AUG 5, 2026
- Making a Character
- Reworked ancestral benefits
- Halfling. Now has bonus Will and sanity check DC to represent a greater sense of centeredness and wild emotions. Bonus Will grants additional Sanity by default. Dodge check DC benefit is now implicitly carried by the [SMALL] trait.
- Dwarf. Now has bonus Fortitude instead of just bonus Health, but the Bonus Fortitude grants additional health by default. Added [SMALL] trait, which now improves the Dwarf dodge check DC, at the cost of movement and [LARGE] weapons.
- Elf. Now has bonus Reflex and a weapon mastery to reflect uncanny grace and long lives. I decided that elves should canonically be subject to fits of emotion, so the bonus Sanity and Sanity Check DC reduction didn’t fit that narrative.
- Magic Reference – School of the Shadows
- Changed School of the Shadows to focus on improving a character’s ability to operate in different lighting conditions and remain unseen
- 7.0 Environment and Conditions – 7.4 Creature Size
- Consolidated rules for creature size under section 7.4 Creature Size.
- Benefits (and downsides) of creature size are now summarized in a table, which allows ancestry to be assigned a size without having to include special rules based on size.
- 7.0 Environment and Conditions – 7.5 Conditions
- Added specific rules for the Invisible condition
AUG 4, 2026
- 4.0 Combat and Basic Rules Reference
- Added the BREATHE action which allows a character to recover additional primary stat points.
- This addresses an issue where characters with poor recovery (looking at you Adept and Beacon) are overly penalized at low Health / Sanity. This adds some player agency in recovering enough primary points to play the game other than sitting around wasting turns for ages.
AUG 1, 2026
- 5.0 Weapons & Armor and Equipment Reference – Ranged Weapons
- Added 1 point of [REND] to all ranged weapons except the sling. The additional [REND] will help ranged weapons be more viable for dedicated ranged weapon users considering their relatively high cost for use.
- Without the additional point of [REND] the shortbow was just categorically worse than the sling except in a very small range window.
- This makes the Arbalest unique as the only base [REND 4] weapon in the game, which I think is fitting cause it’s kind of a beast to use.
- Class Reference – Path of the Master
- Added the option to take a [RELOAD] action instead of an additional attack when using the attack action as a 2nd level benefit.
- This opens up the possibility for dedicated ranged users to make more than one attack per round, or make an attack, reload, and move.
- Without this there really wasn’t a plausible method to build a dedicated ranged warrior, leaving ranged attacks to the Adept.
- 5.0 Weapons & Armor – Shield
- Added the [PROTECT] reaction specific to shield users that allows them give the benefits of a shield to their friends.
- [PROTECT] gives shield users an active benefit to be more competitive with dual wielding melee weapon user, while also encouraging team play.
- Magic Reference – School of Light
- Changed School of Light from [TARGET] to [SELF] to prevent balance issues when combining with other schools of magic.
JUL 28, 2026
- Magic Reference – School of the Beast
- Added the [MEDIUM] weapon trait to the Claw attack instead of specifying the damage and hit DC
- Added the [HEAVY] weapon trait to the Bite attack instead of specifying the damage and hit DC. Slight nerf from 4+ to 5+ to hit.
- Changed healing on the Bite attack to [RESTORE] which will make it a function of Health Check DC since it was just too efficient in its prior form
- Moved Large benefit to Tier 5 since it feels more impactful as the ultimate version of School of the Beast.
- Magic Reference – School of Light
- Changed School of Light to [SPHERE 10] to make it significantly better than torches / lanterns
JUL 22, 2026
- 6.0 Magic
- Added Critical Success on a Magica Spellcasting Check which is a mechanic that gives some means to [RESTORE] Sanity similar to martial characters with a 6 on a weapon attack. Dedicated casters were just suffering too strongly from the Sanity damage on a failure for 1’s with no means to recoup any Sanity. I also like this because any successful 5th tier spell will [RESTORE] at least one point of Sanity, which feels thematically appropriate.
- Added 6.2 Combining Magica to clarify the rules for combining multiple schools of Magica in a single spell.
JUl 20, 2026
- Magic Reference – School of Warding.
- Tweaked School of Warding to improve the ward check DC to 5+/3+ to incentivize upcasting.
- One of the real benefits of Warding to frontline half casters is that is doesn’t interact with [REND], allowing a half-caster to reduce high [REND] attack damage prior to making health checks. At a 6+/5+ it just didn’t feel impactful enough for half-casters and doesn’t feel like it provides significant benefit against high [REND] attacks. Hopefully moving to 5+/3+ will be a real improvement for half-casters, but still not be too strong for full casters.
- Magic Reference – School of Undeath.
- Changed from School of Undeath to School of the Beyond to fit Malika naming convention.
- Magic Reference – School of Shadows.
- Changed from School of Shadows to School of the Shadows to fit Malika naming convention.
- Magic Reference – School of Weaving.
- Added School of Weaving to Magica for the munchkin casters and dedicated anti-caster builds.
- 3.0 Basic Rules.
- Changed Death Check rules from one death check per triggering effect to one death check per point of damage beyond zero.
- Changed Mental Break rules to be the same as new death check rules for consistency.
- This is intended to make high damage attacks more serious at zero Health since the chance of survival now quickly plummets with more damage. Also tries to prevent “Intern tanking“, where one low level character can be used to lock up extremely dangerous enemies by cheesing 4+ death checks using warding/fate magic.
Jul 15, 2026
- 5.0 Weapons and Armor and Equipment Reference
- Clarified that [FINESSE] weapons may use either FORT or REF or attacks
- Updates [OFFHAND] trait to indicate that [OFFHAND] attacks are not free
- Clarified rules for [SWEEP] weapons. Sweep now hits targets in order and extra FORT damage applies to the whole attack.
- [THROWN] weapon attacks use REF as intended.
- Added language about [LARGE] weapons being too large for inventory.
- 4.0 Combat
- Clarified rules surrounding making a Reflex check for combat order and taking a one instead of making the check.
- [SMALL] creatures now gain half the benefit from spending points of FORT to increase movement speed. Sorry short kings 🙁
- 3.0 Basic Rules and Basic Rules Reference
- Overhauled Mental Break rules to include additional penalties for failing mental break checks.
- Madness became inconsequential once a character had accrued maximum madness. New rules should add some entertaining chaos as a result of increasing madness.
- Changed Shock to Spellshock cause it’s a play on shellshock…
- 7.0 Environment
- Changed to 7.0 Environment and Conditions.
- Added some common combat conditions
JUL 11, 2026
- Magic Reference.
- Added School of Fate, a school of Magica centered around improving your and your allies rolls.
Jul 10, 2026
- 4.0 Combat.
- Clarified rules for [REACTION]s such that each trigger can only cause one reaction, regardless of the character taking the reaction.
- Magic Reference.
- Clarified the [REACTION] condition for warding to cover attacks that deal health damage.
- 6.0 Magic and Magic Reference.
- Rebalanced School of Warding because it was just too efficient
- Removed [REACTION] from School of Kronos, shifting it away from being a one size fits all defensive magic.
Jul 8, 2026
- 9.0 Exploration.
- Published draft version.
- 6.0 Magic and Magic Reference.
- Re-clarified rules for an [EFFECT] spell when the spell is a [TARGET] vs. an [ATTACK].
JUL 6, 2026
- 6.0 Magic and Magic Reference.
- Clarified rules for an [EFFECT] spell
- 3.0 Basic Rules.
- Added Wait action to shift the player’s combat order
- Updated rules reference
- Basic Rules Reference.
- Changed from Rules Reference to Basic Rules Reference since other rules like magic and character classes reside elsewhere.
- Added Skills table
- Added Actions table
Jul 5, 2026
- Melee Equipment.
- Corrected Halberd from 3″ range to 2″ range
Jul 2, 2026
- Magic Reference.
- Updated School of Kinesis to focus more on battlefield control and damage.
- Updated School of Kronos. Added Time Bubble feature at 5th tier cause that feels super cool.
- Updated School of the Flesh to grant Resistant to all damage at 5th tier
- Updated School of the Mind to cause Madness at 5th tier
- Added School of the Blood to Malika
- Character Traits. Corrected Charming to add +1 die to any Influence check to reflect change in skills.
JUL 1, 2026
- 8.0 Equipment. Published draft post on mundane equipment.
- 3.0 Basic Rules. Added clarification for Resistant and Vulnerable conditions.
Jun 29, 2026
- 7.0 Environment. Added section on Sanity damage vulnerability while blinded by the light conditions.
Jun 24, 2026
- 3.0 Basic Rules. Added rules for the [RESTORE] effect for clarity
- 3.0 Basic Rules. Removed Aneurysm and Focused from Mental Break table. Added Hopeless and Resolute as replacements [Instant death on the Mental Break table was too punishing, and Focused was too boring].