CINCO!

TABLE -TALK O DYSSEY

Copyright © 2025 Marcia B. Licensed as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.

Illustrated by Norn Noszka. Christened by Vodka Gobalsky.
The author does not endorse derivative works by bigots.

1
 TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title Page ............................................................................................................................................ 1
Table of Contents ............................................................................................................................. 2
Character Creation .......................................................................................................................... 3
Part I: Dear Players.........................................................................................................................4
D20 Checks .........................................................................................................................................4
Hearts & Inspiration .......................................................................................................................4
Advancement..................................................................................................................................... 5
Inventory............................................................................................................................................. 6
Travel .................................................................................................................................................... 8
Exploration ......................................................................................................................................... 9
Combat................................................................................................................................................. 9
Downtime ......................................................................................................................................... 10
Part II: Game Mother ................................................................................................................... 11
Getting Started ............................................................................................................................... 11
Planning Sessions........................................................................................................................... 12
Running Sessions............................................................................................................................ 12
The Nitty Gritty ............................................................................................................................... 13
Expanses & Travel......................................................................................................................... 14
Adventure Sites............................................................................................................................... 15
Non-Player Characters ................................................................................................................ 16
Conversations .................................................................................................................................. 17
Opponents......................................................................................................................................... 18
Encounters ........................................................................................................................................ 19
Shipbuilding .................................................................................................................................... 20
Havencraft........................................................................................................................................ 21
Calendars ..........................................................................................................................................22
Edge Cases ....................................................................................................................................... 23
Part III: World of Faia ................................................................................................................. 23
The Krib Sea .................................................................................................................................... 24
The Wajud Sea ............................................................................................................................... 28
The Malai Sea .................................................................................................................................. 32
The Lightbearers ............................................................................................................................36
Glossary............................................................................................................................................ 38

2
 CHARACTER CREATION
Welcome to the game! You’ll probably want the game mother to hold your hand for this
if this is your first time playing. She’ll help you brainstorm a concept for your character,
pick your equipment, and all that jazz. All you need to do, dear player, is figure out how
you want to play this game and what stories you want to tell.

1. Brainstorm a basic concept! Try reading the setting guide for ideas.

2. Describe your character’s origin. Who are they? Where did they come from?

3. Describe your character’s catalyst. What incited or forced them to adventure?

4. Describe your character’s quest. What do they want to ultimately accomplish?

5. Illustrate your character. Get a feel for how your character looks and acts!

6. Pick +2 Hearts, +2 Inspiration, or +1 of each. You have a base of 3 hearts and

1 inspiration. Hearts are how much damage you can sustain, and inspiration lets
you cast spells, reroll D20 checks, and take control of the fiction.

7. Select your equipment. Take your pick of armor, weapons, and gear (pp. 6–7).
Check out the bundles below if you need help! Each has 5 slots of items, and you
may want to pick 1–2 extra items based on your concept or needs.

o Melee weapon, shield, cuirass, supply, bedroll

o Ranged weapon, ammo, jacket, supply, bedroll
o Large melee weapon (2 slots), chainmail armor, supply, bedroll
o Large ranged weapon (2 slots), cuirass, supply, bedroll
o Melee weapon, jacket, arcana, supply, bedroll
o Ranged weapon, ammo, arcana, supply, bedroll

8. Consider your aspects. Aspects relate to your skills, tools, or fields of expertise.
Allocate 8 points between aspects, up to an initial maximum of +4! You can also
save points in case you’d like to assign them later at your convenience.

9. Describe a world rumor. This is your chance to leave your mark on the setting!
The game mother will interpret the rumor as she sees fit, like a genie, and you’ll
have the option to investigate that rumor in a future session.

When it comes to attendance, although this is open-table, please commit to your ISVP!
Flakes aren’t just disruptive to the game but, more importantly, to the function.

3
 PART I: DEAR PLAYERS
CINCO! is an adventure role-playing game about exploring fantasy worlds, navigating
complex social situations, and uncovering your character’s development through play.
The assumed setting is a tropical archipelago over which pirates, revolutionaries, and
forgotten gods wrestle for control. Still, the rules work anywhere heroes exist.

Your character’s concept is the most important part of your character, more than any
numbers on your character sheet. Describe your character’s most fundamental traits,
whether physical, intellectual, or social, as well as a backstory for them in three parts:
their origin, where they came from; their catalyst, why they were driven to adventure;
and their quest, what they hope to accomplish.

D20 Checks
All y’all know the drill: when your character attempts something difficult or dangerous,
you roll D20 plus certain modifiers to see if your character succeeds. Some checks are
against a number you must beat, while others are contests where the highest roll wins.
Advantage lets you take the highest 1 of 2D20 if circumstances benefit your character,
but disadvantage forces you to take the lowest 1 of 2D20 in the opposite case.

You may apply one of your character’s aspects for a bonus to any relevant D20 check.
Each aspect represents a background, profession, or other dimension of the character.
You start with 8 aspect points, of which you can save some or all to declare on the spot
during an adventure. You can gain more by earning experience from adventures (p. 5),
or by training during downtime (p. 10)!

Your defense is the score against which opponents check D20 to harm your character,
or act against them in some other way. Your base defense is 11, the average of a D20,
but it increases as you level up (it’s secretly 10 + your level).

Hearts & Inspiration

Hearts measure your character’s distance from death—or avoiding the consequences
of serious harm. You lose hearts when your character takes damage, often 1 at a time.
Inspiration is energy spent to cast spells or establish fiction in your favor.

You have a base of 3 hearts and 1 inspiration, but you increase one by +2 or both by +1.
These numbers do not continue to increase when your character advances, but you can
reallocate hearts into inspiration or vice versa when they do advance.

You restore all your hearts and inspiration overnight at a haven, meaning a safe place.
Otherwise, you can restore some of either while resting (p. 9).

4
Advancement
Each session, you gain experience points (XP) based on what you accomplished during
your character’s adventure:

+1 Participated in the session.

+1 Defied significant danger or difficulty.
+1 Advanced your quest or an ally’s.
+1 All of the above! Or for fun. Tehe…

As you accumulate experience, you will advance your character to the next level (+1).
This grants you free aspect points and increases your maximum possible bonus.

XP Level Aspect Pts. Aspect Max. Defense

0 Level 1 8 +4 11
10 Level 2 +2 +5 12
30 Level 3 +2 +6 13
60 Level 4 +2 +7 14
100 Level 5 +2 +8 15

You may also reallocate your hearts (maximum of 5) and inspiration (maximum of 3),
as well as your current aspect points!

5
Inventory
Items are represented by cards (2 × 1¾”). Large items take up twice the space (2 × 3½”),
but may be more useful than their smaller counterparts. Draw them yourself!

Your character sheet holds 7 cards, divided between equipped (3) and readied (4) slots.
Equipped items include tools or armor, and they must be equipped to be actively used.
Readied items include anything you’d want to consume or keep handy—but not always
or necessarily equip.

If you carry any excess items, you are encumbered and lose 1 action in combat (p. 9).
You may surrender those items before an encounter to restore your 2 actions, but you
would risk losing those items if an opponent gets their hands on them.

Armor
Each armor card acts like 1 extra heart, and also grants you a circumstantial defense
bonus until it’s hit (flip card over; reset in downtime). Examples are:

 Jacket: +2 defense vs. elements

 Shield: +2 defense vs. slashing
 Cuirass: +2 defense vs. piercing

You can’t equip or unequip armor in combat (p. 9), so what you wear at the beginning
of combat is what you’ll wear to the end. You also can’t equip duplicates.

6
 Weapons
Weapons allow your character to wound enemies, dealing at least 1 heart of damage.
Mundane damage can be bashing, piercing, or slashing, depending on your weapon.
Each has a critical effect that triggers when you roll 20+ on an attack:

 Bash: Target becomes vulnerable until they spend 1 action to shake it off.
 Pierce: Deal double hearts of damage. Ol’ reliable.
 Slash: Deal damage to all adjacent opponents of equal or lesser defense.

Ranged weapons require ammo to be equipped in addition to that weapon’s own card;
you can spend an ammo slot to deal +1 damage on a hit, but otherwise just hold onto it.
Large weapons take 2 slots and deal +1 damage. Firearms and heavy ranged weapons,
such as crossbows, deal +1 damage but take 1 action to reload.

Equipment
Everyday costs are chump change, not worth tracking. You begin each session with as
many mundane items as you can carry without going overboard—pun intended! Tehe…
Feel free to also replace items you already have. Below are 20 examples:

Ammo Disguise kit Handcuffs Mirror Spyglass

Bedroll Fishing rod Instrument Pickaxe Supply
Charm Grappler Lantern Ram Tent
Crowbar Hammer Messkit Shovel Toolkit

You can spend inspiration to ‘summon’ common consumables such as torches, rope, oil
flasks, chalk, spikes, and so on. You cannot, however, ‘summon’ major consumables like
ammo for ranged weapons (above) or supply for resting (p. 9).

Arcana
Arcanas are magical items such as scrolls, grimoires, or other artifacts which give you
magic powers. It costs 1 inspiration to use an arcana to catalyze a supernatural effect,
based on the arcana’s motif. For example, consider the elements: air, earth, fire, water.
Feel free to be creative, though! Why not be a psionic mage whose fabric is one’s mind,
or a druid whose domain is all plant life?

You can use any arcana as a regular weapon (1 damage, no range) so long as it makes
sense without spending inspiration. In general, it costs 0 inspiration to use an arcana to
accomplish something that an average person can do—just with extra pizzazz.

You can also spend 1 action or 1 inspiration to enhance your magical attack, including:
(a) deal +1 damage, or deal 1 even on a miss; (b) target multiple figures in one zone; or
(c) cast at any zone within sight.

7
Travel
They say that travel is about the journey, not the destination. That’s nice when you’re a
tourist on a luxury cruise ship pampered by indentured servants who haven’t seen their
families in years. The T is that you’re a working woman—or whatever—with things to do
and places to be. Wanna party in Elfrance? You better work, bitch!

When traveling over an expanse of sea or land, the game mother picks a crewmate to
roll D20 for a random event (such as an encounter or discovery). Usually, at the start of
each adventure, you must sail by ship from your home island to another, and then trek
across the second island to your ultimate destination: this means one event on sea and
one on land. Whoever rolls must ‘lead’ any resulting encounter; remember when sailing
to fly a flag of allegiance (you can lie) and use emoji flags to ‘talk’ between ships!

If you relate one of your aspects to a travel task—e.g., navigating, foraging, cooking—
you may get a special event when you roll 20 or more! Since the game mother needs to
prepare events, she’ll probably tell you what options you have (or you can request one).
Rolling less than 10, on the other hand, may cost you an accident.

Optionally, the game mother may represent regions with a geographical map, whether
as hexes on a map or as nodes connected by paths. You will probably roll a D6 to move
on the map, representing 1 day of travel overseas or an equal number of days via land,
but don’t worry about the specifics. That’s Mama’s job.

8
Exploration
When you’re closely investigating an adventure site, everyone gets one turn unless y’all
move as a group between rooms or areas. Fuck around and find out: that’s the fun of it!
After everyone takes a turn, the game mother rolls a random event for the crew; unless
the crew is split, in which case she checks for each group.

When you spend your turn resting, you can consume 1 supply to restore up to 3 hearts,
inspiration, or armor amongst you (maybe you’re eating lunch, smoking a fat one, etc.),
but you risk an event unless you’re in a SaFe SpAcE. You can also consume supply while
traveling, but it’s just less of a fucking ordeal.

Combat
You can make 2 actions per turn in combat, or just 1 action if you’re encumbered (p. 6).
1 action or 1 inspiration can be spent as below:

 Act before your opponents—otherwise, they go first!

 Move into an adjacent zone, an abstract area where you can melee.
 Use an equipped item, each up to once per turn.
 Consume or equip a readied item, except for armor.
 Assist (advantage) or impede (disadvantage) someone else’s action.

Opponents may flee when half their numbers are depleted or if their leader is defeated.
Combat proceeds over subsequent rounds if unresolved. Keep in mind, though, that the
goal is not always to ‘defeat’ the other side! Everyone wants to live.

Warhammer
2 bashing damage
Revolver
large (2 slots)
3 piercing damage
ranged, reload

Cutlass
1 slashing damage
nothing special

9
Downtime
Let’s be honest: once you get your hands on some treasure, though you might spend it
frugally, you are far more likely to blow it up your nose. Spend 1 treasure to spend your
downtime doing anything other than getting by. Pick or roll D6!

1. Construct: Make 1 progress towards building a ship or a haven!

2. Employ: Seek and hire an NPC crewmate! You have the right to refuse.
3. Market: Exchange your treasure for another! Who knows what you’ll find?
4. Party: Gain 1 extra experience point by going out on town!
5. Research: Describe or ask the game mother to clarify 1 rumor on the map!
6. Train: Improve one of your aspects by +1 (see maximums on p. 5)!

Keep in mind, however, that treasure is often convenient to keep and use for yourself.
Magic items especially will aid you on your adventures, and even a fat bag of gold may
turn favors your way. Consider your character’s priorities!

If you’re a scrub, you can make a D20 check vs. 15 to try a downtime activity anyway,
at risk of some bullshit derailing your vacay.

10
 PART II: GAME MOTHER
Hey, you! It’s me! You! If you’re the one reading this, or, um, if I’m the one reading this.
If you’re not me, this is a little awkward. Now I have to explain my grand theory of how
to run adventure games. Here goes nothing!

It’s important for me to acknowledge—and emphasize—that I don’t actually have any

grand theories about games or what it means to run one. Tabletop role-playing games
are mostly social occasions for me. They’re opportunities to get together and socialize,
imagine fun characters, and put them in compelling situations worthy of reminiscence.
I run games to hang out with my friends and see that they have a good time.

With that in mind, I should talk about what my friends are like. I run games for them,
not for others, and I think they fall in three different camps: those who like to inhabit
characters and see how they develop throughout a campaign and interact with others;
those who like to explore fantasy worlds and solve puzzle-like situations that challenge
their little gray cells; and those who are along for the ride and get caught up in hijinks.
If your friends are like mine, then we’ll probably get along!

Getting Started
The first step in planning a campaign is finding out what your friends are interested in.
What books, shows, or other media have they been enjoying lately? What aesthetics do
they want to explore or inhabit? Do they have any other particular interests? Surveying
potential players to ask these questions (and also to schedule sessions) can help inspire
the campaign setting!

With you and your friends’ interests in mind, write a one-page handout explaining the
tentative setting of the campaign. Think about what activities will interest your friends.
Invent situations that would drive those activities. Those situations may involve conflict
between factions with different agendas. What are those agendas, and how might they
push characters around or force them to take a side? If the handout pleases everyone,
you can start planning an introductory session with a strong hook to excite players and
immerse them in the world. Mine started on a prison ship attacked by a dragon!

Before running that session, though, the players need to create their characters. I think
it’s most fun to create characters together, based on a shared prompt like: “Why would
your character get arrested?” As they imagine and create and discuss their characters,
they will immerse themselves and become attached to their character and each other’s.
As part of this writer’s table, give them a hex map with some geography and tell them
to place rumors where’d they like; you can interpret these later in the game as a genie,
surprising them with the truth (once you have an idea)!

11
Planning Sessions
Your introductory session is bound to have early-installment weirdness. Players are still
figuring out their characters and how to play as them. The session itself could not have
been written with those specific characters in mind, especially if you’re introducing and
running the game during the same pilot session (or “session zero”). The best outcome is
that the session ends with the players having a concrete agenda for the next session so
you can plan it with more certainty and specificity.

Barring that, here are things you’ll want to consider when planning future sessions:

1. Why are the crewmates adventuring, in the short and long terms?
2. Where will the crew go during their adventure? Why there specifically?
3. Whom will the crew meet at those places? What are their agendas?
4. Who or what may pose an obstacle to the crew’s own agenda?
5. What does the crew think they know? What will surprise them to learn?

When considering those questions and developing play material for them, you need to
walk a line between making your players interested in the adventure and introducing
factors that complicate their decisions and make the game more engaging. These can
be situational factors like conflicting agendas or unforeseen consequences, as well as
procedural factors emerging from time pressure, resource management, or risk-taking.
Good games consist of interesting decisions!

Take advantage of what you know about your players and their characters to ‘predict’
their behavior and decisions. Then, write materials to fall back on if the session doesn’t
go that way. Either way, prioritize the players’ interests and their characters’ agendas,
and you won’t waste any effort spent!

Running Sessions
We already know that nothing goes according to plan, and you must be okay with that.
Follow your players’ lead! Let them explore, linger, and go off the rails. When you are in
the position of the blind leading the blind, generative tables and procedural mechanics
can help you improvise material, provide structure, and continue to challenge players—
just keep an open mind and let the dice fall where they may! If it’s a recurring problem,
consider how you might be preparing the wrong ‘things’.

The game itself has a very simple atomic structure: you describe players’ surroundings,
they describe what they want to do, and you describe what happens or ask them to roll
(whether to attempt a D20 check, or otherwise) if the outcome isn’t clear. Then, repeat!
Be fair and helpful to players. Foreshadow consequences that they neglect to consider.
Give them choices, not cutscenes. Entertain them and yourself. Have fun!

12
Nitty Gritty Rules
Y’all don’t wanna hear me, you just wanna dance. Uh-oh! I don’t like centering dice rolls
in my game because I prefer talking it out. It can be interesting to negotiate the stakes
and outcomes of an action rather than delegating either to fate, and I just like chatting
with my friends. So, think of rolling dice as a last resort. That being said…

There’s a tendency to reduce resolution procedures to being either binary or marginal.

However—as renowned mathematician Ted Kaczynski once said—we can eat our cake
and have it too! Consider the following minimum “grades” of D20 scores:

D20 Grade Result

0 F Terrible
5 D Poor
10 C Okay
15 B Good
20 A Great
25 S Fantastic

Using these scores, you can have players attain a specific grade to succeed at a task,
or ask them to roll without a particular grade in mind! This is handy for narration, too:
sometimes someone rolls just fine, but the action is so difficult that they need to have
rolled much better instead; in that case, they didn’t just trip over themselves.

Be sure to grant players advantage or disadvantage when the circumstances around a

situation tilt the hand of fate one way or another, whereas a task would otherwise have
a difficulty of such-and-such score (from 10 to 20). Bonuses have an upper bound of +8.
Advantage and disadvantage cancel out; they represent a situation’s totality.

13
Expanses & Travel
Expanses consist of a set of sites (any of which can be traveled from one to another)
and a list of possible events based on the region’s geography, major factions, and the
active player’s task while traveling. A site within an expanse may itself be an expanse:
think of an archipelago as a sea expanse, where each island is a land expanse.

D20 Events
The event table is really three: 9 outright negative events, 10 open-ended events, plus
some handful of events related to a player’s task or aspect (1 plus their aspect bonus);
the last may be based on tasks for the party’s mode of travel in an expanse, or tailored
specifically to individuals’ aspects. Talk it out ahead of time, or improvise!

Rather than having one D20 table, you could write one table for each range of results
(negative, neutral, or positive) or even predetermine results should a player roll within
one range or another. Either way, ignore repeats. No fun.

Slow Travel
You should only use slow travel, as opposed to just 1 encounter per journey, if your map
is interesting enough to sustain the rhythmic repetition of rolling D6 for movement and
D20 for events for each leg of a trip: 1 day per sea turn, and a number of days equal to
the D6 movement roll per land turn. The plus is that since each trip will likely take many
legs / turns to complete, multiple players will get the chance to participate in rolling for
events and (potentially) leading encounters.

For voyages, consider using 60-mi hexes. For treks on land, consider using 12-mi hexes.
You can alternatively draw maps as graphs of locations connected by paths of various
difficulties and lengths, using the same scale for hexes. Regardless, each pip on the D6
for movement corresponds to 1 move (1 hex or 1 path segment). It will take ~3½ moves
for a leg of travel to conclude and an encounter to occur.

Factions
It helps to design a region around a factional conflict—especially one whose resolution
would impact the crew and their quests one way or another. Each faction should have a
desired outcome as well as a means of pursuing it while competing with other factions.
Anticipate with whom the crew will cooperate or compete.

Liaisons are important NPCs who represent factions, though not necessarily lead them.
They are more complex than typical NPCs by having means, motive, and opportunity to
execute their faction’s agenda. This makes them important points of contact for a crew
of adventurers, whether they are on the faction’s ‘good’ or ‘bad’ side. Factions can also
have multiple liaisons, representing internal conflict.

14
Adventure Sites
If you need to create an adventure site in a jiffy, start with rooms 1–6. Roll D6 for each
room to determine where it connects, and re-roll connections you have already found.
For interest, try rolling D6 for which connection has one of the following complications:
lengthy, requiring 1 turn of movement; difficult, requiring some D20 check to overcome;
or hidden, requiring foreknowledge or ingenuity to uncover. These are just ideas.

Rooms indexed from 1–4 are functional: [1] the site’s entrance; [2] NPCs with treasure;
[3] NPCs without treasure; and [4] treasure without NPCs (possibly hidden or trapped).
The remaining two rooms 5–6 are landmarks which neither punish nor reward the crew,
but offer insight into the site (whether useful or simply interesting). Each six-room cell
should have 1 treasure per crewmate, meaning ~2 treasures per hoard for a crew of 4.
Keep in mind you can combine these cells to create larger sites!

All this advice is structural rather than content-wise. That’s because you can’t design a
site into being interesting or fun. A good site needs interactives, goodies, and secrets—
woven together by a cohesive theme. Consider the site’s location, history, and context,
and think about what would be fun for the crew to explore.

Running Exploration
How long is an exploration turn? It depends on context, mama. Maybe it’s ten minutes,
or maybe a few hours. Time’s a social construct. Does that scare you? If you’re a pussy,
say there’s 10 hours each day you can spend active, including traveling to the site, and
it’s up to you to discern when hours pass. After 10 hours the crew cannot rest until after
they spend a night recuperating. If they go over 10 active hours, they lose active hours
the next day until they exhaust themselves or take downtime.

In a dungeon, it may take 6 exploration turns for 1 hour to pass (conveniently, the rate
you can expect the crew to rest); supply in that case would be more valuable than time.
In the wild, 1 hour is 1 turn, and it may take 1–2 turns to move 3 miles depending on the
terrain’s difficulty (translate into your favorite scale). Either way, investigating a ‘room’
takes 1 active turn, while resting takes 1 non-active turn—think of it as lunch!

15
Non-Player Characters
An NPC is anyone controlled by the game mother. Without frills, an NPC needs a name,
a basic description, and a unique feature or two. Try rolling 4D6:

 Age: How many decades they’ve been around. For longer-lived species, interpret
the result as their equivalent age cohort.
 Gender: Read even results as female and odd results as male, and possibly a roll
of [1] as non-binary. We can always afford to have less men!
 Lineage: You can probably make a table for specific regions. In general, maybe:
[1] dwarf, [2] elf, [3] gnome, [4] hoblin, [5] orc, [6] terran.
 Sexuality: How straight (low) or gay (high) the NPC is. Results [2,5] may indicate
repression. You’d be shocked how often this comes up. Or not.

NPCs have D20 bonuses of +4 at their profession and +2 at other interests. Give or take.
If you don’t know their profession, I don’t know how to help you.

Features Studies
Unusual eye/skin color Engineering
Conspicuous birthmark Literature
Bulging muscles Medicine
Teeth like a cemetery Natural science
Good at hugs; knows it Performing arts
Chiseled face Visual arts

Accessories Hobbies
Gorgeous jewelry Board games
Stunning hair Conspiracies
Mysterious piercings Partying hard
Fascinating tattoos Sightseeing
Irresistible scent Team sports
Fabulous clothes Useless trivia

Wounds Motives
Pronounced scar Comfort
Missing fingers Family
Wooden leg Knowledge
Hook hand Romance
Cool eyepatch Security
Metal nose Tradition

Consider other details, such as the NPC’s personality or their attitude towards the crew,
based on the context of all in which the NPC lives and what came before them.

16
Conversations
Most conversations should just be conversations. Even if you aren’t talking in character,
the narration should be straightforward. No dice needed!

Roll When?
The story changes when a player-character asks something of a non-player character,
and the outcome of that conversation is uncertain. Like other situations, this would call
for a D20 check to successfully persuade, deceive, or intimidate the NPC so they agree
to the player-character’s terms. Keep in mind that D20 checks cannot be mind control;
you should only call for a roll when the NPC is hesitant, not straight-up unwilling.

NPC Disposition
The most important factor is the NPC’s disposition towards the player-character or the
crew at large. Hostile NPCs will refuse to negotiate and likely show aggression towards
the crew unless placated—if not by their faction’s agenda, then their individual desires.
Neutral NPCs will not go out of their way unless there may be something in it for them.
Friendly NPCs will go out of their way because of an existing relationship with the crew
or a specific crewmate, either factional or personal.

An NPC’s disposition can shift up (or down) when a speaker pleases (or offends) them.
This may itself require a roll if the attempt to please needs convincing or is inauthentic.
Players can learn about the NPC though conversation or investigation. You know. Like
a normal person curious about other people and their own internal worlds.

Making Requests
When it’s time to finally make the request, the speaker rolls D20. They have advantage
if the NPC is friendly. If the NPC is hostile but a request is somehow within the realm of
possibility (and this may not be the case), the player rolls with disadvantage.

The table below indicates what score the player should try to meet when checking D20.
Sometimes the NPC may compromise or do more than what they were asked.

D20 NPC’s Response

0 Disposition shifts down.
5 Declines; no shift.
10 Doesn’t go out of their way.
15 Goes out of their way.
20 Disposition shifts up.

Only one request should be made per conversation. The player may have to roll without
advantage or even with disadvantage if they keep pushing. How annoying!

17
Opponents
Brackets are abstract templates to structure encounters with little to no preparation.
Hearts refers to how many hearts an opponent has; power is their damage budget
each turn; bonus modifies D20 checks at which the opponent is proficient, especially
for attack rolls; and defense is the difficulty score to attack them.

Bracket Hearts Power Bonus Defense

Grunt 2 1 +1 11
Elite 4 2 +2 12
Champ 8 3 +4 14
Boss 16 4 +8 18
Minion* 1 1 +0 10

One large monster can be “decomposed” into its parts to make for a varied encounter.
For example, a dragon can be its head and torso (champ) plus two wings (elites).

Attacks
Opponents who deal many hearts of damage per turn can make uber-powerful attacks.
For example, a champ could be a grizzly bear who attacks twice per turn: once with her
bite for 1 damage (1 power), and again with her claws for 2 damage (2 power).

Special Moves
Special moves cost 1 power for each feature in addition to whatever damage is dealt:
these can be (a) attacking at range; (b) impacting everyone in a zone; or (c) imposing
conditions on the target(s). Magical attacks with special effects do not cost additional
power if they are triggered by critical hits or are limited at 1 use per encounter.

For example, our bear could also bear-hug for 2 damage, grappling her target so they
must try to wrestle free at the start of their next turn (2 + 1 = 3 power).

Minions*
A pair of grunts can be substituted for a trio of “minions”. Three minions cost 4 hearts
when calculating encounter difficulty, which helps make encounters feel busier without
overwhelming your players. They’re just a little something-something!

Special Grunts
You can also remove 1 heart from a grunt to give them +1 power for a special feature,
such as giving them range on their attacks.

A medium encounter may look like 2 ranged grunts and 3 melee minions (1 heart each),
rather than just a plain group of 4 grunts (2 hearts each).

18
Encounters
An encounter’s difficulty can be estimated by counting the total number of hearts each
opponent has and comparing to the total number of player-characters.

Difficulty 1 PC 2 PC 3 PC 4 PC 5 PC 6 PC
Easy 1 2 3 4 5 6
Medium 2 4 6 8 10 12
Hard 3 6 9 12 15 18
Deadly 4 8 12 16 20 24

A hard encounter for a basic crew of 4 could be a grizzly bear with two cubs, the latter
functioning as grunts who swing their claws for 1 damage. The crew can withstand one
deadly encounter or equivalent between stays at a haven, so keep that in mind as their
hearts and inspiration whittle away.

Staging
It’s helpful to think of a battlefield as a stage, split into melee zones based on divisions
in architecture, landscape, and relative distance. You can represent zones with a battle
map as abstract or concrete as you (or your players) would prefer. Boundaries between
zones are important: consider factors like walls, elevation differences, and chokepoints,
which serve to complicate movement and make stages more interesting.

Stages, of course, have props: items which participants invoke to act with advantage,
each usable once per encounter. A player can spend inspiration to establish new props,
but planning props ahead of time can prompt more engaging play.

Stages can also have effects or shifts, which keep participants on their toes and force
them to react on their turn. Shifts may trigger intentionally (by the acts of characters),
randomly (a random chance per round), or periodically (after some rounds).

19
Shipbuilding
Ships have similar statistics as opponents do in general (p. 17), except they have a cost
attribute indicating how much treasure you need to invest in order to construct a given
class of ship. Each investment also requires 1 downtime activity spent building the ship
or overseeing its construction (p. 10). It costs the same to restore a ship’s hearts.

Cost Class Hearts Power Bonus Defense

1 Sloop 2 1 +1 11
3 Corvette 4 2 +2 12
6 Frigate 8 3 +4 14
10 Ship-of-the-Line 16 4 +8 18
0 Dingy 1 1 +0 10

Most crews begin with a dingy, which you can find just about anywhere if you’re willing
to ‘borrow’ one from an angler or diver or whoever else. However, a dingy can be easily
threatened by any other ship, so it’s worth upgrading it into something with more oomf.
Eventually, one might decide to set sail an entire fleet!

Hearts double as a ship’s carrying capacity slots for cargo and passengers (in the tens).
A ship needs 1 slot of crew-passengers for each firepower, meaning one fully operative
ship-of-the line has 16 – 4 = 12 free slots for cargo. The costs of labor are included in the
cost of construction. That’s to say, just don’t worry about it.

20
Havencraft
Crews can build their own haven! Like ships, they must invest treasure and downtime to
construct or upgrade a settlement (p. 10).

Cost Type Pop. Amenities Raid

4 Hamlet 100 1 1/20
9 Village 900 2 2/20
16 Town 3,600 3 4/20
25 City 10,000 4 8/20

Although the crew’s initial base of operations is probably a city, they’re mere denizens
and can neither demand special treatment nor pilot the settlement’s fate. At best, they
could develop relationships with local NPCs on a personal basis. Maybe they’d consider
inviting such NPCs to their own haven later!

Each treasure represents not only an abstract quantity of capital invested in the haven,
but a new building or other feature in the haven. When a crewmember invests treasure:
brainstorm ideas based on what treasure they have to spend, put it to a vote, and then
have them draw that feature on the map! Assume housing and other essential buildings
are constructed automatically, unless it’s particularly special. This is fluff!

There’s a twist: a haven can only accept 1 treasure of capital investment each session,
and you can’t use an amenity to advance the haven automatically. Sorry :( Takes some
real time and money. Some real bootstrap shit.

Amenities
Havens of greater populations have more amenities, local institutions which provide a
crewmember with a free downtime activity during downtime which they spend at their
haven. Consider these six basic activities: [1] construction, [2] employment, [3] market,
[4] partying, [5] research, and [6] training (p. 10).

New amenities require not only the haven to advance, but for the crew to find someone
with the know-how to work the institution and the willingness to move somewhere new.
Maybe the NPC wants a specific feature at the haven which, itself, requires a particular
treasure to be constructed (e.g., coffee for a café). Put the crew to work!

Raids
Havens also have a chance of being raided during any period of downtime for which
the governing crew is present. By the point at which a crew owns a haven, they should
also have enemies who have it out for them. A random encounter table cannot suffice
here: you need to put thought into it.

21
Calendars
Keep a calendar; write with pencil, not pen. Know what will happen if no one intervenes
but be prepared for the crew to do so. Keep track of what has happened, both for your
own enjoyment and because it’ll help you plan what might happen next.

I use a standard 12-month calendar wherein each month represents 1 session of play,
enough time for 1 downtime period and 1 adventure. The seasons shift every 3 months
or sessions, starting with Spring in Ares.

1. Ares 2. Taurus 3. Gemini

4. Cancer 5. Leo 6. Virgo

7. Libra 8. Scorpio 9. Sagittarius

10. Capricorn 11. Aquarius 12. Pisces

22
Edge Cases
Having specific sections for each of the below would feel like overkill, right? They don’t
need all that even if they might come up every now and then. In other words, these are
the sorts of things that would otherwise (probably) emerge organically.

Healing Magic
For an arcana to be used for healing, it needs to have a specifically applicable motif—
creativity should still be allowed and encouraged, but its application must make sense.
Examples may include necromancy or divine magic. Spending 1 inspiration restores up
to 3 hearts (no inspiration), like summoning and consuming supply out of thin air.

Paces
I sometimes use paces instead of zones to map combat stages. 1 pace is about 5 feet—
represented by 1 inch on the tabletop—and figures can spend 1 action to move 6 paces.
For parity, movement is free if someone’s target is within 6 paces (as if sharing a zone).
I prefer using rulers over grids because they’re more freeform.

Riding Mounts
Mounts grant the rider 1 extra action on their combat turn to move or do anything else.
Think of it as controlling a second character encumbered by one’s own! If all the crew is
mounted, or sharing a mount-drawn wagon, they get +1 move per leg of a trek. Mounts
and wagons cost 1 treasure each.

Staying Alight
You need light to see in the dark. You can spend 1 inspiration to summon a torch that
lasts 1 hour, or to summon an oil flask that will light a lantern until put out.

Travel Difficulty
I like a travel difficulty of 15! It means that players will have a ~50% chance of success
so long as they associate their travel role with a particular aspect. For some extra flair,
consider varying the difficulty by terrain and weather. Start with a base difficulty of 10,
12, or 14 depending on the terrain, and add D6 to represent the weather.

When sailing, I like to interpret the movement roll as weather, so it has double function.
That makes less sense for trekking on land, though.

Under the Sea

All creatures are resistant to bashing and slashing damage but vulnerable to electricity.
Fire and gunpowder are ineffective. Terrestrial creatures must spend 1 action each turn
to catch their breath (if possible), or else check D20 to avoid taking 1 damage.

23
GLOSSARY
Action (p. 9): Combat action. Each participant gets 2 per turn or only 1 if encumbered.
Activity (p. 10): Downtime activity for which one can spend treasure to do.
Advantage (p. 4): Take the highest of two D20 rolls on a check or contest.
Amenity (p. 21): Haven feature which provides 1 free downtime activity to 1 crewmate.
Ammo (p. 7): Item required to be equipped in order to use ranged weapons.
Arcana (p. 7): Magic item for which one must spend inspiration to use in cool ways.
Armor (p. 6): Item which acts as 1 heart and provides defense bonus until disabled.
Aspect (p. 4): D20 bonus a character receives for expertise at specific things.
Boss (p. 18): Opponent with 16 hearts, 4 power, +8 bonus, and 18 defense.
Catalyst (p. 4): Traumatic event which calls one’s character to adventure.
Champ (p. 18): Opponent with 8 hearts, 3 power, +4 bonus, and 14 defense.
Check, D20 (p. 4): Roll D20 to meet or beat a difficulty number to succeed at a task.
Contest (p. 4): Roll D20 and attempt to beat another participant’s D20 roll.
Defense (p. 4): Score to beat to deal damage against a target in combat.
Disadvantage (p. 4): Take the lowest of two D20 rolls on a check or contest.
Downtime (p. 10): Time between adventures, approximate to time between sessions.
Elite (p. 18): Opponent with 4 hearts, 2 power, +2 bonus, and 12 defense.
Encounter (p. 17, 19): General meeting with NPCs, whether to chitchat or fight.
Encumbrance (p. 6): Carrying items in excess of your character sheet costs 1 action.
Equipped (p. 6): Items that can be immediately used in combat.
Experience (p. 5): Points earned by participating in sessions or accomplishing things.
Expanse (p. 8): Abstract travel map of sites located within the same region.
Grunt (p. 18): Opponent with 2 hearts, 1 power, +1 bonus, and 11 defense.
Haven (p. 4): Safe place for the crew to rest overnight or for longer periods of time.
Hearts (p. 4): Represent one’s capacity to sustain harm; lost when damage is taken.
Inspiration (p. 4): Spent to reroll D20 checks, cast magic spells, or summon items.
Liaison (p. 14): NPC who represents (not necessarily leads) a faction for the crew.
Minion (p. 18): Opponent with 1 heart, 1 power, +0 bonus, and 10 defense.
Month (p. 22): Each play-session represents 1 month in the fictional game-world.
Motif (p. 7): Elemental, aesthetic, or thematic basis for an arcana.
Origin (p. 4): Your character’s background before being called to adventure.
Power (p. 18): Opponent’s approximate damage per turn in melee.
Quest (p. 4): Your character’s ultimate goal resulting from their catalyst.
Readied (p. 6): Items that can be equipped or consumed.
Rest (p. 9): Spend 1 exploration turn and some supply to restore your resources.
Stage (p. 19): Where combat takes place, made of melee zones.
Supply (p. 9): Abstract item representing rations (etc.) consumed while resting.
Treasure (p. 10): Any valuable item that can be spent to have a downtime activity.
Zone (p. 9): Abstract area for combat movement where melee can occur.

24