that
I tie Ivo to Vreni, making them siblings or enemies
or whatever. Don’t 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.

Named People Location Tripwire

Component 1
WULF & VRENI HUTS IN THE FOREST WULF IS KILLED (the map)
Component 2
(the wyrm)

ECKHART’S THE WYRM’S LAIR IS

ECKHART & IVO
FORTRESS DISTURBED

67
 CirCle of Hands

It’s rather nice not to worry about story control, with no need to rehearse upcoming play events. I don’t 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 don’t have to think about a climactic scene or designate a bad guy or final boss.
Don’t worry about how hard it is. A given venture is not supposed to be hard, medium, or easy in mechanics terms.
It’s merely interesting and that’s all.
Don’t worry about how good it is. These prep tools I’m 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.

3 JUST BEFORE STARTING

PLAY GETS GOING

Gethyn wrote these ideas to express

The GM tells everyone else these things only:
○ Which region
Ǯ The venture’s approximate location within
that region, “at the coast,” or “along a main
river,” without further detail
○ The lowest-numbered component
Ǯ Few or no details, although with some indi-
cation of its intensity
Ǯ No details about how they heard about
it, especially no content or implication of
anyone “calling for help”
For the group’s 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 knight’s Wits value.
Play does not begin at the Circle’s 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, it’s yours.
You don’t 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.
68
a knight’s 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 Ambo-
riyon 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 knight’s homeland provides a distinct
accent (no need to role-play it, but the char-
acters 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.
○ Social rank + Professions are probably the most
important. They comprise the bulk of every-
one’s 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 with-
out 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. Circum-
stances might lead to them acting differently,
but if they do, people will notice that it’s a big
shift for them.
 Forging Steel
○ The Key Event is unique to the character. It
really changed him or her, leading to total com-
mitment 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 auto-
matic sources of conflict between player-characters.
They may be either expressed as given during ordi-
nary 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 what’s 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.
69
Illus. Phillip Simpson
 Chapter 4C irCle OF Steel

The backdrop’s in place, and the situation’s productive components are prepared, both for the Circle knights and
the location. Now it’s 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.

SCENES
BACKDROP
○ Maps and regions SITUATION
○ Ecology ○ Location and time
○ A particular spot
○ Culture ○ Immediate geography ○ A time of day or night
○ History ○ Immediate history ○ Who’s there
○ The magical war ○ The people present ○ What just happened
○ Technology ○ Cultural details in force ○ Actions and responses
○ Values ○ The creatures present ○ Crises and threats
○ Ethnicities ○ The played characters ○ Opportunities
○ Creatures ○ Consequences

This is where it gets personal. Something may be in the backdrop, and when all’s said and done that’s mere words
on paper, but this-right-here is what your character is seeing, and what’s happening to him or her, and that’s 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. It’s when you play
not to protect one another, but to stay with one another through it. I don’t mind saying I’ve been doing this for a
long damn time, and here are the ways – the only ways – this works.

○ Start with Veils ○ Set your own damn Lines!!

Ǯ Pull them aside when it strikes you, without
planning
Ǯ Set them in place when you need to – think
of it as editing
Ǯ And when someone else sets a Veil in place,
listen to them and let that edit stand
Ǯ Don’t set Lines to protect other people
Ǯ Remember that no one knows when it’s
a Line for you, so you must say so, and be
ready to walk along it
Ǯ And when someone else sets a Line, listen to
them and don’t cross it
Ǯ Don’t 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.

71
 CirCle of Hands
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 what’s 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 wonder-
ing what someone is like or whether a thing is over
there or where one’s character is standing. Talk about
space, people’s positions in it, and their motion.
4
I think imagery beyond that function is great, but it’s
about invocation, not bloviating – you are not replac-
ing 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 imag-
ines a lot.
WHAT IS THE GM
Our hobby language dichotomizes the terms “GM”
and “player,” and I don’t think any re-terming is going
to change that. I can only say here that in playing Circle
of Hands, the term doesn’t 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 stop-
ping scenes. When it comes
72
to playing within scenes, the only real difference is
playing multiple people and creatures. I don’t even
recommend anyone holding the role of conductor,
such as managing who gets to talk.
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
Ǯ Describe things briefly and to orient charac-
ters’ relative positions
Ǯ Cross, cross, cross – as described below
○ Pay attention to the explicit moving parts of the
system
Ǯ Social dynamics within the components,
tripwires, fighting and deaths, magic and
Gifts
Ǯ Use outcomes of these mechanics to prompt
your characters’ new actions
○ Nothing else
Decisions about “what to do” aren’t 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, there’s more
Illus. Rachel Kahn
 CirCle of Steel
than enough motivated action to play with during a
scene. It’s Mitch’s 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
A couple of playtesters were concerned that eliminat-
ing permanent character ownership would decrease
people’s commitment to play. However, the result was
always just the opposite. In a way, you’re wonderfully
free: you get to ask and answer “who am I?” for this
THE BIG PICTURE
GETTING INTO IT
Start in the middle of traveling to the venture loca-
tion, 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 immedi-
ate reach. Descriptions begin with the transition into
these areas, continue with further travel, and end
with the transition into the destination. The GM’s
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 it’s
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 outdoors-
men. They’re 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 aren’t ser-
vants or lackeys and can’t be ordered around, nor are
the Circle knights responsible for their safety. This
shifting-cast group is assumed to be around through-
out 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-
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.
You’re not there to discover the GM’s story, nor do
you get through a venture by winkling out the back-
story or by working through a sequence of fights. This
really is about the person you’re 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.
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 con-
tent, miserable, or considering killing the outsiders
in their beds. A member of the gentry won’t 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 wel-
coming or suspicious.
Their social ranks and professions also set up what
happens when they arrive, which is essentially the
same in every venture. Here’s 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 commu-
nity. You don’t have to look for a place to stay.
When you say your name, it’s confirmatory
rather than introductory.
○ This isn’t visiting, but more like moving in for a
while. People in this culture have expectations
for what you’ll do in their home community,
and they’ll be watching to see whether you meet
them.
Remember, there isn’t any money – you don’t pay for
stuff like lodging or food, it comes to you as the people
73
 CirCle of Hands
accept your social activity. They assume you’re going
to provide it: butchering, hunting, farming, smithy-
ing, religious work, and whatever else is implied by
a person’s social rank and profession. Do it, and your
needs get folded into everyone else’s, 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 it’s 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 pro-
fession and social rank, as it applies to the immediate
4 and normal situation.
If you don’t do that, you don’t get anywhere to sleep
or eat, you don’t get clean water, you don’t get talked
to, and if you’re 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 doesn’t 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 someone’s cottage
or longhouse, and not even necessarily a spare bed.
All a player has to do is get used to the character’s
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, it’s not stressful – it’s normal and about ordinary
people acting like they do. There’s no need to go lurk-
ing 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.” There’s no
need to play in a defensive crouch. On the contrary,
playing the opening of an venture in this way gener-
ates 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.”
74
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 noth-
ing 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. Some-
times, 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 out-
comes 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 des-
ignated 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 don’t
manage how and when others talk.
○ You do not protect. If they all die, then they all
die. If they completely bork the Circle’s poten-
tial gains during this venture, then they do.
Good enough for what you don’t 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: it’s 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 open-
ing 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
 CirCle of Steel

By definition all non-Circle wizards are in this cat- do badly with the locals, they hate you, and they try
egory, as they only come into play via the preparation to kill you, let’s see if you get out of there,” and never
components. These people are incredibly powerful mind the elaborate back-story with the butcher’s
and are certainly affecting the lives of every other daughter, her panther friend, and the lurking lich.
person in the situation, or are about to. Even more
named people come into view via ascension, which ACTION DOESN’T WAIT
turns incidental or background individuals into con- What then? It began with those Charm rolls and the
sequential and active characters. specific actions taken, but it goes on with the explicit
moving parts of the system: each component’s social
The Circle of Hands GM should develop a certain bru-
dynamics, 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 out-
social 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
if a person feels that he or she
p eOple react tO perceived
At its heart, I’m talking about
threats and seize upOn sOlu-
is acting with social backing, people in this situation as
tiOns with a great deal OF
that person may be startlingly sOcial and physical FOrce. characters, not corridors to
aggressive about it. set-pieces, or walls block-
ing actions or insights. The
The second half of this chap-
consequences keep on going, because the people
ter provides very specific mechanics toward these
you’re playing may change their minds, but regard-
ends, 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 don’t make people obedient, but rather
trust-based culture, so even violent or otherwise
proactive in expecting the Circle knight’s help.
questionable behaviors can be accepted at this status.
Wits is a bit more about orienting and context-build- Since the Circle of Hands GM isn’t responsible for a
ing, not so much specific clues as setting up for more story, only for playing the next scene, enjoy the lack
effective action later. of a plan and your freedom in that scene to “hit back”
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 you’ve ever
effective resources available to solve such problems.
been a GM in any role-playing game, you’ve 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 back-
Use these mechanics for every single named person ground, you describe something that happens which
a Circle knight interacts with, without fail, and con- resulted from some previous scene. That’s 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-rehears-
Circle 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 that’s the primary skill
employed in many other games.
one needs to bring to GMing it.
A venture doesn’t 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
75
 CirCle of Hands
play, basically a more vivid experience, and that in
itself is a good thing, but it doesn’t “do” much nec-
essarily. 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 physi-
cal 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.
4
○ Opportunities are presented for players to be
proactive about things which aren’t immediately
shoved in their face. They can do this with or
without character-knowledge, injecting con-
structive coincidence into play just as easily as
acting upon one’s 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 won’t.
They’re 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 that’s going on. They
also can’t 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, they’re 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, it’s definitely a
big change in what’s going on: a game-changer, deal-
breaker, 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 whatever’s
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 you’re trying to railroad into play.
76
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 don’t need to steer
toward or away from them, and you don’t 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 con-
flicts will be? Nope! But are they great fun when they
happen? They sure are! And if something else hap-
pens which is totally nowhere near a tripwire but is
even bigger and flashier than it, then that’s 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 con-
tent and with a satisfying look at the Circle knights’
personalities and abilities. Since a venture isn’t 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.
Let’s work backwards to see how these things come
about.
○ A killing is preceded by the decision to kill on
someone’s 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 one’s 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 it’s not a crisis point in enjoyable fiction-
al terms, it’s 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 escala-
tions from there, straightforward moral disgust at a
person’s actions or views, and more. The mechanics
of play are built specifically to open the door to such
decisions without having to program them.
 CirCle of Steel
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 it’s 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, there’s nothing
wrong with that.
But maybe it isn’t 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
Illus. Rachel Kahn
and problems may still be occurring, and make sure
you don’t cut off a Circle knight from some intended
action but play doesn’t have to run down every last
detail once something like this has happened.
AFTERMATH
Finish the session by describing the long-term conse-
quences 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-especially-
directed social changes that began with the cultural
revolution in Rolke.
There’s no need to justify or explain how that hap-
pens. Don’t 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 don’t 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 can’t 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 mas-
sacres or disasters can rebound in positive ways.
77
 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 wasn’t a good day for
the Circle or for the king, and whatever the longer
arc of Rolke and the Crescent Land may be, the after-
math 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 there’s no real way for the
people playing the Circle knights to work toward
“the setting is merely a skin” will trip you right up.
There’s a learning curve involved for everyone: cer-
tainly 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 can’t be forced, but rather treated as a
process. Some points which might help include:

4 or against these outcomes. They don’t know what

the tripwires are during the venture, so can’t try to
avoid them. You can’t really say the possible negative
outcome is “all their fault,” at least not in terms of
direct blame. The “defeat” is a more abstract, long-
term, 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 knights are self-directed. They’re not
policemen or special agents with an assigned
mission.
○ There’s 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 isn’t anything about a matched-in-power
challenge.
○ In the long-term, the whole situation is prob-
ably going to resolve well but it also might not,
and there’s not much they can do about that.
It’s 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 cur-
rently 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 it’s 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 com-
ponents 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 aren’t 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
What happens if initial Circle creation is disrupted in apiece, with long-term individual participation, a lot
some way? What happens if some people can’t play of accumulated fictional material, and plenty of local
following initial Circle creation? What happens if and personal changes brought about through play.
people join the game later with new characters? But achieving this is a real-world, real-people phe-
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 I’d 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 don’t get it by making social promises that it’ll
solution. happen, nor by designing
The best thing for the first and publishing reams and
the Only real payOFF is internal in
reams of setting or story-arc
is to wait until all the char- each One: mOments OF pure char-
acter creation prior to the acter expressiOn in actiOn and at material.
half-and-half comparison risk, ending in triumph Or disaster. 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
characters are ready, then go ahead and finish. The new kinds of value arise from playing together again.
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,
For the second, go ahead and play, but keep the the Circle knights themselves.
characters made by the non-participants out of the That’s 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 hasn’t and that this is best taken as a given in the setting’s
been able to join in by then, then the characters they long-term history and isn’t modeled or monitored
made fade out of play. in play. That’s why play maintains a certain distance
For the third, retaining the initial cutoff value is the from the king and his holdings, too, such that ven-
best plan, with new characters simply added to that tures set in Rolke still require a fair amount of travel.
list and taking the +1 (or not) as its prior-assigned Since there is no resulting arc of setting-level accom-
boundary dictates. What I do not recommend is per- plishment from a string of ventures, the only real
mitting a player to sit down at the table and choose payoff is internal in each one: moments of pure
from the Circle without bringing anything to it. He character expression in action and at risk, ending in
or she should bring two characters just like everyone triumph or disaster.
else did, and play one of those for that player’s first
Achieving that result is enough for me, without a
time at the table, just like they did as well.
larger arc to embed it in. Therefore play should end
I also wish that no one would miss a session of play, primarily because everyone playing thinks that the
because observing how each Circle knight is played, dramatic outcomes within ventures have hit a high
each time, by different people, is a key mechanic of point, serving as an intrinsic climax.
the game.
BIGGER ISSUES
LONG-TERM PLAY The larger story of the Crescent land over time, spe-
Playing Circle of Hands isn’t about building a “grand cifically the fate of Rolke, is not itself a play mechanic
campaign,” but it is about playing many sessions. And or even an expected feature of play. Whatever that
yes, I know that’s confusing. It breaks the dichotomy saga is, yes, to the characters, the Circle is instrumental
of “campaign,” implying big changes in the charac- in the outcome. But play and we as people don’t make
ters and/or setting, vs. “one-shot,” implying a single it happen through our actions and ideas at the table,
session. 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.” That’s my main concern in practice. I’m 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. I’m 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?

4 What are the overall weather patterns (into which the described seasons fit), how long is a year? In fact, what’s 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 don’t know and I don’t want to know. To a great extent I’m letting the region’s isolation do the work for me – stay-
ing close to the culture’s limited knowledge level lets me play stupid about world-building, and for this game’s
character-centric focus, that’s 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 people’s experience of them can’t be distinguished from ours,
without explaining (or knowing) why.
I’m 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 what’s happening here is powerful and moving, so let’s stay right here.
Or … maybe I’m merely too close to it at present. Maybe I’ll 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. It’s
not supposed to be a choice by the GM or by anyone
else. The various situations in which dice aren’t
used are explicitly called out – so otherwise, use’em.
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
doesn’t. 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
knight’s rolls. Don’t roll Charm or Wits or anything
similar for any people or creatures who aren’t
Circle knights. Their actions are always profession-
appropriate 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 charac-
ters 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
there’s an advantage die intrinsic to the combat rules
described in Chapter 5. If the character is acting with
such an advantage, and if it’s 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. It’s pri-
marily 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 physi-
cal reflexes or alertness of attention. It’s 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
something’s in the way.
Wits orients a person in difficult or vague circum-
stances, including geography, social dynamics, and
connections among known details. It does not refer
to memory capacity or education.
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.
At all times, rolling with an attribute uses its cur-
rent 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, don’t 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 other’s help is relevant or makes it easier,
then dice are rolled for both, and if either suc-
ceeds, 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
doesn’t have a relevant profession, then they’re ter-
rible 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.
Rolling to notice isn’t 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.
This means you don’t get to sneak past guards. There
aren’t any jobs in the modern sense, so if someone’s
guarding somewhere, then he or she really means it,
and so they see you. You’re effectively dealing with
a fight situation in which excellent evasive success
means you get past, and if not, you’re embroiled in the
fight mechanics. There’s no “sneaky guy” profession
which means they stand there scratching themselves,
so forget it.
PROFESSIONS RULES
There are no individually-designated skills in the
game. Instead, a person’s professions define the scope
of his or her deliberate actions, and the relevant attri-
bute is used for the required dice roll.
There is no general education in the culture. Life is
tough – people don’t have time or opportunities for
side hobbies and developing skills outside of their
demanding daily tasks. Therefore if your Circle
knight doesn’t have a profession relevant to an
intended action, he or she effectively can’t 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 con-
sider 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 outdoorsman’s skill
with a bow, and the quarterstaff, justly famous as the
“all man’s 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 condi-
tions, 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
4 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 people’s 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.
82
However, don’t under-estimate people. Circle knight
or not, you’re 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 – don’t
think you can kill a person that easily on terrain
they’ve worked all their life. The helpless peasant
you’re chasing down on horseback knows where the
woodchuck holes are.
CHARM IS EVERYTHING
At the community level, a stranger is afforded near-
neutral 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, they’ll 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 opinion-
ated. To them, these newcomers must stay or leave,
help or be squelched, fight for them or get killed, or
Illus. Rachel Kahn
 CirCle of Steel
anything like these and more besides. They act on
these expectations and desires, they do not skulk
around in hopes the Circle knights won’t notice and
will go away.
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 doesn’t matter
whether the Circle knight is “trying to charm” that
person at all. This moment of resolution is not only
automatic, it’s hugely consequential for that person.
He or she responds to that particular Circle knight’s
presence one way or the other, and not mildly either.
○ A failed roll means this person doesn’t trust
you (meaning the Circle knight), thinks you’re
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 don’t.
○ A successful roll means this person not only
thinks you’re pretty all right to have in the com-
munity, 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 assump-
tion that easily overlooks observational facts.
Here’s 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 hasn’t
demonstrated such activity in the community, then
the roll’s reduced to this woeful status. Be aware:
show up, fit in, do some work, be socially and profes-
sionally 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
rolls, a Circle knight can get away with blatant murder
or other anti-social acts. That’s what life in the Cres-
cent Land is like, and the knights, like everyone else,
think this is normal.
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.
WITS AND KNOWLEDGE
Wits rolls are going to be a potential problem for play-
ers 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
there’s a village in the mountains and everyone has
iron heads on their spears, then you don’t need to use
Wits to find the smith, or to find that he’s 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 informa-
tion simply through their own life-experience and
membership in the culture.
Wits rolls’ most concrete applications are to get famil-
iar 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 what’s 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 ascen-
sions of NPCs. Use a Wits roll to find “someone who’s
good at midwifery,” or “an old person,” or what-
ever, 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. It’s 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.
It’s also helpful to lock down what’s known to whom
at the start of a venture.
4 ○ The knights know:
Ǯ The lowest-numbered component of the
venture, in the barest possible detail, as
available through rumor and intermediate
parties.
Ǯ 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 venture’s
prepared people or circumstances.
○ Most people who live there know:
Ǯ About the Circle, but extremely vaguely, and
without much automatic judgment, prefer-
ring to see how these particular people
behave.
Ǯ 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:
Ǯ Priests understand the long-term implica-
tions of both kinds of magic. How a person
chooses to act on that knowledge is defi-
nitely an individual decision.
Ǯ 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 accu-
rately, which is aimed at something besides
themselves.
84
○ People of Tamaryon generally understand ava-
tars and eidolons better than in other regions, to
the extent of organizing socially against them,
but also succumbing to them all the harder.
○ 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 retali-
ate. Practicing Rbaja wizards are rare there for
this reason, whereas knowledgeable scholars
are more common.
○ Rolke is more complex:
Ǯ 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.
Ǯ 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. It’s 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 guy’s
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 aren’t stupid and
realize that they’re 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 doesn’t prompt automatic hostility by default. If
you’re looking to justify a failed Charm roll, though,
that’s a pretty good way.
Professionals pay and get paid in very similar cur-
rency – 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 can’t 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
 CirCle of Steel
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.
Freemen simply provide all of what they do directly,
first to their families and kin and fellow participants,
and then to their immediate communities. It’s 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.
Peasants are surprisingly similar to gentry in being
included and taken for granted, in a grubbier, less
comfortable way. They’re 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 don’t 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. It’s 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.
It’s 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 aren’t part of the
culture at all; characters aren’t 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 prompt-
ed 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 member-
ship, “What’s 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: “It’s 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 he’s 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 they’re 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 whatever’s 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 just-
ascended people; nothing about ascending someone
establishes a relationship that supercedes the Charm
vs. 12 roll. Ascending unnamed characters but follow-
ing 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 one’s social rank of origin
is evident. However, she is not subject to social cen-
sure 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 decision-
making power without qualms thereafter.
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 CirCle of Hands

The example character in Chapter 3, Krimhilde,
doesn’t 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 she’s doing.”
A local community in the Crescent land is tied togeth-
er tightly by kin, economic necessity, and shared
history, much of it violent. Therefore sexual activity
is a big deal; everyone cares about who’s doing what
with whom. As outsiders, Circle knights’ actions are
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 imagin-
able evil. But they are not obliged to be present in the
situation (Chapter 3’s 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.
○ Whether the experience is to include this
content, which should model the best literary

4 under scrutiny and judgment. They are plot-armored

regarding romantic commitment and pregnancy, such
that players can choose what happens either way. A
Circle knight could well end up married during or
and cinematic examples rather than gore-porn,
misery porn, or exploitation.
○ If present, the degree of explicit presence in
following an venture, for example. The events lead- the imagined material is its own variable to be
ing up to it, though, may well incur individual and judged by anyone and everyone playing.
community responses which There is no right answer,
would have been a big part of because it’s a specific issue for
the venture. a lOcal cOmmunity in the the table. A flat “no” to the first
Rape is a reality of the Crescent crescent land is tied tOgeth- is just as good a way to play
er tightly By kin, ecOnOmic this game as any other. And be
Land – in the range of 10-15%
necessity, and shared histOry, careful: there are bad ways to
of women, somewhat less for
much OF it viOlent. include it, and its presence in
men. In a war-raid or other
the backdrop isn’t license for
circumstances of social and
crossing Lines in scenes.
physical disempowerment, some of the men commit
rape, toward men and women, sometimes horrifi- RELIGION
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
The result is not a “rape is OK” culture, far from it. It’s overtly-powerful people, because their opinions
a constant fear, not an accepted norm – most people spread invisibly through groups. Since interacting
hate it at a knowledgeable, visceral level. That means with them is subject to Charm rolls just like everyone
that “unaccountable,” above, can be overcome. Any else, screwing that up carries its own special problems.
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 don’t 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 isn’t well-informed about Circle knights’ use of
Circle knights are plot-armored against rape; it does both types of magic, and religious views toward magic
not happen to them for whatever in-fiction justifica- are locally various enough to prevent a consistent
tion may be imposed. My reasoning is that the game response to it. Most people are scared of magic, but
revolves around morally murky problems for the they’re going to be pretty pragmatic about judging its
knights, and that rape directed toward them would use to be good or bad.

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 – it’s basically not pos-
sible 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 get-
ting 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 out-
doorsman, 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 depriva-
tion 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 isn’t available.
Weather and exposure are a constant danger, never
far from anyone’s 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 one’s 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 that’s 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 aren’t modern indus-
trial 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 leatherworker’s 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
they’re 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 doesn’t 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 experi-
4 ence 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 don’t know if you’ve ever fallen off a horse, but I
have. It’s not good for you. It happens when a horse
is wounded or if it’s bolted across anything but the
most forgiving terrain.
○ Drop everything you’re holding and roll Quick-
ness 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 aren’t instantly lethal require the
same roll for anyone not wearing mail, and for the
people who are … well, that’s an instant take-down
to Quickness 0. And if you didn’t know already, at
heights that do kill, water is just as lethal as a solid
surface.
Fire doesn’t 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 there’s no
option except to go through it. Typically a person’s
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 doesn’t 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 don’t want to
do, requires an ordinary Wits vs. 12 roll; a failed
roll turns it hostile
○ An untamed, defensive animal requires an ordi-
nary Wits vs. 12 roll
○ And untamed, hostile or hungry animal
requires a Wits vs. 12 roll penalized to a single
die
Different species have slightly different standards or
values concerning people:
○ Horses respond well to formal and familiar
behavior even from people they don’t know, but
they are easily spooked or bothered, and bolt or
fight upon a failed roll.
○ Dogs don’t; by modern standards, dogs in the
Crescent Land are pretty mean and are perfectly
willing to savage people they don’t know. A suc-
cessful roll results merely in not being bitten at
this particular time.
○ Wrackers, the huge draft lizards of Tamaryon,
respond well to knowledgeable human han-
dling as long as they’re in familiar surroundings;
a failed roll means they simply don’t obey, and
they’re dangerous only if taken somewhere they
don’t know.
○ Oxen don’t 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 they’re in
a group.
○ Hawks are barely tame and only respond well
at all to a skilled and familiar person; otherwise
 CirCle of Steel

they seek to escape and will strike fiercely to do die in both Wits and Charm regardless of his or
it. her current intoxication level – even completely
○ Snakes are treated as domestic pets in Spurr, sober.
and they are similar to cats in the Crescent Caffeine is not known in the Crescent Land.
Land: they just do their own thing around the
Plant-derived opiates are at present unknown, but
place and avoid anything unfamiliar, becoming
then again, there’s the dried paste derived from the
dangerous only if cornered or restrained.
exudate of the red pode. This stuff is most often
Animals ascend to beast status as soon as they have a smoked as well, but can also be moistened and
roll directed at them individually which differs from rubbed onto one’s gums for a similar effect.
ordinary domestic practice (see Chapter 7).
○ The resulting rather intense high begins with
DRUGS AND ALCOHOL heightened Wits for about an hour, then settles
Cannabis is universally if infrequently smoked using into a long lazy phase. The characteristic,
wide clay bowls. It is not very potent by modern stan- easily-recognized drawl during this phase is a
dards. frequently imitated standby for humor or refer-
ence to an over-indulgent personality. In this
○ When smoking socially, any participant may state, a person either misses a scene in which he
roll Charm vs. 12 with two dice to revise a prior or she would presumably be present, or if pres-
Charm roll result with anyone present. ent, he or she is reduced to a single die for both
○ Quickness rolls are made with a single die Wits and Charm – and unaware of the penalty,
during the rest of the scene. of course.
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.
The resinous extract prepared by priests is another
story.
○ Smoking a little bit restricts Quickness and Wits
rolls to a single die for a couple of hours
○ Smoking a lot takes a person completely out of
action for about a day.
A priest is expected to manage others’ use judi-
ciously, and those who don’t, 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.
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
89
 CirCle of Hands
○ If a person indulges in the red pode’s 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 unfortu-
nately, nothing about shock. No one really knows why
4 one bandaged person is found dead in the morning
and another isn’t. There are absolutely no anesthetics:
alcohol isn’t 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.
The main killer is infection of injuries by envi-
ronmental 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.
Circle knights are also plot-armored against infected
injuries. Other injured people may die in the long
term as the GM sees fit.
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 medi-
cal equivalents, but there still isn’t any anesthetic
and certain problems have no solution. If a labor
seems likely to meet problems, or if problems sud-
denly arrive, such situations are best used as part
of the backdrop and as a good candidate for family
90
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 conse-
quence but not with certainty that it can’t happen
to oneself. Whereas to modern people, these things
may be seen as pure statistics, untethered to personal
acts and responsibility. Neither the fictional people’s
ignorance nor modern knowledge of medical reali-
ties 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
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 waterboard-
ing (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.
○ A person subjected to this treatment becomes
dazed and cooperative after a few days, but
really isn’t very good for doing anything com-
petently, 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 compe-
tent at the same time.
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 person’s 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 disor-
ders as well, decreasing Charm by two points.
Other, more brutal things to do to people are
merely ways to kill them. No one survives crucifix-
ion or the pole.
 CirCle of Steel

DIRECT CONTACT WITH In an Amboriyon zone, natural disease or infection

AMBORIYON AND RBAJA cannot persist. Given the right social conditions for
No one knows if there’s even a real “war” at all, in avatars, they appear spontaneously and begin their
terms of metaphysical entities with goals. For all we individual programs. An eidolon is easily summoned
know, the whole thing is not a goal, but merely the without knowledge of magic, although it still costs
long-term effect of human wizards seeking advantage Brawn as per the Eidolon spell, and only one eidolon
and ideological triumphs over one another, without is ever active in a given venture (see Chapter 6).
regard for the ultimate result. Certainly only the wiz- When 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 seek- these physical instances Or mOments pustulent or oozing,
ing advantages in human OF intrusiOn, transFOrmatiOn, and as a ordinarily solid things
terms or “footholds.” nOn-circle wizard calls it, “victOry,” flake from their surfaces
Human wizards do these are straightFOrwardly tOxic tO human- and break easily under
things with great energy ity Or any Other aspect OF reality.
stress, the air is clotted
but the zones and crea- and feels like breathing
tures do not. grease, and water is nasty in a hundred different
In practice, the magical war ultimately destroys ways. Even the microbial rot is short-lived, though,
reality, leaving behind only essentialized Rbaja giving way to entropic dispersal – flaking, drying,
and essentialized Amboriyon – a metaverse of pure crumbling, and coming apart. These effects prefigure
abstraction. Winning that war would be a matter of the gradual expansion of Rbaja across the landscape,
one side getting more than the other and ultimately usually too slow to notice, but sometimes quite rapid.
destroying everything but itself. In this Rbaja periphery, people may effectively Curse
Both Amboriyon and Rbaja transform a local land- one another without knowing the spell, but it still
scape, ultimately to remove some of it from reality. costs Brawn (see Chapter 6). Doing so draws the
Whether prompted by a spell (Wrath and Distort, attention of imps, who fly from the zone to whisper
respectively) or through some other process, they to the people who’ve already made use of the dark-
are visible, present, and tangible. These physical ness in this way, teaching them the Demon spells (see
instances or moments of intrusion, transformation, Chapter 6).
and as a non-Circle wizard calls it, “victory,” are The zones do appear spontaneously, but rarely; more
straightforwardly toxic to humanity or any other commonly they come into existence through the
aspect of reality. Therefore being actually in Ambori- casting of Wrath (which also kills a lot of people) and
yon, up in the clouds, or in Rbaja, within the stained Distort (which also prompts corpses in the vicinity to
wastelands, is not possible in play. become draugr (see Chapter 7).
More tangible are the zones of influence caused by In either kind of zone, spells of the other color cost an
these phenomena. When Amboriyon is literally pres- additional point of Brawn (see Chapter 6).
ent in the clouds, visible as translucent or gleaming
A person who is Marked (Chapter 6) is vulnerable to
white battlements and complex edifices, the land
influences from these areas. Near a zone, he or she
beneath is directly affected: substances of all kinds
may use any of the following benefits at will.
and even the air take on a streamy, silvery quality, and
objects’ details become distinct and clear to the point ○ Charm rolls gain a bonus equal to the number
of fascination. These effects prefigure events such as of relevant Marks.
the whole area becoming part of the clouds, or disin- ○ Physical injury equal to the number of relevant
tegrating into a smooth plain, or anything else which Marks returns as if it were fatigue.
removes it from ordinary reality in some beautiful but
○ Combat advantage is held against creatures of
abstract fashion.
the other color regardless of all other consider-
ations (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 doesn’t work obviously toward these ends, for example casting
Distort or Wrath toward the other color’s manifestation. Zones do not cancel out or balance, merely accelerating
each one’s 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.

Illus. Phillip Simpson

92
 Chapter
Whole battles aren’t a major part of playing Circle of
Hands. Genuine mass combat is rare in the Crescent
Land. Such details as cavalry strategy, prepared ter-
rain such as bulwarks and pits, and shieldwalls occur
at a small scale of dozens of people, not horizon-
covering armies. In play, these events are best played
as an environment, i.e., a situation, within which
scenes occur.
Furthermore, dedicated for-sure killing isn’t a goal
in such battles. It’s 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 con-
flicts among gentry played out in the communities of
everyone else, the majority of the killing is carried out
on helpless people.
In the life of a Circle knight, battles are less prevalent
than fights: when it’s 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.
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 who’s sup-
posed 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 fight’s 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,
“it’s time tO kill yOu,” this
is hOw it’s dOne.
5k illing
REALISM
I can tell you exactly what I mean by this term. Real-
ism isn’t what the mechanics do, but what you say
when you turn the mechanics into fictional narration.
The precise dice and whatnot don’t matter much. We
could be flipping a coin for the mechanics as long as
what everyone says matches whatever we want to call
realistic. It’s that matching that matters.
○ 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, don’t use mechanics that screw
it up.
○ But the moment of truth lies with what’s said
when the numbers get established. The narra-
tion can come from two places:
Ǯ Directly from the text, effectively read out
loud – this what critical-hit tables are
Ǯ 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 they’re not inclined
that way. So I’ve designed the game for the mechanics
and the descriptive procedure to work really well for
people who are so inclined. It’s 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 get-
ting knocked off your feet are less influenced by what’s
established before the dice are rolled – although there
is one thing that does, as you’ll see – and are instead
narrated based on the rolls’ outcomes. This feature
cuts way down on “can I can I” talk, because attempt-
ing something in a specific way is not subject to a raft
of subtle modifiers based on how you said it. In fact,
you don’t 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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 CirCle of Hands

It’s 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.
Here’s a minor bit of advice based on playtesting: the scene-setting, non-player-character playing person doesn’t
have to be the rules-savvy, procedural, and in this case weapon-geeky person too. It’s 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

Play doesn’t use a hex or grid table-map, but as you’ll
see, terrain, movement, and immediate circumstances
are primary factors in combat. The only way to make
this functional, without people shouting out posi-
tions to bully for advantage, is to work strictly from
what’s known, from the perspective of one person at
the table.
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, it’s not a moment
of fictional play, so no one may shout “I move over to
the left!” or “I’m climbing up to the roof!”

5 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
doesn’t move right into resolution, but rather gives the
Get this known snapshot into place without yack-
ing 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 com-
munal 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, it’s 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; it’s 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, that’s 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
12:00

results occur, and the higher value goes first.

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
3:00 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
Tokens which character. Put the character who goes
for each first at 3:00, the next character at 2:00, and so
character on, tracing back counterclockwise.
John Willson went and built a wooden circle
for this purpose for his playtesting, because

94
 Killing
he’s the kind of guy with a skillsaw and a lathe in his
garage, and he isn’t even missing any fingers to date.
Me, I found that a table coaster and a few Parcheesi-
type game pawn pieces worked flawlessly.
So, start with the person at 3:00. Actions that aren’t
physical attacks are conducted as usual: rolls vs. 12,
automatic successes for ordinary professions-based
actions, and spells being cast. When your character’s
action is resolved, move the counter clockwise around
the circle so that it’s 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 character’s action, narrate
the bare beginnings of whatever it is he or she is plan-
ning 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
character’s next action, but it provides crucial infor-
mation to everyone else.
So, you go ‘round and ‘round, which would be boring,
except that a character’s position in the sequence is
altered in three ways.
○ If it’s not currently your character’s 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 person’s attack-
ing 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.
Ǯ When the clash is resolved, if the targeted
person fought back, then they’ll go to the
end of the line together, the puller first and
pullee second.
Ǯ But if the person who was pulled in only
defended, then he or she maintains his or
her current place in the order.
○ If you’re injured and your Quickness is reduced,
you drop to the back of the order.
Ǯ 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.
Quite soon, the order of the tokens may well not
reflect the Quickness values any more, and that’s fine.
Never compare the Quickness values again during
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 who’s at 3:00, then wrapping
that token around to the end, and that’s 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.
Let’s say their Quickness values follow the alpha-
betical sequence, with A being fastest.
F E
D
C
12:00
B
A
3:00
So, running it down, A’s 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:
A
E
D
C
12:00
F
3:00 B
95
 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 A’s spell, he wouldn’t have
been pulled into C’s 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 character’s 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.
5
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 announce-
ment, but it’s 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 you’d 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 char-
acter 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 character’s Quickness is added independently
to each, and the resulting offense and defense totals
are matched against the other character’s 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 it’s 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 person’s 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 charac-
ter 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 defend-
ing 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 she’d “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 didn’t 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 advan-
tage die assigned. It’s a big red die rolled and added
up with the black and white ones, for one character
in the clash and not the other.
Krimhilde’s 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):
1 What just happened? (shield bash, unexpected
francisca hit, spear-shaft through a horse’s legs)
Ǯ Someone just took a bad hit, like shield-
edge 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.
2 What are the physical circumstances?
Ǯ Mud pit, bedchamber, road in forest at twi-
light, narrow passage in an underground
barrow … any number of things that inter-
fere with sight and movement, as resolved
by Quickness or Wits rolls prior to the clash.
Ǯ Here’s where surprise matters mechanically.
You didn’t think it was going to be completely
hand-waved away, did you?
3 What are the weapons being employed?
Ǯ Consider this especially in light of #2 – a knife
gets the advantage against the great-axe when
you’re both entangled in the bedsheets, a
great-axe gets it against the knife when you’re
chasing him down the road.
4 Who pulled whom into this clash?
Ǯ If #1-3 don’t 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
can’t say, “I’ll strike at his feet!” or “I’ll 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.
That’s 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 advan-
tage, and that’s 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 you’re 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,
you’ll 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, it’s
likely to matter most who’s pulled whom into that
next clash, so if it’s 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.
You’re caught in unfamiliar terrain, which the GM
considers to be making the key difference in the fight.
Do you have a profession that’s relevant to this ter-
rain? Then stay defensive in the clashes if you can’t
avoid them, and go for a Wits vs. 12 roll to get ori-
ented, which means subsequent advantages can be
determined by other criteria.
Surprises and reversals matter in the same way.
Let’s say you’re fighting a guy with a chained mace
who according to the GM has the advantage for
some aspect of the situation (could be anything,
don’t argue). You’re scooting around on the defensive
while that terrible thing is rattling your head in its
helm, and wham! Your buddy’s 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 he’s hurt,” and in that guy’s 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 won’t do it for you, it is not a person and
all it will say is, you do it. I’ve 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
97
 CirCle of Hands
associated with some of the weapons, listed in a brief
table. After that ... it’s up to you. That’s the GM’s 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.
Don’t amass a huge list of minor advantages and
disadvantages per character. Instead, look at the situ-
ation and decide what single feature matters the most,
and to which character the advantage therefore falls.
Obviously, you aren’t going to do it the same way
as everyone or even anyone else. Maybe you have a
5
sword-fetish and can’t 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 outnum-
bered 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 get-
ting in one another’s way.
If someone is ganged up on by more than three oppo-
nents, 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 that’s called a scrum.
Scrums are nuts. The easiest to resolve them is simply
Quickness vs. 12 roll for everyone, considered simul-
taneous in the fiction. Per character, define that roll as
either trying to get out of the mix or staying in there.
It’s 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 combat-
ant, 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 dif-
ferent 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.
Don’t forget that a bolt ignores mail and gambeson,
and that shields don’t 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 character’s 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, that’s 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 stop-
ping you from doing whatever it is you want.
○ But if he or she intends to continue clashing,
then you’ll have to make a Quickness vs. 12
roll to get out of immediate reach. That’s a full
action which isn’t an attack and therefore poses
no danger to the foe.
If you succeed, then you’re well away from that per-
son’s 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 charac-
ters 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 they’re merely
“in it” already.
 Killing

Another action of this sort is fleeing the whole fight, which is often perfectly reasonable. If you’re in a clash, then
you’ll have to get out of that first. Assuming you’re 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 you’re 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 you’re attacking at range, aiming at someone who is not able to strike back, and no one’s 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 attacker’s 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 you’re 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 don’t 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 In calculating Damage, use the value for Brawn at

If a character’s 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 attacker’s cur-
rent 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. Let’s say the opponent’s
Quickness was 6, the same as hers, and his or her
split was 6/6. The 3d6 roll comes up 11. So Krim-
hilde’s offense of 18 is up against a defense of 17, and
her defense of 14 is attacked by an offense of 17.
Krimhilde’s Damage to her opponent is calculated
as 18 – 17 + her Brawn of 7, for a total of 8, which
receives an additional 1 because she’s using her great-
axe, for a final total of 9. The Damage she receives is
17 – 14 + the opponent’s Brawn which is 6, for a total
of 9 as well. Notice that both opponents were injured
in this clash.
the start of the current clash, not after the immediate
damage within it. Whether the attacks hit at the pre-
cise same microsecond in-game is not the issue; they
don’t have to, and it can be left entirely to narration.
Armor deducts from Damage. Protection is a bit
abstracted in the mechanics. Obviously not every-
thing coming at you hits you on the head just because
you’re wearing a helm, but go ahead and stop the
helm’s 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 loser’s 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).
99
 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 Krimhilde’s opponent in the
clash was not as heavily armored, and his or her
protection stopped only 4 of the 9 received, so the
opponent’s Brawn and Quickness were reduced by 2
and 3 respectively.
And then it so happens that the francisca I men-
tioned earlier hits the opponent between the shoulder
blades, doing enough Damage to reduce his or her
Quickness to 0, although Brawn remains at 1.
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 foot’s cut off,” vs. “hit hit hit hit
hit no narration what’s going on hit hit, oh now I’m
dead, how did that happen.”
Describe things consistently with the rules and with
what’s 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.
○ Everyone’s current actions in motion are known
through the intent statements made after a

5 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 doesn’t
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
Here’s that realism in action.
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 doesn’t
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 nar-
rate 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
rolled outcome is narrated.
○ Advantage isn’t “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
As a general point, armor in this setting is not
designed literally to stop a weapon in its optimal
strike. The best available, mail, doesn’t defend against
high-impact puncture anyway. Instead, mail, shields,
and helms do their best work in augmenting the
fighter’s defensive motions and posture, so that the
sliding sword-slash skates by, or if one’s lean-back
almost evades the axe-head’s arc, one’s helm keeps
the last of it from opening one’s 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 strike’s target before the dice-roll.

Damage Stopped Limitations Penalty out of Combat

gamBesOn 3 0 vs. spear charge or throw, 0 vs. bolts -1
mail (inc. gamBesOn) 6 0 vs. spear charge or throw, 0 vs. bolts -3
cOne helm 2 1 vs. flail -1
spangenhelm 3 1 vs. flail -2
rOund Or kite shield 4 1 vs. flail, 0 when all-out attacking -2

100
 Killing
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.
It’s 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 shuf-
fling 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. Any-
where else, doing
so looks weird, as
if you’d 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 shat-
ter, so it stays usable even after
it’s been messed up. The most
common design is the round
shield. It’s 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 else’s
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. It’s 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 hand-
held 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 foe’s 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 throw-
ing off the foe’s 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, it’s not effective at
all when attacking all-out,
and it’s minimally effec-
tive 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 func-
tional 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 annoy-
ing and no one, but no one, wears one
unless they are about to enter a fight.
Ornamental facemasks are some-
times used by gentry in Famberge;
they don’t actually do anything for defense,
but they do scare the shit out of people who
aren’t combat-hardened, and that’s 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 it’s too heavy to wear in any other
circumstances. One does not ride around in one’s mail, but keeps it in the pack-horse’s 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 isn’t 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. It’s 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

5 UNNAMED PEOPLE
For a Circle knight, fighting up to three unnamed
people at once is mechanically pretty simple. You
don’t have to set an order or state actions moment by
moment. It’s merely a Quickness vs. 12 roll.
If you’re 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 it’s 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 who’s 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.
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 she’d 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 isn’t their turf. Fights do not occur on a level
featureless plain, there’s no such thing as “going” on
your “turn,” and weapons and training aren’t 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. It’s 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 maim-
ing, but not against this – that’s why it’s antithetical to
many other designs, which are the opposite.
How do you solve this difficult problem?
Beforehand is better because it doesn’t necessarily
involve rolling. Your character should go places and
observe them, interact with people and behave in
ways which don’t upset them, and become involved
with the places and people before you start doing
things like striding into barns in combat mode.

102
 Killing
This isn’t “investigation.” It’s 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 doesn’t
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. Let’s 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 situ-
ational. Off the top of my head, if your character
has a profession relevant to horses like Martial
(high) or Outdoorsman, and if there’s 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
you’ll 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 oblit-
erate 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, they’re always there first, and you can’t
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 it’s 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 circumstanc-
es. You can’t 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 “I’ll 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 Quick-
ness vs. 12 roll. However, I hope you’d taken
some time earlier to learn the lay of the land,
because if not, you’re running around in an
unfamiliar spot, and that gives your Quickness
roll a single die.
○ It’s valid to single out someone in the crowd as
a target for an ordinary Charm vs. 12 roll. Even
better if it’s 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 it’s not
acting as a group and therefore isn’t a mob any
more even if some of them still want to kill you.
○ I recommend magic strongly.
Ǯ Casting Throng or Hate, which is precisely
what they’re for.
Ǯ 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.
Ǯ There’s always Erupt and Wrath, if someone
knows one of them, and if the mob’s murder-
ous intent is reciprocated.
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 CirCle of Hands

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

TOOLS OF VIOLENCE

UNARMED COMBAT clashes until this point probably involved hitting,

I’ll 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 strik-
ing, grappling, shoving, throwing, choking, and all
that stuff. The only mechanics feature is that damage
is accumulated normally, but being brought to Brawn
kicking, throttling, and any of that sort of thing.
The losing person so far is still alive, but a barely-
conscious rag, out on his or her feet.
That’s 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 victim’s jaw at the joint, but
drives his or her head into a corner or projection of

5
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 pos-
sibly in complete surrender, then you deliver enough
damage to do it all over again. For this second “phase,”
use the victim’s (no longer opponent’s) 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
the nearby furniture hard enough to crack his skull.
Given one or two ruthless actions, bringing the vic-
tim’s B and Q banks both to 0 (again) will do the job.
It’s 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.

Mechanics Advantage suggestions Breaking

kniFe Surprise, brawl, intimacy
Francisca Thrown Thrown
staFF +1 defense in a clash
swOrd +1 point in a clash
spear Thrown, mounted Reach Damage is fully
charge ignore mail stopped by armor
Flail Ignore shields Option to entangle
great axe +1 Damage in a clash
shield strike Opponent loses balance Damage exceeds
shield armor value
shield slash +1 Damage in a clash
shOrt BOw +6 Damage not +B Fleeing targets
crOssBOw Bolt ignores mail Jams – see text

104
 Killing
INCIDENTAL WEAPONS
The knife is a tool for eating and for small, daily tasks.
It’s considered part of one’s clothes much as modern
people think of their shoes. It’s 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 that’s easiest to make. At its most weapon-like,
it’s 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.
It’s true, the knife is not a battlefield weapon, but
there’s 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.
That’s 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 battle-
field or in the path of a raid; if you’re not there, it
won’t happen. Whereas knife-murder can happen
anywhere, planned or unplanned, delivered from
surprise or hidden in the middle of mass action. I’ll
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 that’s it, the
person is dead. If it’s in the chest, then in minutes by
pneumothorax; in the guts, in a week or so by unstop-
pable infection.
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
you’ve been wondering how it is a group always kills
an individual victim in this game, that’s the main
reason – and it only takes one person among them.
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.
Another tool easily adapted toward personal violence
is the quarterstaff, typically associated with daily
tasks of forestry and farming. It’s longer than you
might think: eight or nine feet. It’s just as good as any
other, more technologically specialized weapon for
purposes of defense, and often better – if you don’t
want someone to hit you, punch them in the center
of the body with one of these, and they can’t. 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 don’t 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 imagi-
native fighter. Stick or toss one into the legs of a running
horse, and you have a half-ton of hysterical good-for-
nothing-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. It’s used mainly to
signal livestock and herd animals with its cracking
noise and light touches, not pain. The sadistic modi-
fication called the cat o’nine tails, with no purpose
but to inflict pain on humans, isn’t well-known, but
it’s 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 didn’t 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 char-
acter’s 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 don’t typically strike one another with burn-
ing items; it may look dramatic but isn’t very effective.
Flesh isn’t 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 Quick-
ness 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
doesn’t 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
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 it’s also abandoned after
a successful strike because it’s gruesomely transfix-
ing 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 don’t 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 it’s 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.

5 on top. None is “better” than another; they all work There is no greatsword, rapier, or shortsword in
gruesomely well. this culture. Swords are at most a yard long includ-
ing the hilt, used either two-handed
Fighting is not just standing there and chopping.
(grasping the
In all cases, striking with the weapon is integrated
crossbar and
with shoulder blocks, off-hand grabs or clotheslines,
pommel) or
elbows, and effective sweeps via foot placement. Full
one-handed
swings are reserved for opening moves and when
at the hilt;
the opponent is off balance. If it seems tactical and
chess-like, that’s true, but it’s also done at full physical
effort in strength and speed, in microseconds, so it’s
as visceral and intuitive as anything can get.
The shield is a melee weapon. It can deliver a rein-
forced 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 success-
fully all-out defending using a shield because there
really isn’t any such thing as a mere “block” with it;
when you use it skillfully enough to protect yourself
that well, by definition you’re wrecking the other
person’s balance and momentum. It’s also useful
for teamwork, in the right circumstances, for the
shield-wall tactic.
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 Illus. Sandy Jacobs-Tolle
 Killing
they are sharpened on both edges but not at the tip.
They’re quite flat and surprisingly light – only about
three pounds. Sophisticated longsword techniques
have not been developed, nor are there schools of
swordsmanship.
However, that doesn’t 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.
Don’t 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 one’s 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 horse-
man’s 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 out-
side of Tamaryon don’t 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 great-axe is a big francisca. It is shorter than
popular fiction depicts, about a yard long, used two-
handed or one-handed with a shield. The single head
looks like a woodsman’s axe-head but is much thin-
ner 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 they’re used in a whipping motion,
not like a baseball bat, and stepping in the right direc-
tion 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.
In the absence of mass infantry tactics, no one has
yet combined features of spear and axe into glaives
or similar weapons.
The chained mace, or flail, needs some special atten-
tion. You don’t spin it like helicopter blades. It’s 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. It’s 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. It’s not about beaning people
with the heads at all, nor about penetrating armor
– instead, it’s about whipping with the chains, which
doesn’t 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.
That’s 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.
It’s 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 horse’s own bulk
and considerable inertia, and the opportunity for
a mounted charge, which delivers terrifying, often
instantly-lethal damage.
The short instruction is, don’t try it if you weren’t
trained to it, and don’t 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 there’s no massed infantry training in the Cres-
cent 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 animal’s 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,
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 CirCle of Hands
the horse may hurt a couple badly with bites and
kicks, but it’s going down eventually.
So you can see that all of this is hard on the horses,
who aren’t animal-friends or comrades in arms,
but rather more throwaway tech, like shields. In a
big battle, pound for pound, horsemen are well-
advantaged against footmen, but such fighting will
certainly litter the ground with still-kicking, scream-
ing 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 there’s no
5
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 fran-
cisca coming, and an expert knows to throw it when
the target is looking at something else, like fighting
one’s ally – and you can get thirty or more feet of
accurate range out of it. It doesn’t 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, scatter-
ing bunched opponents and breaking up shieldwalls.
All small axes can be thrown, and an outdoorsman
from anywhere can nail you with a thrown hatchet.
It’s maybe not as specialized as a francisca, but it’s 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 trav-
eling 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, espe-
cially 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 who’s 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 rediscov-
ered, permitting the bow to be drawn and locked
into place. It’s still a big pain to do it, but at least it’s
immediately ready for its first shot.
However, crossbows do not enter into many encoun-
ters. 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 doesn’t 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 that’s 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 you’re trying to get some-
thing 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 can’t 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 it’s 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
it’s 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, it’s no big deal to forget to apply these rules considering everything else that’s 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 that’s 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 posi-
tion 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 con-
tinue 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 you’re taken
down to 0 in either Brawn or Quickness by any means,
then roll (unhurt) Brawn vs. 12; if you’re taken down to
0 in both and survive, then don’t 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 com-
pensated 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.
109
 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,
there’s 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 aren’t a crack
medic squad who teleport where they’re needed, but if it’s 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 carica-

5 tures 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 physi-
cal 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.
A wraith casts spells as normal using the
character’s ordinary Brawn, which exists
as a resource mainly toward this pur-
pose. Its Quickness is used for ordering
when necessary, also as normal. Sig-
nificantly, 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.
A wraith which goes to 0 Brawn through
spell use or magical damage dissipates
permanently.

Illus. Phillip Simpson

110
 Chapter 6g ray MagiC

There is no “wizard vs. warrior” dichotomy for Circle

magic wracks the BOdy.
The power doesn’t 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 doesn’t apply; the wizard of the Cres-
cent 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 practi-
tioner doesn’t use one of the two principles, he or she
becomes it ever so slightly. Dedicated practice can turn
a person most inhuman indeed.
knights. They all fight, and in addition, some memo-
rize 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. It’s 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 Cres-
cent 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 bor-
ders 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.
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 wrig-
gling 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 one’s 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.
That’s 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 From the end of the last example, the character
On the character has five points for Rbaja and four for Amboriyon.
sheet is a row of nine Gethyn Edwards He then casts two three-point black spells. The first
entries, labeled Rbaja arrived at the most brings him to eight points for Rbaja and one for
and Amboriyon at its usable graphic for this. Amboriyon;
two ends. When your R ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ � A
character uses magic during play, you draw in little
circles in these positions, to indicate the color points The second turns the white point black with two
the character has gained by using magic. The circles left over. The diagram is considered completed for a
starting at Rbaja should be filled in, and the ones Gift for Rbaja, all the color points are erased, and the
starting at Amboriyon should be open. extra points are ignored.
R ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ A
R A
and then,
Points are added to the chart starting at each end
until all nine entries are filled. If these nine include R A
both black and white points, then gaining further
A Circle knight can use magic judiciously to avoid fill-
tokens changes the color of the tokens present, never
ing up the chart with a single color, remaining free
exceeding nine.
of Gifts and Marks. Alternately, he or she may gain
A character has three points in Rbaja and two in Gifts of both colors to minimize the effects of Marks.
Amboriyon. Or such are the ideals of the Circle, anyway. No one
has tried it before.

6
R ○ ○ ○ � � A
GIFTS AND MARKS
He casts a black spell worth three points, so adds
three more to Rbaja, for a total of eight points. When a Circle knight gains a Gift, the controlling
player chooses it from the appropriate list. If any other
R ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ � � A character does so, then the Gift is determined by roll-
ing 2d6. In either case, that Gift is crossed off the list.
Later, he swears a white oath and gains five white
points from it during a fight. One completes the Using a Gift does not confer color points and requires
row for a total of nine points, so the remaining four only what is listed in each description.
white points replace four of the black points. The
amBOriyOn
character’s total is now two for Rbaja and seven for
Amboriyon.
2 Bestow instant recovery upon a person or beast
R ○ ○ � � � � � � � A as per three meals and a night’s rest, including
ordinary healing effects.
He will continue to have nine points, no more nor Ǯ Requires a Brawn vs. 12 roll
less. If he then casts a three-point black spell, three of Ǯ A given person may benefit this way once per day
the white points become black, for a total of five for
Ǯ Failing the roll incurs Damage equal to the
Rbaja and four for Amboriyon.
difference from 12
R ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ � � � � A
3 Use Charm rolls toward a group
If at any time, the entire lot of nine is a single color, Ǯ Requires expending 1 Brawn
then the points are all removed and the character 4 Command the movement and intensity of nearby
gains a Gift and a Mark of the appropriate color. Gifts fire and light at will
indicate a profound shift in the character’s being, as Ǯ The effect doesn’t include ignition and is
he or she becomes more magical rather than merely subject to fuel constraints
using magic. Marks are the physical manifestation of Ǯ At its most extreme, the fuel is vaporized and
that shift in the character’s body. all persons and other creatures in its vicinity
If the spell which brings the diagram to nine points roll Quickness vs. 12 or be knocked over by
of a single color is of a value that would exceed nine, the blast
then the extra points are ignored.
112
 gray MagiC

5 When you speak the truth about a person, loca- aA Restore undead to true death
tion, or event and make a Charm vs. 12 roll, one Ǯ Requires successfully harming the target
nearby person loses one die from all of his or her undead in combat
dice rolls for the remainder of the scene Ǯ Requires a Charm vs. 12 roll
Ǯ Requires a Charm vs. 12 roll
aB Demons are averted from you to some extent
6 Upon a person’s death nearby (including killing Ǯ Roll Charm vs. 12 to prevent a demon from
them), a glowing, ethereal spirit-form emerges pulling you into a clash
from their body, under your control. It has the Ǯ A demon’s intent during a clash with you
personality of the dead person but not his or her must always be to disengage
volition; it is a mere semblance or leftover. It dis- When a person gains a Gift of Amboriyon during a
sipates at the end of the scene. venture, roll Brawn vs. 12, using only 1d6. If the roll
Ǯ Requires expending 1 Brawn fails, then he or she acquires a Mark, which begins
Ǯ The spirit-form cannot cast spells or talk; it with a faint interior silvery glow.
can only fight
The more the person is Marked by Amboriyon,
7 Gain a pegasus companion the more obvious the glow becomes when they are
Ǯ It does not begin with you in a venture but injured or when body fluids are released. A single
must be called with a Charm vs. 12 roll during such Mark renders him or her sterile and two remove
a scene all sexual drives. At two Marks, the person also does
Ǯ It remains for the entire venture unless it is not need food and more than brief sleep. At three
killed or you gain a Gift of Rbaja Marks, at least half of his or her interior mass is
Ǯ If it is killed during a venture, it will again be replaced by silvery light and the glow becomes evi-
available the next venture in which the char- dent in the mouth and eyes.
acter is played
Ǯ It will not come if an Rbaja zone is present in
the venture
8 When killed, recover fully for the
next scene, once per venture
Ǯ Requires a Brawn vs. 12 roll, using
full Brawn value
9 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
Ǯ +1 to both Brawn and Quickness,
Armor 6
Ǯ 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)
Ǯ Gain complete geographic
knowledge of the current venture
Ǯ Clothes, armor, and carried
items disappear during the trans-
formation but reappear when it
ends
Ǯ 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
Ǯ People who share intimate contact with you
develop mild fevers and nausea
3 Disgorge vaporous snakes who make effective
spies regarding a stated location in the venture
Ǯ Roll Wits vs. 12 to learn about others’ pres-
ence and actions in that location
Ǯ The snakes cannot be detected without magic
4 Undead like you and respond positively to the
Black Speech spell without a Charm vs. 12 roll
Ǯ You may raise corpses as draugr or skeletons
for a single scene with a Charm vs. 12 roll
5 You are acquainted with an ancient lich who
provides indirect help once per venture
Ǯ 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
6
Ǯ Requires a Charm vs. 12 roll
Ǯ The rules for interacting with nightmares
apply (see Chapter 7)
7 By tasting another’s blood, living or dead, ask a
single question which that person must answer
truthfully to the best of his or her knowledge.
Ǯ If alive, the target also suffers 3 Damage, using
the rules for whips
8 One limb or facial feature becomes grotesque
and gains 1d6 when using it
9 Breathe disease upon an area, infecting everyone
in it
Ǯ Requires a Brawn vs. 12 roll
Ǯ The disease is non-magical, contagious
smallpox
aJ Shape-shift into a distorted, demonic-looking
wolf once per venture, lasting for a single scene
Ǯ Requires nudity
Ǯ Armor 6, +1 Damage, and Outdoorsman pro-
fession in the context of wolf-like behavior
Ǯ 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
Ǯ Requires a Charm vs. 12 roll
114
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 person’s
interior becoming caked and slimy with black gunk.
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 person’s 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.
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 vulnerabil-
ity to magical zones indicate a creeping dehumanizing
effect, which potentially limits and subverts the Cir-
cle’s 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 who’d joined
the Circle:
One of the first truisms to go under the knife: “real-
ity isn’t 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 exter-
nal 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.
 gray MagiC

OATHS
A Circle knight or a named person may swear one oath per venture. Beasts, monsters, and creatures of Rbaja or
Amboriyon cannot swear oaths.
Hearing an oath sworn is unmistakable. It cannot be faked or concealed. The person’s 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
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:
○ Rbaja
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 pre-
serve a fortress by killing him is an Amboriyon one.

Ǯ Inflicting pain upon a living person or beast Circle knights utilize oaths entirely pragmatically and
Ǯ The destruction of an object or a physical consider the two colors morally equivalent, yet again
location provoking non-Circle wizards into horrified fury.

Ǯ The destruction of an avatar or an eidolon OATH MECHANICS

Ǯ The raising of a currently living person or
beast as undead
○ Amboriyon
Ǯ The restoration to true death of an undead
Ǯ The protection of a person or beast against a
specific attacker
Ǯ The preservation of an object or a physical
location from a specific threat
Ǯ 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 oath’s 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
Oaths are simply spoken words, effective when
announced. During a complex set of actions and con-
flicts, an oath is stated during the ordinary description
of intent, following the resolution of a character’s
action. This is the sole consequential, mechanical
action that can be completed at this moment.
In fighting the ghoul, Krimhilde’s action at 3:00 is
resolved as a clash, with her foe injured while she
remains unharmed (it could have ended in any fash-
ion 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
it’s used. It is not an advantage die (see Chapter 5) and
operates completely independently from the quanti-
tative combat mechanics. For clarity’s 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; let’s say it doesn’t. 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 hap-
pens is 11/1. She rolls 14 on four dice, for results of 25
offense and 15 defense.

115
 CirCle OF handS

What actions qualify for relevance? Literally trying to do it obviously counts. And doing something antithetical or
refusing to try obviously doesn’t. But everything else is an edge case, such as trying to break out of confinement far
away from the object of one’s 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 she’s fighting the ghoul; that’s 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 player’s 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
character’s chart.

The oath die showed 4 in Krimhilde’s 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
venture’s end do not carry to the character’s next appearance, but impose both a Mark of the appropriate color
and permanent -1 to an attribute of the player’s choice.

WIZARDS
Wizardy is listed as a profession in the rules, and it dence. A person tends to adopt extreme personal
is certainly a skill-set, but it’s not a literal job at all. display at this point, which is where the tangled hair

6
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 con-
text they know, but their interactions are thrown into
extreme forms. A wizard typically receives only des-
perate 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 sha-
manic, 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.
It’s 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.
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-
116
or scarification described earlier come from. Mentor-
ship 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 hasn’t
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 inco-
herent, boring, and devoid of meaning. Also, none of
these documents are standardized, far from it.
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.
Circle knights do not become wizards in play, but
it’s possible for other characters. Gethyn Edwards
provided some ideas about it.
THE CIRCLE
Nothing intrinsically stops anyone from practicing
both Rbaja and Amboriyon magic. However, the
cultural, ideological, and experiential gateway into
 gray MagiC
doing so has always reinforced that it’s 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 join-
ing 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 you’re currently play-
ing, but they don’t need to be conceived in detail
or narrated as a story. Sometimes a detail or two is
Illus. Rachel Kahn
interesting, as with Krimhilde’s prior knowledge and
use of Semblance, but that’s 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 it’s cast or encoun-
tered in ongoing form
This sense is active and used only at the player’s
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.
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 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.
By contrast, the Circle knights’ view of magic is crass-
ly pragmatic. Gifts are considered a strategic choice
and utterly not loyalty-based, rather to the contrary.
This view baffles other wizards.
○ 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
Ǯ Non-ritual spells may be included in the
ritual, which take effect at the end of the
casting.
Ǯ 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
of ritual items: smeared or scattered ash, worked or
polished bone, smeared or scattered oil, and smoke,
in the appropriate color for the

6
They can’t see how you could spell in question. It’s typically
“earn” or “be given” a Gift without Willow Palecek suggested that the assertive, obvious, and creepy. A
doing ideologically-appropriate spell names be more evocative, and caster might pull his her hands
things, and they consider acquir- upon learning about their short, apart with great force, revealing
emphatic 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 bran-
COST OF CASTING SPELLS dish a painted bone, or pour oil onto a pile of ash held
A spell requires the spending (reduction) of a specific in his or her open palm. The caster may or may not
amount of Brawn, typically the same value as the speak, but if so, then the vocalization is barely speech
spell’s listed color points. at all but a guttural, primal expression of the spell’s
purpose or visual aspect in a single brief word.
Brawn lost this way is treated exactly the same as
Brawn spent to move one’s action to 3:00. It is as Such descriptions impose no resource or timing
dangerous to the body as a weapon-strike. However, factor into the spellcasting mechanics. These details
unlike physical damage of any kind, it returns much are mainly for fun as one describes the character’s
faster, replenishing by the beginning of a character’s actions, toward the ends of reinforcing the setting
next scene. Nor does casting magic have any effect and rejecting the stereotyped image of the mage wig-
on Quickness. gling his fingers and shouting weird syllables. Nor is
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, that’s fine.
spell for which the current Brawn is not fully available.
Casting a spell is first announced during a character’s
TIME TO CAST SPELLS intent statement after his or her action is resolved. As
A given spell is cast in one, and only one, of two ways. with any other action, however, a spell announced at
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 multi- when the character reaches 3:00.
participant fight, it fits into the order/action
circle described in Chapter 5 right in there with In either case, the minimum statement is “I’m casting
everything else, happening at 3:00. a spell,” and the spell’s color. Anyone who’s paying

118
 Gray MaGic
attention recognizes both of those things immedi-
ately 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.
The spell takes effect as an ordinary action at 3:00.
As an action, it’s typically spectacular, accompanied
by strobing effects of either white-hot light or void-
opening 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 recipi-
ent of a Balm spell reacts with a brief bout of petit mal.
These details also play into the hours-long process of
ritual spellcasting, which I imagine certainly deserves
a little enthusiasm in colorful description.
Surreptitious casting requires skill at timing and
misdirection to a degree known only to low entertain-
ers, 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 character’s 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
caster’s 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 subor-
dinate dice rolls to determine specific effects, but not
to establish whether the spell works.
The spell description includes its color, its Brawn
cost, whether it’s a ritual or not, its eligible target. In
all cases, the target must be within the range of the
caster’s 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 spell’s duration is one of three types:
○ Instant: the magic operates only for a moment,
although its effects remain. Blast is the perfect
example: the magic manifests, hurts a person,
and then is gone, leaving behind an injured
person.
Ǯ An instant spell is vulnerable to oppositional
magic only at the moment it is cast.
○ Prolonged: the magic operates throughout the
current scene, defined as continuity in time and
immediate location during play.
Ǯ A prolonged spell is vulnerable to opposi-
tional magic both at casting and throughout
that duration.
Ǯ A prolonged spell may be terminated by its
caster before the end of the scene.
○ Creation: the created item or creature remains
until the next sunup or sundown.
Ǯ A creation spell is vulnerable to oppositional
magic only at the moment it is cast.
Ǯ Created items or creatures cannot be
magically un-created (banished) prior to the
spell’s 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 confron-
tation with magic, but it must be played continuously.
When the player wants his or her character to get a
spell into action, then it’s 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 creature’s
description.
The products of the Beast spells aren’t real animals.
Their coloration and demeanor always reflects their
origin in Amboriyon, and they don’t act normally.
Real animals don’t like them one bit and they aren’t
subject to interactions based on animal-friendly pro-
fessions.
A creation spell cannot be terminated prior to its
duration’s end. There is no banishing.
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 CirCle OF handS

PUMPING the incoming spell must be pumped to a Brawn total

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 fic-
tion and does not require an action.
OPPOSITIONAL SPELLS
Some spells affect other magic: Absorb, Stop, Reflect,
Sink, and Warp. Some spells are paired in opposi-
tion 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.
○ Absorb, Reflect, Warp, Bless/Curse,
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 extreme-
ly 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.
No single caster may cast the same prolonged spell
more than once, while it’s active.
A caster may terminate his or her current prolonged
spells, but it must be cast again to re-activate.

6
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.
○ 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 doesn’t fully pre-empt
the other person’s action – i.e., the first spell is
indeed cast – but otherwise it’s just the same
as any other instance of spending Brawn to act
first, including moving the person to 3:00.
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.
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,
Illus. Phillip Simpson
120
 Gray MaGic

SPELL LIST

Amboriyon � Amboriyon �� Amboriyon ���

Instant Instant Instant
Beacon, Healing, Master, Repair, Absorb, See, Soothe, Purge, Purify, Restore, Wrath
Waft Dazzle, Forward
Prolonged
Prolonged Instant + Ritual Righteousness, Sink, Spirit, Statue,
Blade, Blank, Glow, Perfection, Cure Throng
Haze, Step, Stop
Prolonged Prolonged + Ritual
Creation Shining, Counter, Glamor, Grow, Calm, Link, Preserve
Beast 1, Ward Vine
Creation + Ritual
Prolonged + Ritual Eidolon
Bless, White Light
Creation
Avatar, Beast 2
Creation + Ritual
Store

Rbaja ○ Rbaja ○○ Rbaja ○○○

Instant Instant Instant
Confuse, Contort, Noxify, Palsy, Blast, Fake, Infect, Reflect, Ruin, Die, Rip, Sacrifice
Web Scar, Warp
Instant + Ritual
Prolonged Prolonged Erupt, Pox
Black Speech, Drugges Envenom, Berserk, Curse, Dominate, Flesh,
Prolonged
Itch, Seem Hate, Stimulant, Trailtwister
Pain, Rage, Suck
Creation Creation
Prolonged + Ritual
Cloud, Walk Demon 2
Puppet, Storm
Creation + Ritual
Creation
Demon 1
Demon 3
Creation + Ritual
Distort, Lich

Moreno Roncucci and playtesters provided

much help regarding spell effects and costs.

121
 CirCle of Hands

Amboriyon �

Balm �
duratiOn: Instant, Ritual: No
target: One beast, monster, or person
eFFect: The target’s 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
Blank �
duratiOn: Prolonged, Ritual: No
target: One person, item, or small area
eFFect: The target does not emanate magical vibra-
tions and cannot be perceived as magical by a wizard’s
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 hang-
ing, drifting globe near him or her.

6
eFFect: A highly visible column of light blasts upward
from the caster’s hand; similarly, any wizard within Haze �
miles (functionally, any wizard who can participate
duratiOn: Prolonged, Ritual: No
in the current venture) is magically alerted to this
spell being cast and knows approximately from what target: One person
direction. eFFect: +3 to his or her defensive Quickness total
during combat.
Beast 1 � unnamed characters: Ascend upon casting the spell
duratiOn: Creation, Ritual: No
Master �
eFFect: A 1-point beast of the caster’s choice appears
(see Beasts). It obeys the summoner’s commands until duratiOn: Instant, Ritual: No
its Brawn or Quickness is reduced to 0 or below, after target: One person
which it can be forced to obey with a Charm vs. 12 roll. eFFect: 1d6 is added to any single roll involved in
variants/OptiOns: making something, or the spell permits such a roll to
○ Hawk: Brawn 3, Quickness 6, flight be made in the absence of suitable materials.
○ Small snake: Brawn 3, Quickness 6, venom unnamed characters: Ascend when spell is cast
○ Dog or cat: Brawn 3, Quickness 6, Armor 3 variants/OptiOns: Both effects can be achieved simul-
taneously by pumping 1 Brawn.
Blade �
duratiOn: Creation, Ritual: No
target: One person
eFFect: An ordinary sword is safely created in the
person’s grasp
unnamed characters: Ascend if given the sword
variants/OptiOns: Additional blades may be created
simultaneously by pumping Brawn 1:1.

122
 Gray MaGic
Perfection �
duratiOn: Prolonged, Ritual: No
target: One person
eFFect: The target gains perfect sensory abilities
excluding pain and balance. He or she sees in near-
total darkness, hears whispers through walls, smells
or tastes poison without ingesting enough to be hurt
by it, and otherwise senses the barest possible stimu-
lus. The spell permits the target to operate normally
in conditions which provide some stimuli, e.g., fight-
ing 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 tar-
geting 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 usu-
ally reserved for professional entertainers.
unnamed characters: Ascend when spell is cast
Amboriyon ��
Avatar ��
duratiOn: Creation, Ritual: No
e FFect : An avatar of the caster’s 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 sup-
plication 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.
Stop �
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.
Beast 2 ��
duratiOn: Creation, Ritual: No
eFFect: A 2-point beast of the caster’s choice appears
(see Beasts). It obeys the summoner’s 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 caster’s 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 dis-
ease, fatigue, and injury, but does not regrow missing
or maimed body parts. If cast upon oneself, the spell’s
cost is not restored.
unnamed characters: Ascend when spell is cast
6 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 com-
pletely 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
Grow ��
duratiOn: Prolonged, Ritual: No
target: One beast
eFFect: The target visibly increases to between one-
half 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
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
caster’s 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.
See ��
duratiOn: Instant, Ritual: Yes
target: One person
e FFect : The caster perceives the person’s entire
experiential history, but not thoughts, opinions, or
data-based information in the person’s 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
 Gray MaGic
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 termi-
nated 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 compo-
nent of Rage and the effects of Hate for one victim, but
it does not cancel either spell or oppose its casting.
Illus. Juan Ochoa
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 accord-
ing to the caster’s 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 func-
tions as barrier or entanglement. An
entangled person or creature, must
roll Brawn vs. 12 to escape. At the end
of the spell’s 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 desig-
nated 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 crea-
ture incurs 1d6 Damage as it crosses,
which is not stopped by Armor.
125
 CirCle of Hands
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 initiat-
ing 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 caster’s choice appears (see
Eidolons). To obey the caster, the eidolon must be
befriended or placated, depending on its type.
variants/OptiOns:
○ Guide
6 ○ 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 other’s 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, erup-
tion, 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 Sink’s proximity costs 2
additional Brawn; prolonged spells currently running
must have 2 Brawn pumped to them immediately or
dissipate.
 Gray MaGic

Spirit ��� Throng ���

duratiOn: Prolonged, Ritual: No duratiOn: Prolonged, Ritual: No
target: The caster target: One person
eFFect: A glowing white semblance steps from the e FFect : The target uses the ordinary resolution
caster’s body (not a target person’s) and may act inde- rolls when addressing a group of people, including
pendently, as if his or her personality were present increased volume for voice and improved visibility.
in both bodies. Its Brawn and Quickness are both +1 The effect only applies in motivating them to act; it
to the caster’s. It has an armor score of 6 and Perfect will not calm.
Senses. In a clash, it always splits evenly. It may not cast resistance: None
spells nor can it be healed by any means; it cannot talk unnamed characters: Ascends upon casting the spell
or interact in any way aside from combat. The caster
is incapable of combat or further spellcasting while Wrath ���
the Spirit is active. It may be resorbed at the caster’s
duratiOn: instant, Ritual: No
discretion at any time prior to the duration’s end. If it
is brought to 0 Brawn, it dissipates and the caster must target: Area of a size of the caster’s choosing between
succeed in a Wits vs. 12 roll to remain conscious. a patch big enough to cover a small room, and about
a quarter acre
Statue ��� eFFect: An Amboriyon zone is created.
duratiOn: Prolonged, Ritual: No unnamed characters: All in the area are killed; the
target: A specially-prepared statue GM may choose to ascend one of them, who survives
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 stand-
ing 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 barri-
ers. Although Statue is not a ritual
spell, if you don’t have a statue handy,
then building one is a lengthy and
expensive project.

Illus. Amos Orion Sterns

127
 CirCle of Hands
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 else’s con-
trol 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 obses-
6 sion.
○ A lich converses and interacts almost normally
without Black Speech, but can be commanded
to perform single actions with Black Speech –
one of a lich’s few weak points, and a sure way
to make it seek the spellcaster’s 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 target’s body becomes sufficiently mal-
leable and flexible – including the pelvic symphysis
and the fused skull bones – to permit passing through
frighteningly small openings. All items worn or car-
ried 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 caster’s 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
 Gray MaGic
Drug ○
duratiOn: Prolonged, Ritual: No
target: One person or beast
eFFect: The target suffers 1d6 Damage immediately
and another at the end of the spell’s 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 target’s 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 any-
thing 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 caster’s 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 skele-
ton or draugr (see Undead). It obeys the caster’s 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

Rjaba ○○

Berserk ○○ Demon 2 ○○
duratiOn: Prolonged, Ritual: No duratiOn: Creation, Ritual: No
target: One person eFFect: A 2-point demon of the caster’s choice appears
eFFect: The target suffers no Quickness penalty from (see Demons).
Damage and may neither all-out defend nor retreat. ○ If the spell Sacrifice was employed, then the
For the duration of the spell, he or she is incapable of demon obeys the summoner by default for its
speech and cannot make Wits rolls. first action
resist: None ○ If not, then the summoner must force it to obey
unnamed characters: Ascend upon casting the spell with a Charm vs. 12 roll, which is a full action
OppOses: Soothe of its own.
variants/OptiOns
Blast ○○ ○ Nzagg
duratiOn: Instant, Ritual: No ○ Nightmare
target: One person, beast, monster, eidolon, or ○ Eye
avatar
e FFect : The target suffers 1d6
Damage. Armor does not protect
against this damage. The damaged

6 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 addi-
tional dice of Damage

Curse ○○
duratiOn: Prolonged, Ritual: No
target: Person or beast
eFFect: The target loses a die for all
rolls using a single attribute of the
caster’s choice
u nnamed characters : Rendered
incompetent at any attempted task
OppOses: Bless

Illus. Amos Orion Sterns

130
 Gray MaGic
Dominate ○○
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 caster’s 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.
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 ○○
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
Infect ○○
duratiOn: Instant, Ritual: No
target: One person or animal
eFFect: The target person or beast contracts a non-
fatal, non-contagious fever.
unnamed characters: Rendered miserable and help-
less
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 caster’s choice
Ruin ○○
duratiOn: Instant, Ritual: No
target: Non-living object, approximately human-
size 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 spell’s
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

Warp ○○
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 spell’s 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 ○○○ Erupt ○○○

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 summon-
ing 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

6 ○ Yoggoth
○ Angel
Lich ○○○
duratiOn: Creation, Ritual: Yes
target: The caster
Die ○○○ eFFect: The target dies and transforms himself or
duratiOn: Instant herself into a lich, given the appropriate materials
(see Undead; also see rules for player-characters).
ritual: No
target: One person or beast Pain ○○○
eFFect: The target loses 3 Brawn from the target.
duratiOn: Prolonged, Ritual: No
resistance: None
target: One person
unnamed characters: Killed instantly
eFFect: For every 3 full Damage points inflicted by the
variants/OptiOns: The caster may pump Brawn 1:1 to target person after armor, 1 point of Brawn is made
remove additional Brawn from the target. available to the caster of the spell for healing injury.
Points in excess of those are made available for cast-
Distort ○○○
ing black spells; these latter points must be utilized
duratiOn: Creation, Ritual: Yes during the current scene or they dissipate.
target: An area resistance: No
eFFect: The spell creates an Rbaja zone in the imme- unnamed characters: Ascend when spell is cast
diate area. All corpses within the designated area
become draugr.
unnamed characters: Flee in terror, some disappear-
ing, some driven mad.

132
 Gray MaGic
Pox ○○○
duratiOn: Instant, Ritual: Yes
target: An area
eFFect: All persons, beasts, and animals is infected
with a normal contagious disease of the caster’s
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 spell’s dura-
tion.
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
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 caster’s 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
Rip ○○○
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 per-
sons or beasts just prior to casting this spell, which is
its own physical action
eFFect: For each 3 of a victim’s 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 disori-
ented, killed at the caster’s option
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 caster’s capacity
for murder. Such excess Brawn permits not only outra-
geous 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
6
of multiple prolonged effects, sometimes with a kick-
off multi-spell effect hitting simultaneously at the
end of the casting. It works especially well when deal-
ing 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 bar-
rage 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 Circle’s specialty, of course, is black-and-white
combinations which boggle the mind in their profu-
sion and cross-cutting effects. Killing someone for
Sacrifice to power Envenoming a Righteous sword
cast from Stored power … it’s 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
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 heav-
ily on Sacrifice to avoid permanently losing Brawn,
resulting in physically powerful liches.
The ritual casting for an enchantment requires spe-
cial, 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 spell’s 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:
Ǯ The user spends Brawn for the effect; the
object remains usable
Ǯ 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.
Ǯ No further Brawn is spent
 Gray MaGic

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 enchant-
ment 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 physi-
cally 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 – usu-
ally a matter of years.
stains OF amBOriyOn include
○ Sweet and pleasant demeanors, banal stock-
phrases
○ Insufficient, plain and minimally-prepared food
○ Conversation always turns toward abstract sig-
nificance
○ Obsession with light
stains OF rBaja include
○ Bloody rituals
○ Moments of heedless cruelty
○ General disorder and mess
○ Secretive acts and signals

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Illus. Jez Gordon
 Chapter 7l ight and darkneSS
USING THIS
A prepared venture for Circle of Hands ultimately concerns soap opera. You don’t 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 isn’t the issue; if you put in a
monster, for example, then maybe it outmatches the Circle knights, and maybe it doesn’t. Doesn’t matter.

Since the people, animals, and creatures in a venture aren’t boss fights or speedbumps, this chapter offers both
the various useful numbers for each being and, at Keith Senkowski’s 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
Ǯ Social rank, profession, ecology, community
Ǯ Familiarity, personal likes and dislikes,
understandable reactions and responses
5 In addition to people and animals, dangerous
creatures
Ǯ Beasts, monsters and minor creatures of
Amboriyon and Rbaja
Ǯ Effects of human activity, distortions of
human activity, prompters of human activity
6 In addition to people and animals, major crea-
tures and agents of Rbaja
Ǯ Enchantment, zone, wizard, or demon
7 In addition to people and animals, major crea-
tures and agents of Amboriyon
Ǯ 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 it’s easy
to fall back on directing and conducting and dictat-
ing, 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 it’s eaten their brains):
manticOre:
○ In the wilds
Ǯ Recently disturbed or its territory newly
entered
Ǯ Kills a person, eats his or her brain, and
relocates to that person’s home area
○ At a community, where people are beginning
to go missing; the people there probably don’t
know what it is
Ǯ 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
Ǯ If you’re hunting for whatever’s doing it, or
searching for missing people, it’ll lure you
to its lair
Let’s say your preparation includes the component #4
set in Famberge, and you’re looking at the monsters
of that area. You can decide whether the manticore’s
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 rubric’s
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.
I’ve 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

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 isn’t enough, as it seems flat, and yet long-winded
purple prose is no fun either.
There’s no easy answer, so are some thoughts from my playtesting, acknowledging that I struggle with it too.
You’re not the animator or the movie screen, providing the full visuals and motion so that others may soak them
in. Instead, you’re 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, you’ll find they’ll do the same
with you.
When playing people and ordinary animals, try it from the observing character’s 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 it’s 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, I’ve also been holding off on the explicit names for beasts, monsters, and the Rbaja and Amboriyon
creatures until after they’ve 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 aren’t active
agents and never become anything more than “the
way things look around here.” They’re available for
more agency as the events may prompt, but are not
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 aren’t perceived that way, and arguably

7
launched as such during preparation.
don’t perceive themselves as such most of the time.
Therefore, in game terms, for Circle knights who don’t
ANIMALS AND PEASANTS
have peasant status and for everyone else too, peas-
Incidental animals are a constant part of life: domes-
ants are moving parts of the background in scenes.
tic dogs and horses, herded animals including goats,
The mechanics for unnamed people and groups
sheep, and cows, wild animals including many small
aren’t used for them, and they can’t be ascended or
mammals, wolves, bear, deer, and plenty of birds
even be targeted by Wits or Charm.
from sparrow to hawk to pheasant. In regional terms,
Tamaryon is associated mainly with boar and oxen, If a Circle knight in the venture is of the peasant
Famberge with wolves, smaller wild pigs, and horses, social rank, then as far as he or she is concerned, local
Spurr with snakes and hawks, and Rolke with a dis- peasants are played as unnamed people instead, and
tinctive regional panther. if he or she does single out or interact with a peasant,
then that peasant can be ascended to named status
People in the Crescent Land live and work closely
and played from there.
with animals, so briefly describing animals in this
way during play helps the group to engage with the
UNNAMED PEOPLE
culture quite a bit. For them to matter more, a char-
Most of the characters present in fictional terms are
acter has to be seriously in their space and seriously
unnamed but present and active, whether seen in the
doing something they like or don’t like, which effec-
moment or not. “A bunch of villagers,” “four armed
tively means ascending them to the Beast category
men, mounted,” “women singing as they bring their
(below) in a specific situation.
baskets to the wagons” – all qualify.
Peasants are human beings. However, as far as every-
Such characters’ actions are not assessed for failure.
one else is concerned, and as far as peasants who don’t
They do stuff appropriate to their social rank and pro-
know one another are concerned, they are incidental
fessions, and you role-play them as individuals as you
people – a person in this social rank is perceived as
see fit, thinking in terms of their generic relationships
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 light and darkneSS

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, you’re 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 prepa-
ration, 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, profes-
sion, 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 cat-
egory, as they only come into play via the preparation
components.
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.
Resolve these characters’ actions during scenes using
their Brawn and Quickness just as for the Circle
knights. However, use their Wits and Charm primar-
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 non-
human 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 unexpect-
edly survives a human threat
invOlvement with human cOmmunity
○ Threat, usually with identifiable targets or at
least logical ones from the beast’s point of view
Ǯ Leads to strife among the people about what
to do, or who’s responsible
Ǯ Hunting the hunter
○ Help
Ǯ Makes a significant decision which some
humans disagree with
A person with an appropriate profession may interact
with a beast using Charm just as for people and with
the same results.
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 CirCle OF handS
Don’t use 8 5 4 2 for them, but the following values
for Brawn and Quickness. Wits and Charm typically
aren’t used directly, nor should they be applied out-
side the parameters of the animals’ identity.
○ A small animal typically has Quickness 6 and
Armor ranging from 0 to 3. If it’s little, like a
housecat, then its Brawn is 3; if it’s 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 doesn’t 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 cir-
cumstances. In confrontational, lethally-intended
7
combat, arrows have no meaningful effect upon them.
They also attack extremely strategically. If they initi-
ate 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
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.
○ Brawn 3, 6 or 9, Quickness 6, Armor 3. Ockers
140
are fast and dangerous! If they grab you, you’re
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 rela-
tively safe conditions and may grow quite big.
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.
Beasts in Rolke
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 it’s incredibly dangerous – able to rec-
ognize individual humans and remember what they
have done, and a patient, observant, ambush-oriented
hunter. Usually it’s content to take down rabbits or
deer, but if it is attacked or if its family unit is threat-
ened, or if its hunting territory is regularly encroached
upon, it becomes a highly personal nemesis.
○ Rarely, a panther displays the opposite behav-
 light and darkneSS

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.
○ Brawn 6, Quickness 9, Armor 3.
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.
○ Use the swarm rules.
The ships from Spurr are often accompanied by
pods of a sleek, medium-sized dolphin species, physi-
cally similar to our northern right whale dolphin,
who have a disturbingly watchful demeanor toward
people. If a ship’s crew provides a living human for
them to play with and then devour, the pod provides
useful help for navigation; if it doesn’t, they’ll follow
for a while hoping for a change of heart, and be espe-
cially 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.

MONSTERS
These creatures are much like beasts, but they have human-like features or features which prompt specific behaviors
in humans. They don’t 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; it’s 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 person’s head.
○ Brawn 6, Quickness 9, Armor 0.
○ The emerged mansnake fights if cornered,
but otherwise attempts to wriggle away; if it’s
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 it’s 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.
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 activi-
ties 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 bra-
zening 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 golden’s presence includes awareness that
he or she is staring or otherwise deeply con-
cerned with the gold object
If the passage of time in the venture includes weeks and
months, roll the golden’s Brawn vs. 12 between scenes
○ Success: the number of gold objects around the
place decreases noticeably
○ Failure: as above, and the golden is noticeably

7 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.
bloated and gaseous
Circle knights are plot-armored against becoming
one of the golden.

What’s really happening is classic parasitoidy: a cer- The golden and liches deeply loathe one another.
tain butterfly’s eggs do not pupate immediately, but Fear a component roll whose result includes 5 and
accumulate in the water supply and sometimes reach 6 in Spurr.
critical mass in a human body. As they pupate there,
the host’s behavior changes to suit their needs.
Much later, a matter of months and years, the person’s
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 metal-
lic, 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 parasitoid’s
development in others, so golden don’t show up in
proximity, nor are butterflies present in the area until

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Monsters in Famberge

Manticore
This is my favorite monster. A manticore has a lion’s body and limbs, but a huge and swollen scorpion’s 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 victim’s 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 some-
one or late in an encounter against a badly wounded opponent or prey.
Ǯ 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 person’s home area
At a community, where people are beginning to go missing; the people there probably don’t 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 you’re hunting for whatever’s doing it, or searching for missing people, it’ll lure you to its lair

Illus. Juan Ochoa

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 CirCle OF handS

Spider-hags
A spider-hag lives alone in deep forest thickets or sub-
merged 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 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 addi-
tional Damage.
○ It does not use webs in combat, only for travel, but
it is not affected by the Web spell.
Both males and females enjoy and seek consensual
sexual contact with humans, which is quite an experi-
ence or so I’m told. Not only do one’s 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 partner’s former lovers – and spider-hags can smell
that on you, no matter how much you wash.
prep and play

7 Single: plenty of hedonistic fun

○ Social problems arise among people who object
to others’ frolicking with a spider-hag, for any of a Illus. Juan Ochoa
hundred reasons
○ “Hi there!” Sooner or later a spider-hag approaches interesting strangers to an area.
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.
○ In additional to the danger to individuals, people’s 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

Wracker
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, it’s 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.
Wrackers labor with and for humans, but are not truly domesticated as their breeding choices can’t be controlled.
People have learned merely to release them during mating season, when they won’t work anyway, and let whatever
happens, happen.
Wrackers can speak, a startling feature for people who aren’t 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-
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fined to a few verbs, adjectives, and familiar objects.
But it’s true speech.
○ 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.
prep and play
Wrackers only become problematic under the follow-
ing circumstances:
Mistreatment under stress
○ 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
Sport fighting
○ Mishaps to onlookers due to the violence of the
encounter
○ The human brawls and feuds that sometimes
result from arguments about the betting.
Illus. Juan Ochoa
Monsters In Rolke
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 pos-
sible but reduced to a single die.
○ Once caught, a person’s gambeson or mail pro-
tects 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 Quick-
ness to its original level regardless of the injury or
penalty.
Furthermore, a relaxing recreational drug can be dis-
tilled from its exudate. It’s a widely-appreciated trade
good in Rolke, and anywhere else it gets to, but given
the necessary resource, not very common.
prep and play
Encounter in the wild
○ If the ordinary orienteering Wits vs. 12 roll fails,
one has fallen into a female pode’s lair
Ǯ Roll Quickness vs. 12 to avoid immediate
injury, but you are still fighting a pode
Encounter through the drug
○ Someone offers to share the paste
Ǯ Someone else does not approve
○ A habitual user becomes insistent
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 CirCle OF handS
○ About sharing more experiences
○ About acquiring more paste
The majority of people using it experience no recog-
nizable 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 doesn’t 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 climb-
ing, 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 , it’s pretty much impossible
to hold the advantage.
7 ○ 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.
Illus. Juan Ochoa
146
○ The two-legged ones are winged and although
they cannot fly, they can flap to elevate their
ordinary movement, providing considerable
advantage.
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.
prep and play
Young and/or newly arrived in an area
○ 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.
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.
Monsters Throughout
the Lands
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.
 light and darkneSS

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.
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.
○ Brawn 9, Quickness 6, 0 armor.
○ 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.
Occasionally, bitter, scarred older ogres break the
cycle and actively seek vengeance upon a specific
community, with nightmarish cunning and deter-
mination. They don’t fear pain and strike to terrorize
and punish.
prep and play
Family unit
○ Hunting people opportunistically
Ǯ Social breakdown if and when someone
can’t make a kill
Rogue individual
○ Dedicated attacks against a community, timed
and aimed for maximum terror
Ǯ Social breakdown including recriminations
for the disaster

Creatures of
Amboriyon: Avatars
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 avatar’s 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 confus-
ing 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 specially-
adopted 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
○ 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 befriend-
ed 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
unicorn’s presence is a community of impaled corpses.

Illus. Amos Orion Sterns

Pegasus ��
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
 light and darkneSS
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 profes-
sion is limited to a single die for this roll)
Ǯ Failure: it attacks and then tries to escape
When befriended
○ Participates in combat that day: friendly and
nuzzling toward everyone
Ǯ No combat: cranky, glares at people, injures
horses if they’re near
○ The friend acquires black color points
Ǯ 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 ben-
efits 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 recipient’s
choice, which may exceed its ordinary value.
Ǯ 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 person’s 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 sum-
moned, 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 behav-
ior 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 cor-
uscating 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.
Ǯ 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 ○ It prophesies for this person in an insightful

Upon arrival or summons
○ It engages in pleasant dialogue, immediately
perceiving a person’s entire experiential his-
tory, so it has no trouble ingratiating itself with
a local community.
Ǯ Soon it offers advice, always some combina-
tion of purification by fire, murder by quiet
means like poison or suffocation, and sui-
cide. 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, display-
ing the wounds it received.
Ǯ In this state its interactions affect whole
groups.
Ǯ 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 isn’t in the conditions for such an oath, so one
must fold that act into the means toward something
rhyme, which is initially too powerful and odd
to be comprehensible.
Ǯ 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.
○ It protects this person fervently.
Ǯ 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 pres-
ence. 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,

7 else which is eligible.

Lammasu ���
unlike the Guide, it equally profoundly does not
interact directly with anyone and is not concerned
with opinions or specific actions.
A lammasu is a shining, massive lion with eagle’s Its only goal is eradication. It does not care a bit about
wings and a classically handsome human face. It what a person without black or white Gifts does or
seeks to aid a person to perform the single most does not do.
extreme act possible in his or her interests as the
A silver dragon is a combat horror.
person sees it.
○ Brawn 12, Quickness 9, Armor 9.
○ Brawn 9, Quickness 9, Armor 6.
○ Limbless, it fights by coiling around opponents
○ Its body is itself a small Amboriyon zone which
and biting. It does not swoop down, so it can
negates violent weather and environmental
be fought normally although it is technically in
effects, whether natural and magical.
the air.
○ In combat, a lammasu remains earthbound,
○ It breathes pure white flame by spending 2
using frightening tactics like twenty-foot hori-
Brawn, requiring no attack roll; the target’s
zontal leaps and wing buffets that encompass
Quickness is penalized to a single die, including
thirty-foot arcs on either side, usually retaining
in combat, but he or she also gains a bonus die
the combat advantage. It flies only to travel.
to Wits rolls.
Lammasus despise manticores, and if any are in the
○ It casts 1 point white spells as if it were a wizard,
area, a lammasu makes it its business to hunt them
with ordinary Brawn cost.
when it’s not occupied with the person it’s mentoring.
○ It can fight groups as if they were individuals.
prep and play
If a silver dragon is killed, an Amboriyon zone forms
A lammasu fixates upon a single person, if possible
unless its slayer successfully makes an immediate
the one with the most black color points.
150
 light and darkneSS

Brawn roll, i.e., with what Brawn may remain after
such a contest.
prep and play
A silver dragon is never present at the start of a ven-
ture, but certain portents herald its potential.
○ The air becomes especially cold and clear; ordi-
nary 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 dedi-
cated attempts to engage will generate standard
results with Charm.
It appears in one of three ways:
○ Summoned
Ǯ Assess summoner: if he or she has no white
Gifts, then annihilate.
○ Personal transformation through a Gift of
Amboriyon
○ The portents escalate
Ǯ A person succeeds with a Wits vs. 12 roll in
trying to understand them.
Once present
○ Its presence expunges all current black color
points in that scene from existence.
○ If anyone has a Gift of Amboriyon
Ǯ Aids that person by annihilating opposition
Ǯ Looks for more such Gifts
○ If anyone has a Gift of Rbaja
Ǯ 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 character’s, and his or her behavior and magi-
cal 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
game’s “zombie,” obeys orders strictly on its own terms.
1-point undead are created by magic, enchanted if they’re wanted long-term. 2-point undead occur under cer-
tain 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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○ 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 hand-
held 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 pro-
cess 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 person’s concerns
when he or she was alive. However, such communica-
tion isn’t really two-way as a draugr doesn’t care a bit
about living concerns any more.
7 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
Ǯ It can be addressed and commanded using
Black Speech
○ Anyone in the area is killed
Ǯ It emerges from wherever it is and seeks to
kill the slayer, becoming inert thereafter
Ǯ Community strife may well ensue depend-
ing 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
person’s 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
Rbaja zone adds 1d6. As a spell is not involved, there is
no duration – once there’s 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 person’s man-
nerisms, 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 psy-
chologically tied to the haunt’s oath
Ǯ A person who succeeds with a Wits vs. 12 roll
for any reason also notices such manifesta-
tions
○ 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 cir-
cumstances correspond even minimally to events in
the haunt’s prior history:
○ It manifests and communicates through repeti-
tive 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
Ǯ It can be truly killed by violence in this form.
Ǯ 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 haunt’s 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
 light and darkneSS
vs. 12 roll, made with 1d6, or 2d6 if in or near an Rbaja
zone. Because no spell is involved, there is no dura-
tion – 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 func-
tion 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 strung-
out 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 advan-
tage die. A target may only be affected by one
ghoul’s 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, appall-
ing 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 hor-
ribly, 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
Ǯ Some people resort to cannibalism
Ǯ Some few of them rise as ghouls
Different conditions in the area
○ Continued devastation and desertion
Ǯ Ghouls prowl as open-field predators
○ Recovery or beginning of a new community
Ǯ 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 circum-
stances, 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 situa-
tions 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. Begin-
ning 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 facul-
ties, 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 phan-
tom limb, as well as a persistent chill.
Don’t 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 didn’t 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 lich’s 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 can-
didates. Other, grubbier undead are concerned with
those.
○ The lich’s Brawn is equal to the wizard’s 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 spell’s 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.
7
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.
154
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 Ambori-
yon 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 don’t know it’s there, only fearing, appeas-
ing, and otherwise avoiding its agents.
○ They don’t know it’s there, thinking its front
person or community is the agent of power.
○ They know it’s 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 it’s 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
Illus. Juan Ochoa
 light and darkneSS

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 summoning’s 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 don’t 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 collu-
sion. 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 demon’s rubric relies on what a specific person wants, the pre-
cise 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 every-
where, 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 partner’s 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
Ǯ Its bite deals +1d6 Damage which does not heal through
ordinary means
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
Ǯ The master employs its services more and
more frequently
Ǯ 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
Ǯ It bites the offending individual in such a
way that he or she is badly maimed, in addi-
tion 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 summoner’s or designated mas-
ter’s 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
7 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 imp’s 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 imp’s crucial role in teach-
ing 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 infor-
mation to its master.
○ Finds sources of resentment and opportunity
It mutters and teaches the magic of Rbaja.
156
○ 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 summoner’s mouth.
A splotch does not speak or otherwise communicate,
but it acts aggressively against anyone except its sum-
moner, 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 doesn’t protect against it.
○ 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 it’s gunked someone, then that
person is injured too.
Whatever cloth, leather, or other clothing-like mate-
rial it sticks to becomes disgusting and unusable.
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 recogniz-
able, with its own fur color pattern, skin excrescences,
and facial details, and it’s given a name by its sum-
moner.
○ Brawn 3 when first summoned, Quickness 6,
Armor 3
○ A nzagg eats voraciously and grows dramatical-
ly, 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.
 light and darkneSS
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 won’t 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
Illus. Juan Ochoa
Nightmare ○○
A nightmare is an apparently iron horse with flaming
hooves which can gallop across any medium, except-
ing running water. It cannot literally fly, but can run
on air as long as it ends its action on a solid sub-
strate. 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 don’t keep a nightmare; if it’s enchanted, it
vanishes and reappears in the dream of someone
planning to fight (so if you want it back, better plan
on fighting)
Eye ○○
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.
○ This sphere is capable of considerable destruc-
tion, 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.
○ The eye itself may be targeted in combat but
is sufficiently small and strange that combat
advantage may not be taken against it.
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 pro-
fession in his or her area
○ To see and know what unnamed people in the
group are doing at all times
157
 CirCle OF handS
○ To direct the group’s 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 them-
selves.
Additional body parts may be provided to affect addi-
tional 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
Ǯ Other people and groups take action against
the situation
Ǯ 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
7
typically enfold it like a cloak. It is typically perceived
only through an individual’s 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 posi-
tion 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 com-
fort 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
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 angel’s 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 effec-
tiveness 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 crea-
ture 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 oppo-
nent on its turn unless they roll Wits vs. 12 – a
single success protects the person throughout
the encounter.
Ǯ Failing the Wits roll means the person
becomes incapable of targeting other char-
acters 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 yoggoth’s next
action, then proceeding to the end of the action
order.
If a yoggoth is injured:
○ A storm is raised in the area, including dark-
ness, rain, lightning, and thunder. People and
creatures in the area of effect suffer reduced vis-
ibility, reduced movement, and disadvantaged
actions, except for creatures of Rbaja. Unnamed
 light and darkneSS
characters are hopelessly lost and disoriented,
killed at the caster’s option
If a person voluntarily sacrifices his or her life to a yog-
goth, 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 sum-
moning 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:
Ǯ Assaulting an indicated community
Ǯ Increasing a single person’s Brawn by 3, at
no cost to itself
Ǯ 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.
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.
○ Brawn 9, Quickness 9, Armor 6.
○ In clashes, its offense allocation is always set to
double its defense (12/6), and its multiple weap-
ons 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
Ǯ 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
Ǯ 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 can’t go wrong with the classics. I was pleased to
re-read Karl Edward Wagner’s Death Angel’s Shadow
and to find that the antagonists in the three stories are
picture-perfect for, in order, a monster, Amboriyon,
and Rbaja.
159
Illus. Jez Gordon
 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 espe- In the late 70s, this wasn’t unreasonable. By the early
cially those who’ve read Sorcerer & Sword, know of 90s, though, things were considerably different. This
my life-long devotion to fantasy - and my nearly as essay is about some 1990s games I’m calling “fantasy
life-long loathing of what has happened to most heartbreakers,” which are truly impressive in terms of
of it over the past two decades. Without going into the drive, commitment, and personal joy that’s evident
further detail regarding the background, any fantasy in both their existence and in their details - yet they
role-playing game is subject to dark, personal, and are also teeth-grindingly frustrating, in that, like their
not especially friendly scrutiny from me. Frankly, counterparts from the late 70s, they represent but a
they usually induce teeth-gnashing, cries of rage, single creative step from their source: old-style D&D.
and pages of scrawling, in very tiny letters, in a spiral- And unlike those other games, as such, they were
bound notebook. doomed from the start. This
So combine this with the facts essay is basically in their favor,
that many would-be hopeful i see sOme cOmmOn Features in a kind of grief-stricken way.
role-playing games are fantasy, that lead me tO think that Perhaps it’s no big deal. Perhaps
or “fantasy” anyway, and that their respective puBlicatiOns just getting into print and being
I am dedicated to the cause of were nOt, aFter all, Only on the shelves was all that their
creator ownership and publish- aBOut “seeing it in print.”
authors wanted. Perhaps I’m
ing one’s own vision ... and you just a big meanie for expecting
can probably see the pickle more (1) critical perspective of the intervening his-
I’m in. On the one hand, I’m in agony when faced tory of game design, (2) knowledge of actual fantasy
with another elfy-dwarfy deal, and on the other, I’m 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 what’s an orc? Think of him having fun break-
described 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, I’m tired of these
accessories, like disks with programs for character
rules or arguing about this or that. Let’s 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 what’s 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, I’m talking about content,
what some call “genre,” and the means of generating
it through the mechanics of play. So screw GNS, let’s
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 Produc-
tions, by Jeffrey Konkol
○ Darkurthe: Legends - 1993, Black Dragon Press, by
Matthew Yaro and Colin Murcray
○ Legendary Lives - 1993, Marquee Press, by Kath-
leen 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)
8 ○ 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!
Let’s take the most painful aspect of these games
first - not one of them demonstrates a shred of criti-
cal 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, let’s look at this weapons list from
Dawnfire: Bill-Guisarme ... Flail, Flail (horseman’s),
162
Glaive, Guisarme, Halberd .... Lasso, Lucern Hammer
... Trident, Voulge ...
Just rolls trippingly off the tongue, doesn’t it? (For
those of you who are wondering what I’m talking
about, we older role-players memorized the weap-
ons-list in the 1978 Player’s Handbook through sheer
concentration and fascination, such that its cadences
took on a near-catechistic drone.) Same goes for
armor in these games; it’s like a chant: padded, leath-
er, studded, ring, chain, banded, splinted, half-plate,
field plate, full plate ...
That’s 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-help-
group-like personality system which fundamentally
becomes the same-old alignment system. In Forge:
Out of Chaos, the very notion of doing anything that
isn’t treasure-seeking in a dungeon is completely
foreign - its section “Breaking Open Portals” is predi-
cated 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 oughtn’t and they’ll kill you if you do”, which
to me reads, “Don’t 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 con-
cerns 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 what’s 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 “what’s really hap-
pening.” 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 Rolemas-
ter, for instance, and Hahlmabrea’s 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 homog-
enize the actual Effective values (i.e., those used
in play).
○ 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 stan-
dard 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 generat-
ing a functional Gamist/Simulationist hybrid. It’s 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 well-
defined 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.

○ All of them greatly emphasize character race
(species, really) as a major modifier of the ran-
domized 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 character’s game effectiveness,
compared with the role of skill proficiency.
○ All of them “crunchify” D&D combat in a Rune-
Quest or Rolemaster or DragonQuest fashion,
placing emphasis on individual character speed
and action-by-action (freeze-frame) resolution.
○ Hahlmabrea: roll 3d10 for each of ten attributes,
re-rolling all 1s, 2s, and 3s throughout the pro-
cess; 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 one’s 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.
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○ Of Gods and Men: roll 7d10 for each of six attri-
butes, taking the five highest as a total.
○ Legendary Lives: roll d6 for each of twelve attri-
butes, adding the result to a given value set by
race; these values are highly differentiated by
race such that the roll doesn’t make much dif-
ference.
○ 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 attri-
butes 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 deter-
mine one’s one’s 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 cor-
recters, rather than proceeding from base principles.)
It fascinates me how far some of these go, especially
in combination with the bizarre math necessary to
PART THREE: WOW!
And now, at last, those things which astound and fas-
cinate 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. It’s
perhaps the central point of this essay - that yes, these
games are not “only” AD&D knockoffs and hodge-
podges of house rules. They are indeed the products
of actual play, love for the medium, and determined
creativity. That’s 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 qual-
ity. I would very much like to play the cultist Draco
character I produced using this method, without res-
ervation, 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 I’d played with

8
derive the secondary attributes. For instance, in Peli- the authors just by reading the book.
car, double the Reflex score, add some points based
Finally, I want to tell you about some magic systems,
on Reflex value (from a table), and add the profes-
specifically that they are, in some cases, outright
sion modifier (itself multiplied by character level), to
amazing. It’s not surprising, really, given that the D&D
derive the character’s touch defense - which is what
magic system rots. [Cue large number of protests and
armor increases, during play. This example is typical
excuses; cue counter-arguments; end.] But the neat
of the complexity of derived attributes across most of
thing is that these games do not simply recapitulate
these games.
the magic-system solutions produced in the contem-
Very, 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 nearly all OF the listed they provide genuine innovation.
come into Pelicar, similar (and games have One great idea Here, a tremendous number of
randomized) Divine Power Cards Buried in them sOmewhere. author-power and metagame ele-
play a small role in Of Gods and ments start to appear.
Men, and Dawnfire’s Luck attribute qualifies, as does
○ Hahlmabrea: A character learns several spells
Hahlmabrea’s 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. Improvis-
major 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.
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 FantaSy heartbreakerS
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 compartmental-
ization - 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. It’s 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. (LL’s system is
similar to than Ars Magica’s, but more sketchy
and flexible.)
○ Darkurthe: Legends: Spells are built through a
component method. Granted, it’s 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,
I’m willing to extend credit to Darkurthe too.
○ Forge: Out of Chaos: The player picks a charac-
ter’s 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 character’s 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 abili-
ties; “magic users” are simply those who have
optimized the same abilities that everyone has.
Second, the game includes the universally-
accessible mechanic called bullshitting, which
is just about the neatest magical mechanic I’ve
seen in print. To “bullshit” is to cast any spell in
the book or that the player can make up, regard-
less of what is or isn’t written on the character’s
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
“naïve” 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 environ-
ment 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 inno-
vations 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&D-
based 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 “tra-
ditional” 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 perspec-
tive 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 sequen-
tial 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. They’re 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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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.

PART FIVE: WHAT’S 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.
Let’s 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 Fan-
tasy 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 Heartbreaker’s basic, imaginative content is
“fantasy” using gaming, specifically D&D, as the inspi-
Its publishing context is a bit more tricky. The way I
see it, anyway, is that a Fantasy Heartbreaker delib-
erately 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, we’re
talking about indie-indie-indie, in Forge terms. One
element of this context is that most of these publish-
ers are pretty naive about the three-tier distribution

8
rational text. What’s D&D Fantasy? Well, it’s about
seting up a character starting-point with a strong
random component as well as a strong strategy com-
ponent, having encounters, surviving them (or not),
and improving. What characters do is travel, team
up, bicker a bit, walk a tightrope between cooperat-
ing 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/weap-
ons), 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.)
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 aren’t 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 it’s grayer than one might
think. Some people have been confused about “house

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 FantaSy heartbreakerS
rules from D&D
play” as a defining rememBer, all Fantasy heartBreakers have at
least One gOOd, pOssiBly Brilliant Feature
feature. As a general
observation, yes, a
Fantasy Heartbreaker very often has D&D-imitative
or assumption-based rules, but the degree of “house
rule” can be very extreme, and some Heartbreakers
do have home-grown, ground-up systems. Therefore
the game’s rules don’t necessarily have to be derived
directly from D&D. However, when they’re not,
they mainly recapitulate immediately-post-D&D
developments as self-perceived innovations. Quite
a few resemble early RuneQuest, early Rolemaster or
MERPS, and one or another feature of AD&D2, most
likely through parallelism and probably more rarely
through imitation.
Some recent fantasy-adventure games that I do not
consider Fantasy Heartbreakers include Arrowflight,
The Riddle of Steel, Chain of Being, and Donjon.
THE LATEST ROUND
I ran across three games in the last few months that
would have gone straight into the pool with the
other games I listed in my first essay. I hope everyone
understands that the following material isn’t a set of
reviews, but reviews, but merely textual comparisons.
I can’t speak to these games’ actual playability, coher-
ence, or other features except by inference.
They have all the basic game design components as
any Heartbreaker: randomly generated attributes,
lots of derived attributes, and a very heavy race
emphasis. Most of the space of the book is devoted to
character creation options, especially if you include
spell lists in that category, and the rest being mainly
lists of stuff to find, buy, or fight, and setting history. are a bit late in claiming the point-allocation method
They all have fairly standard magic systems, unlike
most of the games described in the previous essay.
I’ll lay out some of their differences and unique
qualities (remember, all Fantasy Heartbreakers have
at least one good, possibly brilliant feature) and muse
a bit more.
Demon’s Lair, from Lasalion Games, presents a high
wince-factor, both stylistically and in terms of con-
tent. It reads like a hyperactive, uncritical Arduin
Grimoire, peppered with empty character quotes and
attempted giggles, even including some rules for
whether a character suddenly has to take a piss in
the middle of combat. Character creation is diverse
to the point of being scattered and bizarre, with one
“super-class” which
only one player per
group may take,
as an example of
the kind of free-associative logic that seems to have
underlaid this set of the rules.
As far as resolution systems are concerned, I’m not
confident about the combat and spell systems, which
(speaking prematurely) look wildly various to me. But
maybe I’m missing the point - if a randomized and
freewheeling effect is the goal, and if a certain Ninja
Burger, who-knows-what-will-happen approach is
taken, then maybe it works great.
The GMing section is astounding. It gets the defi-
nition of “theme” right on the first try, which is far
more than I can say for some of the most well-known
games and authors in the hobby. It includes extensive
and applicable advice for running geographically-
separated characters at the same time and for cutting
scenes, and it nails the Lumpley Principle on the
nose. If this section were presented as a PDF for sale,
I’d buy it in a shot. It’s well worth the price of the
whole game.
Undiscovered, from Eilfin Publishing, is quite different
- instead of a flurry of ideas all mixed together, it’s a
carefully-organized manual. Its GMing section is just
about the most extreme opposite of Demon’s Lair’s, stat-
ing the Impossible Thing Before Breakfast as clearly
as it can be stated. It’s also pretty sedate in its options,
based mainly on elf/dwarf fantasy races, although I do
like the angel race and the Dusters (weresnakes).
Unlike most Heartbreakers, Undiscovered is based on
a unified system mechanic (d100), but the authors
for setting beginning skill-levels as an innovation.
The key element seems to be a certain amount of
choice on the player’s part regarding managing skill-
improvement: you have “ranks” of expertise and
“levels” within the ranks, and sometimes one has
the choice between skipping up a rank and levelling
up within a rank. It reminds me of both Earthdawn
and the old High Fantasy, but neither of these games
offered as much flexibility on the player’s part.
Overall, the game has a certain early-RuneQuest feel
in the sense of lots of personal “bzz!” magic flying
around everywhere, especially based on personal
worship. It also has an enjoyable Earthdawn feel in
that all the characters are pretty arty with lots of ston-
ecarving, weaving, and similar.
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 CirCle OF handS
They also got hold of a Julie Bell painting for the
cover clearly done specifically for the game; I’d like
to know whatever story is behind that.
Deathstalkers, from Cutter’s Guild, is simultaneously
the most deconstructive and most preservative game
I’ve ever seen, relative to
the oldest-of-schools D&D
play, in detail after detail. Fantasy heartBreakers are dragon-people (Dawnfire,
always recOgnizaBle in terms OF
It’s almost impossible to
summarize them: castings,
“ vOice”... i like this, actually.
ingredients, hit points, levels,
alignments, etc, are all hard-core D&D belt (Madison
to Springfield) dungeon crawl. The game is the very
essence of midwestern U.S. D&D style gaming and
should probably be studied in detail by anyone inter-
ested in the history of the hobby - it distils out nearly
every strategic element from the old-school texts and
places them into prominent, character-mortality-
challenging center stage.
Characters’ effectiveness/vulnerability ratio is the
key, and I suspect that character survival at the begin-
ning is largely a matter of GM-largesse. It’s hard to
understand why one would play at the lower levels;
a character’s Sanity, at the very least, seems slated to
drop radically.
The innovation lies in the combat system, which
is best described as taking what’s broken in D&D
combat and making that, itself, a strategic system.
Apparently successfully. Upon setting the order of
attacks, they proceed from fastest to slowest, then
8
back up the line from slowest to fastest. This sets up
a tug-of-war over who gets to be on the advantageous
side of a zero-sum now-or-later game, using Actions,
Aggression Points, Hit Points, and potential reaction
to hits as resources for timing, especially in terms of
which variable is the limiting factor at what time. Play
would seem to be complex in terms of resources to
keep track of: in addition to the combat-specific ones,
there’s also Sanity, Castings, and more.
I’m pretty dubious about the origins of its setting. I’m
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 I’m a little nervous
about the IPs in question. Perhaps it’s either all
worked out or no big deal, so if anyone knows, tell me.
168
OVERALL MUSINGS
First, some observational details. The minotaur fetish
is alive and well, especially as a bagful of subspecies;
I’m already raised the issue of the semi-undead race in
the forums (Druine, Dunnar, and Half-dead), so not
much can be added there; and
I’m also wondering whether
Undiscovered, Deathstalkers)
might be replacing the hither-
to-irreplaceable kitty-people.
Fantasy Heartbreakers are always recognizable in
terms of “voice” - if someone were to pick a random
couple of paragraphs from, say, Undiscovered, Forge:
Out of Chaos, Demon’s Lair, and Dawnfire, I could
instantly see which game it came from. I like this,
actually. I think it speaks well for the hobby in com-
parison with the bevy of high-gloss attempts, in the
mid-90s, to see who could present a game with prose
that imitates Vampire the closest.
Skill systems are tremendously various across
Fantasy Heartbreakers. Some of them, such as
Deathstalkers’, are demonstrably tack-ons. This game
already has a fairly sophisticated resolution system
based strictly on attributes, and the skill system is
both redundant (given the well-defined character
classes) and insignificant, given that characters begin
skills in the under-10% range. Others, as in Fifth Cycle
and Undiscovered, are the core of the game. I think
the existing range recapitulates the very same set of
developments seen in 1977-1984.
Now for more substantive issues.
As I mentioned in the first Heartbreakers essay, I’m
generally impressed by the GNS coherence found in
these games. Even when the modes are jumbled a bit,
they’re almost always well-articulated and the game
designs often offer interesting solutions to D&D-
style incoherence. Of the new games discussed in
this essay, Deathstalkers and Undiscovered respectively
represent textbook Gamism and Simulationism,
and Demon’s Lair, although essentially incoherent in
System terms, includes some of the best Narrativist
GMing advice I’ve ever seen.
My biggest criticism concerns some thematic content.
I’m really starting to wonder about the god-lists and
religion in general in Fantasy Heartbreakers. It’s a
unique phenomenon; I don’t think it’s possible to
imagine anything less like religion in any sense. It
includes a lot of highly-imitative or downright dumb
 FantaSy heartbreakerS
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 writ-
ten for fun imaginative-background rather than as a
personal fantasy opus.
What’s odd is that most Fantasy Heartbreakers take
great pride in their world-settings: maps, elaborate
histories, wars, borders, economies, cataclysms,
wilderness areas, and more. I’d 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 assump-
tion 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 it’s out
of your league, and the second thing to do, if it’s in
your league, is to identify its particular limiting factor
relative to your own. Let’s check out this issue a bit
more carefully, though - I think it’s 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 character’s
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 intelli-
gent (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 GM’s role is to say,
“You just scrap, strive, and kill, and I’ll show ya, with
this book, how it’s all a brilliant evocative fantasy.”
It’s not Illusionism - there’s 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, they’re 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 doesn’t 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-play-
ing design. It’s 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 break-
down. 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 grap-
pling 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 I’m under-
standing Mike correctly, writing one’s 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.
I’m not a good case study for this, for a variety of
reasons, but let’s try it anyway. Let’s imagine: all right,
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I’m going to take D&D Fantasy as a just-plain-given, what you add. So, um, a salamander character’s Agil-
deliberately taking the naive assumption that every- ity starts at 10, and you roll this 4d6, getting (perhaps)
one “just knows” what role-playing is, what “fantasy” an 11, divide and round to 6, so his or her Agility is 10
is, and what this hobby is all about, given only D&D- + 6 = 16. To colorize things up, I’d put in a randomized
based culture as the foundation. Also, I’ll work table for “motive,” all being fun and active like Fame,
straight from what I enjoyed about reading the text Profit, Virtue, Vengeance, and that sort of thing. I’d
and playing the game - working toward getting them stress that not one of them actually dictates behavior,
centrally into play, without questioning any assump- just sets up what you’re interested in increasing for
tions of why that stuff was in there, or considering the character. It’d be very lightly reinforced in the
where it came from before it was in there. reward system.
I’d come up with races based on three things: adding System? No problem! It’s compartmental: combat,
diversity to existing groups (two sorts of humans magic, other. For combat, just think “initiative sets
[Aztec-like vs. Nordic/barbarian-like]), keeping elvesorder, order sets who hits, hits set up taking damage,
and dwarves (because they’re “fantasy”), and taking a and protection deals with damage.” That’s classic
couple of monsters that I think are cool and making post-wargaming logic - injecting a particular brand of
them player-character options (specifically sala- Simulationism, mainly, into a primarily-Gamist con-
manders and big mean trolls, possibly half-human text of play, which I’m afraid lends plenty of room for
hybrids of trolls). Race will carry tons of content Social Contract disputes. Let’s see ... another notion is
about attitudes, family structure, and so on, such that
that I want the setting to be pretty hot, environmen-
the salamanders get to be misunderstood and exotic tally, which will cut down on the heavy armor. Oh
and the half-trolls get to be unapologetic butt-kickers.
yes, armor - does it cut down on the chance to hit, or
does it provide protection when
I’d come up with classes,
you’re hit? I’ll also have lots and
which can mean lots of
things - perhaps I’ll take the
“everyOne shOuld write a lots of neat missile weapons, to
heartBreaker.”- mike hOlmes provide a slightly different feel
“innovation” of not having
or tension to combat.
formalized classes and stick-
ing with “professions,” using internal constraints like Magic then becomes a secondary system of some
race limitations and attribute minima that result in kind, probably based on profession in terms of avail-
unstated classes. Each profession has a few skills, able spells. Its effectiveness, to my tastes, would be a
and then each character also gets to pick some skills function of a character’s “magic” score rather than set

8 ad-lib. I’ll keep the skill list pretty short - it’s a menu
for adventuring advantages, not an exhaustive list of
a character’s repertoire of personal skills.
And I’d probably set up some kind of metaphysical
“oomph” that a character might have more or less
of, along the lines of Dawnfire’s Flow. Cool - we’d
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.”
Let’s 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 Attri-
bute. 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
by the spell-listing itself, which is to say, any spell may
be cast “lightly” or “hard” depending on the magic-
oomph put into it. I like the idea as well that difference
races use different rituals for the same spells.
[I’m being a little vicious regarding combat and magic
design; obviously, a number of Fantasy Heartbreakers
struggle much harder to be more unified and/or coher-
ent 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 can’t 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, I’m 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 I’ll
be “innovative” again and jettison levels (be sure to
put that on the back of the book and into the intro-
duction). 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. I’ll have to think about that. Maybe it’ll
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, I’m enjoying
myself. I’m 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 societ-
ies 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 it’s a generational issue. My own first
role-playing game experience was indeed old-school
D&D. In terms of us folks, yes, I think Mike’s 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.
Let’s also consider that a form of D&D has recently
become available that is far more mechanically satis-
fying, 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 one’s primary creative drive, then D20’s
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 antici-
pate coming upon plenty more at GenCon this year.
Ultimately, although I admire their authors’ pluck
(and I’ll defend to the death their right to publish),
these games are essentially doomed, economically
speaking, for the reasons I listed in my first Heart-
breakers essay.
But I’d 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 can’t do D&D fantasy, regardless of
how streamlined or “more logical” your rules are,
without being directly measured by the defining fea-
ture, 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.
It’s 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? I’d 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 introduc-
tion to them, as a preventative measure if possible.
Suggestions toward that goal or constructive alterna-
tives are definitely welcome.
And I haven’t 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, it’s 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 I’d written. I did not characterize

171
 CirCle OF handS
the games as either unplayable or necessarily poorly
designed; like an assortment of RPGs grouped in any
category they’re 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 & Drag-
ons. They have a lot more to do with the publication
details of TSR’s 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, Player’s Handbook 1978, Dungeon Master’s
Guide 1979
8 ○ Arguably, non-TSR products such as Judges
Guild play aids and adventure settings, and The
Arduin’s 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 we’d actually bought, played, and found
inspiring. Significantly, publishing RPGs lost its ties
to the original festive, underground unconstructed
context of play.
That’s 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.
what dOes it mean exactly?
“Fantasy heartbreaker” is not a pejorative, and I don’t
think any honest reading of the essays implies it.
There’s been an internet Telephone game, discon-
nected 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. There’s 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 doesn’t make a game a heartbreaker; you
can’t simply tag game Z as a game-Y-heartbreaker
because game Y influenced it. The content issue is
subtler than that, it’s 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, that’s 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 mate-
rial, 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
 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 God’s own fantasy role-playing system, the
funnest and most inspiring thing ever, and it’d still be chewed up and spat out by the market-fixing of the time.
Sure, the term is critical – but these games’ authors didn’t screw it up, they got screwed over. I can’t say it enough:
my essays are about the Heart, not the Breaking. (Nathan Paoletta came up with that line, credit where it’s due.)
tOday’s danger
For a bit there, I’d thought the phenomenon had met its end, given digital print and print-on-demand. At least
now if your content qualified, then you weren’t 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.

173
Illus. Adam Schmidt
 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. I’d 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 Peli-
car if I’d had the means. I hadn’t 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”
Charu’s Brawn 6 and the +1 bonus for his axe
gives a BQ total of 19 points.
The Baron’s armor stops 10 points, for 9 remaining.
4 come off the Baron’s Brawn, reducing it to 1. 5 come
off the Baron’s Quickness, reducing it to 1 as well. He
is very nearly out on his feet. Given a strong advan-
tage in the rolls, Charu’s nearly total emphasis on
attack has paid off.

○ The deep distrust of anyone who’s 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
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 Porter’s Epiphany, and prefiguring
Jake Norwood’s 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; here’s 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 allo-
cates +12 offense and +2 defense. Each rolls 2d6; the
Baron’s total is 5 and Charu’s is 10 (!).
○ The Baron’s offense = 10 vs. Charu’s defense =
12; Charu doesn’t even need his off-hand axe to
block.
○ Charu’s offense = 22 vs. the Baron’s defense =
10, hitting with a difference of 12 points. Adding
Let’s try that again with the opposite rolls, with the
Baron rolling 10 and Charu 5.
○ The Baron’s offense = 15 vs. Charu’s defense = 7,
hitting with a difference of 8 points. Adding the
Baron’s Brawn 5 gives a BQ total of 13.
○ Charu’s offense = 17 vs. the Baron’s defense =
15, hitting with a difference of 2 points. Adding
Charu’s Brawn 6 and +1 bonus for his axe gives
a BQ total of 9 points.
Charu’s 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 Baron’s
armor stops 10 points, exceeding the BQ of 9, so he
takes no damage. Given a strong advantage in the
rolls, the Baron’s balanced tactic has whittled away
some of Charu’s starting quantitative edge.
OVER AND OVER IN MY HANDS
I cleaned it up for fun, fixing the fight example, get-
ting rid of the Tarzan talk for the spell descriptions,
and little things like that. I’d 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
weren’t 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.
It’d 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 play-
test, 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. That’s 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.
176
○ I reduced two-track accounting for both Brawn
and Quickness, a little anyway.
○ I got rid of Melee’s 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 wasn’t happy with the dice-rolling for attributes.
If you’re using only a single die, then the law of aver-
ages isn’t working for you, so getting 1-3-2 when the
other guy gets 6-6-5 isn’t merely an edge case but a
foregone conclusion. But I did like the two-trait idea
juxtaposed with rolling and didn’t want to lose it.
In my notes, I find the phrase “making two charac-
ters and allowing use of one another’s characters is
probably OK, but definitely not elegant,” originally
written to dismiss that idea.
Illus. Adam Schmidt
 heartbreaker redeMptiOn

HEAT AND HAMMER the notes-in-a-backpack into a genuine project, and

Just as it’s not enough to insert new-ish dwarves and that’s why it’s featured in this chapter.
elves, it’s not enough merely to get rid of dwarves and
In the new playtests, players really liked oaths, and I
elves. If you’re making a new game, then you have to
finally figured out that magic should be considered
think about how it’s played. I started to redeem my
a subset of oaths, and decoupled the concepts of
heartbreaker’s content, thinking less like a masterful
wizard and scholar.
Game Master who would transform play into “story”
for an audience, and instead like a person putting it Probably because I was reading Apocalypse World a
to use. I had to see and feel not only what I’d written, lot and soon to play it, I kept obsessing over rules for
but what I’d written it for. sex – before, after, whatever – and it took me a while
to realize that there was no reason for them to be in
I reached back, thinking about my life at that time.
this game.
It sucked. I’d just earned my Master’s degree, but at
considerable personal sacrifice, I was at rock-bottom
TEMPERING THE METAL
poverty, I was completely politically isolated, had
Finally, the procedural tweaks and appropriate termi-
just been horribly sick for the first time in my life,
nology hit a plateau, and there was no denying that I
was out of shape, in a string of rotten relationship
had to think about how the setting related to play, and
hassles. I was full of frustration and aggression. I
how it contributed to who the player-characters were
lived in a rotten and hopeless world, I confused and
and what kind of situations they found themselves in.
hurt people around me with every move, the people
around me were generally shitty or wrapped up with Again, the key was faithfulness to my earlier self and
enough problems of their own, it seemed anything I his work – not in the details, but in emotional and
did drew down waves of backstabbing … I was tired technical goals. At this point, there was no question of
of being nice. Nice didn’t work. an Apocalypse World hack, or Burning Wheel, or what-
ever … none of that speaks to the original drive to try
Thinking about all these past things focused the
to find it, this thing, whatever it was, and while using
setting in my mind. It was time to make it not nice.
my up-to-date design skills on it, to honor it fully.
The pre-medieval, sort of Germanic idea started to
form, without direction, but clearer with each pass, In this re-reading, the faithfulness paid off. I spotted
condensing into a limited geography and cultural the two paragraphs that had been sitting in the origi-
context. I dialed up the harshness of the nal manuscript, waiting for me to notice:
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 Crystal fucking obvious (to borrow Vincent’s phrase)
the phrase, “Noble is an outcome, Brutal is a method,” that right here was what play was supposed to “get
from when I renamed the Traits. to,” so the group could settle in and “really” play now.
I even flashed on my original author satisfaction in
I commissioned some art which although never
writing those line all those years ago, as I just knew
developed into final resolution nor quite right for
that anyone reading them would get the message and
the setting as it was eventually refined (plate armor,
almost immediately bring the disparate characters
for example), deserves recognition for its power in
into the young king’s orbit, and that anyone playing
helping me think and playtest. I am very grateful to
would immediately swear onto this new Gray or Neu-
Adam for providing the concept art which boosted
tral moral and political aim. Right? Right!
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 CirCle OF handS
At least I didn’t 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, trad-
ing off characters, solved all sorts of problems that
confused me because they were problems, like why I
couldn’t bring myself to include a dramatic advance-
ment/improvement process, or why I didn’t 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 cul-
tural stuff now became enjoyable research. I scaled
178
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
didn’t want either historical institutional Christianity
or something coded as exotic because it wasn’t Chris-
tian. I was mostly inspired by William W. McCorkle’s
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 adapt-
ing 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 hadn’t seen the Game of Thrones cable-TV adapta-
tion, 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.
Illus. Adam Schmidt
 heartbreaker redeMptiOn

Circle of Hands is my eighth published game, but its AN INVITATION

process was entirely new to me. I couldn’t tell whether Do you have one of these? I know there are tons of
I was reading my younger self’s mind or he was read- them. One friend found his neatly stored in one of
ing mine. The game itself seemed to demand changes those dress-shirt cardboard boxes. A bunch are hand-
or lack of changes without explanation, the “why” written, which I suspect means they were covertly
only appearing when some other piece was invented scribbled under the pretense of taking notes in class
later. The whole process felt less like construction People are kind of weird about them sometimes.
and more like sculpture, especially the romantic There’s a guy I know whose aging opus sits in a thick
notion that the image lay already embedded in the three-ring binder on a shelf in his house, and he’s so
material. The changes never felt like additions, but wigged out about it, he can’t even look at it when he’s
like revelations of the thing’s emerging form. in that room; he lives his whole life specifically not
looking at that binder, and when his wife says, “Hey,
THE SPEAR
can we play that again?” he just twitches.
The solution to the heartbreaking factor in publish-
ing is easy: don’t stay closeted and don’t throw money If you have one, I say, play it now, with some people.
away, the same message that founded the Forge. In I bet more often than not, if it looks to you now like
this case, I did something a little extra with it, in enlist- an old shame, then there’s something to discover.
ing active playtests of the very early draft through Maybe not an explicit rule or “oh this is genius” bit,
the Kickstarter campaign. They contributed quite a but rather a drive, a desire to see play happen a certain
lot, and although I can’t know for sure, I suspect the way, or to be about something, or to revel in a specific
material needed a lot of external hitting with sticks, image, which can be rekindled. Maybe – and I think
more than I could do myself because it was such a this is also more likely than not – brought into open
strange process. I could design the hell out of it but I flame.
couldn’t critique it well. There’s a Heartbreaker Redemption webpage at the
I might have re-forged and re-shaped it, but they led Adept Press site. Upload some material from your old
the extensive, practical work to make it into an effec- manuscript like Paul did, with a scan or a partial tran-
tive weapon, something a person can hold and use. script, and I’ll link to it; you can see how some people
have done this already. Again, the only really good
THEY’RE ALL OVER THE PLACE starting point is to play it yourself, but I think it’ll be
I took my own advice about playing the games I’d fun to discuss it among others with their own things.
mentioned, and so did some other people includ-
ing Clinton Nixon (Legendary Lives) and Ed Healy
(Hahlmabrea). All of us felt an odd excitement in play-
ing them, and Clinton used the second essay as his
jump-start to write his knockout fantasy game, The
Shadow of Yesterday.
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 didn’t 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.

179
Illus. Adam Schmidt

3:00: the arbitrary "go" position on the circular clock-
style 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.
Attribute: a score which affects dice roll effectiveness
and current health or other status, including Brawn,
Quickness, Wits, and Charm.
Avatar: the lesser type of Amboriyon creature, includ-
ing the unicorn, pegasus, and valkyrie.
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 char-
acter sheet; accumulated Color points result in Gifts.
Commitment: the moment during the resolution of a
Clash in which the participants allocate their efforts
9
G
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
glOSSary OF terMS
Details: striking components of a character's appear-
ance, including the Feature and Demeanor.
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 irrecov-
erable 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.
Famberge: the northern coastal and corresponding
inland regions of the Crescent Land. "Where people
fight to live."
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.
Francisca: a slightly-curved, smaller axe well-suited
for throwing, characteristic of Tamaryon.
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 perma-
nently gained through accumulating Color points.
Group: approximately three or more opponents acting
in concert per Circle knight, subject to local condi-
tions. 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 aes-
thetic features. Circle of Hands is such a resdesign of
my unpublished game Gray Magick. Also, my invita-
tion 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.
 Glossary
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.
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.
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.
Profession: the skill-set and primary medium of inter-
action among individuals; profession defines and
limits a person's skill-set and refines his or her range
of perception based on social rank.
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.
Rbaja: the metaphysical condition and location char-
acterized 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 Attri-
bute; 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 spell-
casting 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 cur-
rent 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 carbu-
rized 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 descrip-
tion 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 redistrib-
uted 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 compo-
nent 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 con-
tinues to participate in the venture.
Zone: an area strongly affected by either Amboriyon
or Rbaja.
215
 CIRCLE OF HANDS CIRCLE KNIGHT CIRCLE OF HANDS CIRCLE KNIGHT

NAME HOMELAND SEX BRAWN QUICKNESS WITS CHARM

TRAITS PROFESSIONS BRAWN QUICKNESS WITS CHARM
❍ Brave (+2 Quickness) ❍ Artisan (specific) ❍ Merchant
❍ Cunning (+2 Wits) ❍ Entertainer (low)* ❍ Outdoorsman ARMING
❍ Romantic (+2 Charm) ❍ Entertainer (high)* ❍ Priest Note which ❍ Knife ❍ Sling ❍ Spear ❍ Round Shield (4)
❍ Ambitious (+1 Quickness +1 Wits) ❍ Fisherman ❍ Sailor weapons and ❍ Hatchet ❍ Bow ❍ Sword ❍ Kite Shield (4)
❍ Brutal (+1 Brawn +1 Charm) ❍ Farmer ❍ Scholar a r m o r yo u ❍ Club ❍ Hand Axe ❍ Francisca ❍ Cone Helmet (2)
have with you
❍ Martial (low)* ❍ Wi z a rd ( mu s t right now. ❍ Staff ❍ Crossbow ❍ Great Axe ❍ Spangenhelm (3)
❍ Martial (high)* have at least one ❍ Chained Mace ❍ Gambeson (3)
other profession) COMMITMENT
FEATURE *Can be either low or high ❍ Mail (6)
❍ Tattooing During a clash, you have double your Number is Protection value
current Quickness to split between
❍ Slender build DEMEANOR SOCIAL RANK attack and defense. Use this space to TOTAL PROTECTION
❍ Mismatched eyes ❍ Shy ❍ Peasant (If Farmer, Fisher- note your split values.
❍ Distinctive work-related injury ❍ Friendly man or Entertainer (low)) CURRENT BRAWN
ATTACK DEFENSE
❍ One piece of bright clothing ❍ Blunt ❍ Freeman (If Outdoorsman,
Sailor, Martial (low) or CURRENT QUICKNESS
❍ Metal ornament ❍ Formal
Priest)
❍ Blaze ❍ Fierce
❍ Professional (If Scholar,
❍ Emblem ❍ Stoic Artisan, Merchant or
❍ Facial scar ❍ Serene Entertainer (high))
❍ Well-groomed ❍ Gentry (If Martial (high))

ARMING SPELLS OATHS

✓ ✓ Wizards have every spell. Non-Wizards have You can swear one Oath per venture, to either
Mark which ❍ Knife ❍ Sling ❍ Spear ❍ Round Shield
spell points equal to Wits, split between Rbaja or Amboriyon. When you act to fulfill
weapons and ❍ Hatchet ❍ Bow ❍ Sword ✓
❍ Kite Shield Amboriyon and Rbaja. Note those spells here. your Oath, roll an extra 1d6, and gain color
a r m o r yo u ✓
know how to
❍ Club ❍ Hand Axe ❍ Francisca ❍ Cone Helmet points equal to that dies value in addition to
❍ Staff ❍ Crossbow ❍ Great Axe ❍ Spangenhelm the results of your action.
use (by Social
Rank). ❍ Whip ❍ Chained Mace ✓
❍ Gambeson “I WILL ____________________________________
✓
❍ Mail _____________________________________________
KEY EVENT
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
Casting spells costs Brawn equal to their ____________________________________________ ”
point value.
GIFTS MARKS 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.

Rbaja Amboriyon

is a stark, mud-and-dung Iron Age
fantasy role-playing game about
the Crescent Land, caught between
the blinding purity of Amboriyon's
cloud citadels with their deadly
smiling envoys and the stained
wastes of Rbaja with their stinking
pestholes of undead.
THE CIRCLE HOLDS...
HOLDING ONE ANOTHER DEAR,
FOLK OF IRON, OUR WILL
IS MORE THAN OUR OWN FLESH AND BONE.
TO YOUR SPEARS, BROTHERS AND SISTERS!
DARKNESS AND LIGHT BOTH BLIND US
IN THEIR WAR OVER OUR WORLD.
HOLD!
WE DIE AND WIN IN THE STRUGGLE
AGAINST DARKNESS AND LIGHT.

The first comment on its promotion: "This needs a trigger warning."

Circle of Hands began as Gray Magick, my classic fantasy heartbreaker, and is now all grown up
into bleeding, charred, smeared, and cruel perfection. That original 1990s manuscript is includ-
ed as this book’s final chapter.

Digital Edition