Building Your Character

Here’s what you write down, step by step:

1. Two archetypes, like Guardian or Shadow, and a Title for each: the name you give it, a role or a school of magic.
2. Two traits.
3. Three permissions on each Title.
4. Your set actions: Fight, Move, Sneak, Study and Talk, and your own, with everything that fits them on.
5. What you carry: 3 equipment, 3 utility items and a keepsake, and a bag.
6. Two attuned things, which start at Awakened.
7. Three threads, spread across your bonds however you like.
8. A few answers that tie you to the rest of the crew.
9. An Aspiration at d2.

You start with 5 Aura, 2 Resolve (one for each Title), a stride of 3 and a Hurt track of three bars. Armour starts at d2, a size bigger for each piece of plain armour you wear. Confidence starts every scene on d6, or a size up in clothes that fit the scene.

In a hurry? The Quick Build gets you a character in ten minutes, or you can pick one of the six ready-made characters and play. If you’ve got a character in your head but not the words for it yet, start from the Title ideas: example Titles, permissions and trait ideas for each archetype.

Those are your starting numbers, not limits. You earn more Titles, traits, permissions and threads as you play, and there’s no cap on Titles, traits or threads. A Title can’t hold more than six permissions, though, and what you carry has its limits.

Step 1: Archetypes and Titles

You start with two archetypes. An archetype is the kind of character you are, like a Guardian, a Healer or a Shadow, and each one has a mechanic, something only that archetype can do. A Guardian who Defends pulls every attack aimed at friends within his stride onto himself, and a Hunter marks a creature so everyone who acts against it rolls her Mark die as well. There are seventeen, and you’ll find them all, with what each one does, in The Archetypes.

On most of them, 1 Aura puts +2 on one die of the mechanic, once you’ve rolled and know you need it. You can take the same archetype twice, and then it’s +3.

Then you name each one with a Title, and that’s who you are: a role or a school of magic, real and specific. Bram’s a Guardian, and his Title is The wall that held the harbour gate. Vesk’s a Shadow twice over, as The best cat burglar in the city and Raised by the Guild. Captain of the Guard and Master of Illusions are Titles too. If you’re not sure which archetype you’re after, every Title idea says which ones it suits.

One role or one school per Title. Archmage is too wide, so pick the school you’re known for. A Title that could mean anything tells the table nothing, but one that says exactly what your character’s good at, and how they got that way, does all the work.

Four good Titles

• The best cat burglar in the city. Specific and boastful, and it suggests there’s a rival somewhere.
• The last student of a dead order. Specific and lonely, and it hands you a whole history.
• A doctor who stopped believing in medicine. Specific and conflicted. It tells you how they think.
• Master of Illusions. One school of magic, so the table knows straight away what you’re good at.

Three bad Titles

• Adventurer. It means nothing, because adventure’s what the whole game is about.
• Warrior. That’s an archetype, and you still need a Title to say what kind. A duellist and a sergeant in a shield wall can both be Warriors, and they don’t do the same things, so nobody at the table knows which one you are.
• Good at everything. Nobody is, and it doesn’t tell the table what you’re actually good at.

What a Title holds

A Title holds its archetype’s mechanic and its permissions. It starts with three permissions (Step 3), and it holds six at most. There’s no Catch and no Burden on a Title: Catches come from attunement and from Hurt, and Burdens only ever come on attuned things.

The Title counts too. It’s 1 step on any roll it fits, the same as a permission. Each Title also gives you 1 Resolve of maximum, so with two you’ve got 2. It doesn’t make your Confidence bigger, though. Everyone starts every scene on d6 (see Confidence).

Titles are the biggest growth in the game. Every time your Aspiration climbs past d12, you take a new archetype and name it with a Title. It starts with one permission, and Grow fills it from there. It counts the same way your first two do, it puts your Resolve maximum up by 1, and it raises the stakes for the whole table: the GM’s threat budget grows as the crew earns them.

Step 2: Traits

A trait is something always true of you, with one effect, like Silent Step: +1 to moving unseen. You pick yours from the list below, and they aren’t tied to either Title. Permissions are things you do, and traits are things you are.

Traits are free, and they don’t cost an action unless the trait says so. Every trait has a type and an effect, and you write them down together.

Trait types

• Passive. It’s always on, with no cost and no trigger.
• Triggered. It fires by itself when something specific happens, and the trait says what.
• Invoked. It costs Aura to fire, as the trait says. None of the traits below is Invoked, so if you want one that costs something every time it fires, you’ll have to write it yourself.
• Once per scene. It fires once per scene for free, and not again until the next one. A few say per person, which means once for each person in the scene.
• Once per downtime. It fires once between sessions.

The 49 traits

Pick two, or write your own in the same shape: a name, a type and one line. You’ll pick up more in play.

Some traits change a number on your sheet. Unyielding gives you another Hurt bar, Prepared lets you carry one more utility item, and Light on my Feet adds 2 to your stride (how far you move each round for free). If you write your own, say which number it changes. A trait that adds to your Hurt adds a whole bar of three boxes.

Combat

Movement

Social

Mental

Preparation

Step 3: Permissions

A permission is something your character can do, and it finishes “I can…”: I can pick a mechanical lock, I can throw fire. Each Title starts with three, so you’ve got six. It’s what you lean on every time you roll, so it’s worth a couple of minutes to get right. Here’s how I write them.

Every part of your sheet takes a different kind of word

If what you’ve written reads like a name, like Combat master, it’s a Title. If it’s a describing word, like Deceptive or Strong, it’s a trait. A permission is something you do.

Two parts

Every permission has two parts, and it isn’t finished until it’s got both: the doing word, and the part that says how, what or where.

• fight and with a war hammer makes fight with a war hammer
• spot and who’s in charge makes spot who’s in charge
• read and dead languages makes read dead languages

If it’s still too wide, add where or how: move through the wild unseen, fight in a shield wall.

Deceive on its own is only half a permission. Deceive through actions is finished. It covers feints and misdirection when you fight or sneak, but it won’t talk you past anyone or dig up information.

Two words on their own aren’t enough either. Sword combat is two words, but it’s a label, and do magic is two words that cover everything. A doing word plus the how, what or where fixes both.

Check the size

Picture the moment you’d use it, then ask how often it’d come up. A good permission comes up a few times a session. If it’d fit every scene, it’s too broad. If it’d come up once a campaign, it’s too narrow.

Fixing the usual ones

• Deceptive is a describing word, so make it one of your traits (Deceptive: +1 to lying to someone’s face), or split it into what you actually do: make a lie sound like old news, pass as someone I’m not, keep my story straight under questions.
• Combat master reads like a Title. As permissions it’s things like fight with a sword, fight two at once and fight in tight spaces.
• Stealth becomes move unseen, pick a pocket or hide in a crowd.
• Strong becomes lift what two men can’t, break down doors or pin someone down.
• Fire magic becomes throw fire, feel every flame in a room or put a fire out with a word. Magic’s written as narrow as anything else.

Don’t worry that a narrow one won’t come up. A permission counts on every roll it fits, whatever you’re trying to get done, so everything Dorrie’s got for talking counts whether she’s getting past the gate guard, into the harbour records or out of a fight before it starts.

How they work

• It’s got to fit inside its Title. Raised by the Guild can have know how a lock’s built, but not throw fire.
• Each one’s worth 1 step on any roll it fits, once a roll. Lines that sound alike both count, so you can have move unseen and stick to the shadows, but you can’t take the same permission twice.
• Magic needs a magic permission, or a magic item. Without one you can’t do magic at all. With one, it does what it says for free, and pushing it past that is going beyond, for 1 Resolve.
• Put each one on every set action it fits nearly every time (that’s Step 4). Anywhere else, say how it fits and pay 1 Aura to bring it in.
• Took one you never use? You’re not stuck with it. In downtime you can swap any of your permissions for others that fit your Title, as long as it makes sense for your character.

Two permission slots can hold a Boon instead. A Boon is a permanent upgrade, like an extra Hurt bar or a longer stride, and it costs two permission slots on one of your archetypes. You can build one in when you make your character, or swap two permissions for one in downtime, and back again later.

The crew’s, as examples

The quick test

1. Does it finish “I can…” with a doing word, and say how, what or where?
2. Can you picture the moment you’d use it?
3. Would it come up a few times a session?
4. Does it fit inside your Title?

Four yeses and it’s a permission.

Permission ideas

A few to start from, sorted by what they’re for. The Title ideas have plenty more, role by role and school by school.

Step 4: Set actions

Now fill in your set actions. Fight, Move, Sneak, Study and Talk are on every sheet, and you add your own for the things you do all the time, like Locks or Ward. If you’d rather keep shooting apart from swinging, split Fight into Fight and Shoot.

Go down your sheet one line at a time: your two Titles, your six permissions and your traits. For each one, ask whether it’d help nearly every time you do that set action. If it would, it goes on, and it can go on as many set actions as it fits. Lines from both Titles can share one. Then count it up: 1 for the action and 1 for every line, and write the die next to it. If nothing fits a set action, it’s 1 step, a d2.

Bark an order that gets obeyed is on Bram’s second Title, A sergeant who lost his stripes, so that’s the Title his Talk counts. That Title’s a Leader, and when he leads, he builds the order from his Talk like any other roll. His war hammer’s in nearly every fight he gets into, so it goes on Fight too. He leaves guard one person off, because it only fits now and then, and brings it in for 1 Aura when it does.

Make a set action of your own when a few of your lines all point at one thing you do a lot, the way Bram’s first Title and lift what two men can’t make Lift and carry. You don’t have to fill every set action, and you’ll come back to them: as you pick items and attune things in the next two steps, put each one on every set action it fits nearly every time. How a roll starts from your set action is in Set actions.

Step 5: Items and what you carry

Plain items are just what they are. A sword’s a sword. It counts as a line when it fits, so it’s a step on your roll, and it lets you do what a sword does. A rope lets you climb down a well, and a lantern lets you see what’s at the bottom.

Each piece of plain armour makes your Armour a size bigger. Bram wears plate armour and carries a shield, so that’s d2 stepped up twice: a d6.

Plain items don’t have Catches. Plate’s heavy and a pistol’s loud, and the story knows it, but trouble like Loud and Fragile only goes on attuned things. Things you use up, like a smoke bomb or an antidote, are utility items you cross off once they’re used.

What you carry

• Attuned things are on top of that. You start with 2 attunement slots, and what you attune doesn’t count towards what you carry. If both of yours are equipment, you’ve got 5 pieces of equipment.
• Your bag. Nothing in it can be used until you’ve pulled it out, and getting something out takes your action. Putting something away is free. What you pull out takes a place among what you carry, so if you’re full, put something away first. A bag can’t go inside another bag.
• A purse of gold is a utility item, about a month’s wages.
• Some things change a limit by one. Prepared lets you carry one more utility item, and the Kit Boon and the Kit Burden make it one more item or one fewer (see Boons and Burdens).
• Past the limit, it goes in your bag or it stays behind.
• When something breaks, it’s something you carry. Attuned things can’t be broken.

What a written item looks like

That’s all an item is: one line, and for an attuned thing, its permissions. There aren’t any hidden properties, and there’s no “+1 to hit”. A plain sword counts 1 when it fits, a piece of plain armour makes your Armour a size bigger, and rope lets you use rope.

Weapons and their properties

A weapon’s a plain item, so it counts 1 on a roll it fits, like anything else. Its properties say what it lets you do that bare hands can’t. They’re what make a spear a spear, and they come free with the weapon.

How far a bow or a thrown weapon reaches is the story’s call, and the properties say what kind of distance it likes. Write them in brackets after the weapon. If your world has pistols or stranger things, build them the same way: a pistol is Ranged, Piercing, Reload, and everyone nearby hears it go off. There’s more on using all of this in Tactical Play.

The item list

Weapons, armour and anything else you wear or wield are equipment. Tools and things you use up are utility items. A signature thing often makes the best keepsake, or the best thing to attune.

Things you use up: 20

Each of these is a utility item, and you cross it off once it’s used. You can get more in play, even mid-scene, if there’s someone to get it from: a purse of gold, a favour called in, or a promise made. Deep in a vault with nobody to buy from, only a trait like I Have the Thing helps, because you’d packed it all along.

Keepsakes: 10

Your keepsake is something that matters to your character, like a ring or an old letter. It doesn’t have a rule of its own yet. It does what it plainly would in the story, and it tells the table something about who you are.

Step 6: Attunement

When you attune something, it gets permissions of its own, and it’ll grow with you. You start with 2 attunement slots. What you attune starts at Awakened, with one permission, and you can give it its Catch now for a second.

Attuned things are on top of what you carry, so they don’t take up your equipment or your utility. They’re magic, and they can’t be broken.

An attuned thing counts through its permissions. Each of its permissions that fits is a line, the same as a permission on a Title, and the thing doesn’t count again on top. Its permissions go on your set actions like any other line. Vesk’s picks are Awakened with open any lock with a mechanism, so they’re 1 step on her Locks. A magic permission on an attuned thing lets you do that magic: Ash’s ember stone lets her call fire without a word or a gesture.

Write its permissions the way you’d write any other, a doing word and how, what or where, and make them things the thing itself does. A set of picks opens locks.

Three stages

An attuned thing grows in three stages. Each new stage needs a material, found in the story or bought, and every new permission takes a downtime slot. Each stage can take on more, for a price:

That’s six permissions at most, with one Catch and one Burden. You can’t take a Burden before Tempered, so there aren’t any when you make your character. What’s a material? Whatever makes sense for the thing, like steel from a vault door your picks have beaten.

A Burden is a permanent cost from the list in Boons and Burdens, like Bad Knee (stride −2). It’s always on, and it’s worth two permissions on that thing, or a Boon for you instead.

You can hand an attuned thing to a friend with a free attunement slot. Its permissions, its Catch and its Burden go with it, and so does a Boon its Burden paid for.

If you’re a Summoner, your summoning attunement holds souls the way an item holds permissions, on the same three stages (see Summoning). Some attuned things come out of the story already Tempered or Perfected, and you’ll find them, and how to write your own, in Attuned things from the story.

Catch ideas: 12

A Catch is trouble that comes with an attuned thing. (The other Catches on your sheet come from Hurt.) It has to be something that can bring real trouble into a scene, something the GM can run with, and if it’d never come up, it isn’t a Catch. You can let it bite as often as you like for 1 Aura, as long as it brings real trouble every time, and 1 Aura on your own roll keeps it quiet (see Getting it back). Letting it bite is always your call. When it bites in a big way, one that changes the scene or costs you something you wanted, you can take 1 Resolve instead of the Aura (see Catches and Trouble).

Step 7: Aura, Resolve, Hurt and bonds

Your Aura maximum is 5, unless something on your sheet changes it, and you’re full at the start of every scene. Aura’s for the small stuff, like bringing in something that isn’t on your set action, or the +2 on your archetype’s mechanic.

Resolve is your character pushing themselves, so it pays for the big stuff, like an extra action or going beyond what a permission normally does. You’ve got as much as you’ve got Titles, so 2 to start, and you can’t hold more than that. You get 1 back at the end of every scene and all of it after downtime, and there are a few other ways to earn it, like straining a thread (below). It’s all in Resolve.

Your stride is 3: that’s how far you move each round without spending an action (see Movement and Range). Armour starts at d2 and Confidence starts every scene on d6, and you’ll find how they work at the end of this chapter.

Your Hurt track is three bars of three boxes, nine in all, and it’s one track for body and mind. When you fill a bar, you write a Catch in it, an injury like cracked ribs or can’t stand the dark, and if you take a Hurt with every box full, you Blaze. How Hurt fills, clears and heals is in Hurt, Blaze and Scars and Healing.

Bonds and threads

A bond is a person who matters to your character, someone in the crew or anyone else. Each thread is one truth you two share, like a debt, a rescue, a secret or a shared past, and the more threads you’ve got with someone, the deeper the bond. You start with three threads, spread however you like: three people with one each, or one person with all three.

You can write one of them as a debt, and you get a fourth thread in return. A debt’s a thread with a hook: someone else holds it, they can call it in, and you don’t get to say no.

Every thread’s a hook the GM can pull, and it’s something you can lean on, too:

• Borrow through a thread. 1 Aura brings one of their permissions into your roll, the same as anything else you bring in, and it doesn’t strain anything. You can’t borrow through a strained thread until it’s mended.
• Strain a thread. Lean on them in the story, like calling in the favour, using their name, dragging them into it or using the secret, and take 1 Resolve. It’s free, it doesn’t take an action, and the thread’s now strained.
• Mend it. Make it right with them, by roleplaying it, doing them a favour or paying them, whatever suits them. That happens in downtime or in a scene with them, not in the middle of the fight where you strained it. Then it’s whole again.
• Strain it again before it’s mended and it snaps. You still take the Resolve, but cross the thread out. When the last thread goes, so does the bond.

A thread with someone in the crew goes on both your sheets, and it counts for both of you, so agree on it together. If either of you strains it, it’s strained for both.

New threads come from Grow in downtime, and when the crew’s Party Goal is done, everyone writes one to someone the Goal brought into their life.

Playing the strain

This is for when someone in the crew strains a thread with your character, so it stays honest both ways.

The thread gives the reason. The strain’s about that one truth, so nobody has to invent a grudge.

Say how it shows, and what would make it right. Play that and nothing bigger, and once they’ve made it right, let it go.

Play it by what’s left. With two or more threads still whole, it’s a grumble and a “you owe me”. With one, it’s a real problem and you’ll say so. With none, you’re cold until they make it right, and one more pull snaps it.

It never stops you working together in the moment. You still combo and still take the hit for each other.

Step 8: Connect

Before you play, tie the crew together. Go round the table with these ten questions. Everyone answers at least two, and names another player’s character in each answer. If the table’s enjoying it, answer all ten.

1. Who in the crew do you already know, and how?
2. Who do you have unfinished business with?
3. Who in the crew do you trust most, and why?
4. Who owes you, and what do they owe?
5. Who saved your life, or nearly got you killed?
6. Which crewmate do you know a secret about?
7. Who do you worry about when things go wrong?
8. Who would you never want to let down?
9. What job did you pull together that went badly?
10. Why are you still with this crew?

A good answer can become a thread. If it’s true between you and someone else in the crew, agree on it together and it goes on both your sheets. The GM uses the rest to put you in each other’s way.

Step 9: Aspiration

Your Aspiration is one thing you want. It starts at d2 and climbs as you chase it, so the first steps come easy and the last ones are hard work. The crew writes its Party Goal at d2 as well, and it climbs the same way.

• Chase it. When something you do really moves it along, roll against its die, built from whatever you’re doing about it. Beat it and it climbs one. In a scene, that’s an action aimed at it, when the GM says it’s within reach (usually once or twice a session). In downtime, it’s a slot.
• One step a roll. However many dice you put on it, one roll moves it one step at most. More dice is advantage, and your best die counts.
• A setback steps it back down one, never below d2.

When it climbs past d12, it resolves: you take a new archetype with one permission, name it with a Title, and write a new Aspiration at d2. Another Title puts your Resolve maximum up by 1 as well.

Your Aspiration is also somewhere a consequence can land. When a blow or a failure costs you, you can step your Aspiration back down instead of taking it on your Armour or your body, so the fight costs you your dream instead of your skin. You can’t do it while it’s at d2.

Confidence

Confidence is how you’re holding up right now. It’s the die you roll against fear, lies, pressure and anything else that works on the mind, and it swings up and down during a scene. It’s your nerve, not your sanity.

Where it starts

Clothes that fit the scene start you a size up, so when Vesk walks into a noble house in a servant’s uniform, she’s on d8. A trait that says so, like Iron Will, starts you a size up too, and so does the Confidence Boon. The Confidence Burden starts you a size down.

How it swings

Fear is a telegraph. The GM telegraphs fear, lies and pressure like any attack, say a dragon’s roar as a d10 at everyone’s Confidence, and you answer it, Defend or let it ride, the usual way.

For each one that gets through, you choose: let it shake you and drop a size, bury it and take a Hurt, or hold your ground and spend 1 Resolve so neither happens. When a blow lands, the GM names the cost (see Consequences), but this one’s your call.

• Up a size: stop all of it in a round, every bit of fear, lies and pressure that came at you, or take a threat down (in a combo, that’s everyone who put an action in). If nothing’s aimed at you, it doesn’t move. A Bard can lift you with a song as well, as far as d10.
• Down a size: let something shake you, or fill a Hurt bar and write a Catch.
• Nothing takes it below d2. Anything that would is a Hurt instead, or 1 Resolve to hold your ground.
• At d12 you’re fired up. Cash it in for an extra action, or to clear a Hurt box, and it drops back to d6.
• At d2 you’re shaken. You won’t go at a threat, in a fight or face to face, unless you spend 1 Resolve each time you do.
• Take a breath: spend your action and your Confidence comes up a size, as far as d6.
• At the end of the scene it goes back to d6. Anything that should last is a Catch.

Armour

Armour is your physical defence against blows, blades and teeth, and it comes from your gear. It starts at d2, and it’s a size bigger for each piece of plain armour you wear, and for gear or Boons that say so. Unlike Confidence, Armour can go past d12, and then it gets a second die (see Past d12).

Stepping your Armour down is one of the costs a blow can have. The GM names the cost, and you can offer another that fits and costs about as much. A condition that says so, like Poisoned, steps it down too.

Recovering Armour

You can step Armour back up to its full size with:

• A purse of gold, spent wherever the story gives you the chance, like a smith, an armoury or a market.
• A downtime slot spent on upkeep.

Boons and Burdens

A Boon is a permanent upgrade, like an extra Hurt bar or a longer stride. It costs two permission slots on one of your archetypes, and you can swap it back for permissions in downtime. You can build one in when you make your character, so two of that archetype’s three starting permissions are a Boon instead, or you can swap two permissions for one in downtime.

A Burden is a permanent cost, and it only ever comes on an attuned thing. Titles never take them. A Burden’s worth two permissions on that thing, or a Boon for you, and a thing can’t take one before it’s Tempered (see Attunement).

• Give them names from the story: Iron Lungs (+1 bar), Bad Knee (stride −2).
• A Burden is always on, and it’s got to cost you something you actually use. Nothing goes below its smallest size, so there’s no Armour Burden on a d2.
• You can take the same Boon more than once.

Boons that get you Aura back. Each of these is its own Boon, and there’s no Burden to go with it:

• Beat a threat: take 1 Aura whenever a threat of any kind falls to you, whether it’s a monster, a locked door, a puzzle or an argument.
• In your element: start a scene somewhere your Title belongs and take 1 Aura, even past your maximum.

Some levers aren’t on the menu, and that’s on purpose: bringing things in, leading, downtime slots and bonds. On most archetypes, taking the same one again gets you more for your 1 Aura (see The Archetypes). For the Defend and Take the hit levers, see Defend and Taking the hit.

A Complete Character, Start to Finish

Step 1: Archetypes and Titles

The player wants a thief called Vesk, so he picks the Shadow. When she gets into hiding, the dice she hid with go into her shadow pool, the things she noticed while nobody was looking, and she can add them to any roll after that.

For the Title he starts to write Thief. The GM pushes back: “The best at what? A thief who does what?” He has a think and comes up with The best cat burglar in the city.

For the second Title he asks himself where she learned it all, and writes Raised by the Guild. It’s a real role, and it hands the GM a whole Guild to play with. He makes it a Shadow as well, so she’s taken the same archetype twice, and 1 Aura on her roll to hide or on a shadow die is +3 instead of +2.

Step 2: Traits

He picks two from the list:

• Silent Step (Passive). Her movement makes no sound, and she gets +1 step to moving unseen.
• Light on my Feet (Passive). +2 units of movement, so her stride’s 5.

Step 3: Permissions

He writes Stealth first, and the GM points at the size table: that’d fit every scene. Move unseen is about right. He ends up with three on each Title:

• The best cat burglar in the city: move unseen, run the rooftops and pick a mechanical lock.
• Raised by the Guild: know how a lock’s built, fight dirty with a knife and find a buyer for anything.

Every one passes the quick test. Know how a lock’s built is all about locks, but it’s the kind of thing you learn growing up in the Guild, so it fits inside her second Title.

Step 4: Set actions

He fills in her set actions with what she’s got so far:

Locks is her own, for the thing she does all the time, and know how a lock’s built sits on it beside her first Title’s lines. Her second Title and find a buyer for anything don’t fit any of these nearly every time, so they stay off, and when one of them fits she’ll bring it in for 1 Aura. Move and Locks grow in Step 6. Her Sneak’s what she hides with, so when it gets her into hiding, that d8 goes in her shadow pool.

Step 5: What she carries

• Equipment: worn leathers. That’s one piece of plain armour, so her Armour’s a d4, and she’s still got two equipment slots free.
• Utility: a purse of gold and a smoke bomb, and there’s room for one more.
• Keepsake: the first coin she ever stole.
• Bag: empty, and ready for whatever she lifts.

Step 6: Attunement

She attunes the two things she’d never sell. Both start at Awakened, with one permission each:

• A perfect set of picks: open any lock with a mechanism.
• A grappling line: climb or swing anywhere you can throw a hook.

He could give each one its Catch now for a second permission, but there’s no trouble he wants on them yet, so he leaves it. The picks go on Locks, which makes it 5 steps, a d10. The line goes on Move: 4 steps, a d8. Neither counts towards what she carries, and neither can be broken.

Step 7: Aura, Resolve, Hurt and bonds

She starts with the usual numbers: 5 Aura, 2 Resolve (one for each Title) and three Hurt bars. Her stride’s 5 with Light on my Feet, her Armour’s d4 from the worn leathers, and her Confidence starts every scene on d6.

He writes three threads: one each with two of the crew, and one with someone outside it. The last one’s a debt, so he’s got room for a fourth when he thinks of one.

• Dorrie: we have pulled a dozen jobs. I trust her with my life.
• Bram: he once carried me out of a fire. I have never said thank you.
• The fence: I owe a debt I would rather not discuss.

Bram’s player wrote the same truth from his side, so that’s one thread on both their sheets. The rest of the crew write theirs too, and three of them are with Vesk, so they go on her sheet as well, in their own words:

• Dorrie: we came up on the same streets. She never asks why. (Dorrie’s)
• Isolde: she stole the book that started all this. (Isolde’s)
• Wren: I owe her for the night she hid me from the watch. (Wren’s, a debt)

That’s six threads on five bonds, and two of them are with Dorrie.

Step 8: Connect

He answers two of the crew questions:

• Who in the crew do you already know, and how? Dorrie. We have pulled a dozen jobs together.
• Who do you have unfinished business with? Bram. He carried me out of a fire and I never thanked him.

Now she’s got a reason to be in the crew.

Step 9: Aspiration

Own the score of a lifetime. It starts at d2.

Final sheet