Glossary

Ability. A special talent or trait that enables you to do something beyond what ordinary people can do. A ✪star indicates something is an ability. 

Action. An attempt at something risky or uncertain. Your hero rolls a specific die for each of four types of actions: Maneuver, Compel, Brace, and Move. 

Advantage & Disadvantage. When you act, roll a second die and use the higher (advantage) or lower (disadvantage) result. 

Ally. A fellow hero or friendly character who helps you in battle. 

Ancient. Pertaining to the long-lost world of the Shattered Planet (that is, Earth). 

Antediluvian. The language spoken by sentient spawn of Yom and other creatures resonant with the remnants of the ancient Earth.

Armor. Wearable or natural protection that helps you guard attacks. Your armor may comprise body armor, a helmet, or both. 

Attack. A basic Move action. Specific Attacks include the standard Melee Attack along with Grab,  Jump-Attack, and Ranged Attack. 

Attribute. Your mental and physical qualities and current condition. The four attributes are Awareness, Spirit, Strength, and Grace. 

Awareness. An attribute representing your perception and sensory acuity. Awareness helps you notice things or focus on your advanced abilities. You regain all your awareness quickly, when you catch your breath for a moment.

Basic Action. One of 12 actions with structured rules: Act First, Attack, Deceive, Evade, Help, Outflank, Persuade, Restrain, Rush, Shove, Stand Fast, Survive.

Brace. An action reflecting a combination of spirit and strength. The basic Brace actions are Restrain, Shove, Stand fast, and Survive. If you Brace against a foe, you succeed if you beat their strength. 

Calling. What your hero aspires to. The six callings are Champion, Wanderer, Mastermind, Messenger, Sorcerer, and Arbiter. The latter three use magic. 

Catch breath. When you get a few moments of peace after battle or storm, you regain all your awareness and grace—but not spirit or strength. You can catch your breath pretty much anywhere, as long as you’re not taking action.

Chaos. The vast realm of unpredictable windcurrents and unfathomable monsters beyond the boundaries of Tel-Kanan and Mazr. 

Character. A person or creature whose role is taken by the game’s players. The Guide controls most characters, while the other players each control a hero character. 

Chthonic. The language spoken by wraiths and dead things.

Common. The Kananite language. 

Compel. An action reflecting a combination of awareness and spirit. The basic Compel actions are Help, and Persuade. If you Compel another character, you succeed if you beat their spirit. 

Conveyance. A means of traveling across the Skysea. The most common are hot-air balloons and skyships.

Core attribute. The fundamental level of your attribute. Your max attribute is usually, but not always, equal to your core attribute.

Crafting resource (𐤇). Material you can use to craft items, if you know the Crafting lore. 

Credit, imperial (𐤑). The economic currency used throughout Tel-Kanan and the Mazrian Empire. 

Cubit. A standard unit of length throughout the Skysea, roughly from your fingertip to your elbow. One cubit is about 1½ feet or ½ a meter.

Damage. A forced reduction to an attribute or life. Excess damage beyond zero "flows" down on your hero sheet: spirit → strength → life; or awareness → grace → life.

Deathmark. A grievous injury. Excess life damage below zero becomes deathmarks. When you Survive, the threshold to beat is the number of deathmarks you’ve accumulated. 

Dice. Shorthand denotes the number of sides on polyhedral dice: d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, and d20. For a d2, roll any die and treat an odd result as 1 and an even as 2. 

Disadvantage. See Advantage & Disadvantage.

Endeavor. An extended activity you can engage in during a rest. You can gain revelations about lore by studying a book or learning from other characters as an endeavor. Certain abilities enable other endeavors with other benefits. 

Fall damage. Grace damage equal to your weight. The Guide may increase this if you suffer a high or hard fall. 

Focus. A quantity of potential. You build up focus by taking certain actions, and you can expend focus to take other actions, particularly spells. There are many kinds of focus, and you can only focus on two things at a time.

Foe. A hostile character you face in battle. 

Forms. The pictographic writing system of the lost kingdom of Shinar, often carved into clay tablets. It is still used among Kananites, particularly for temple record-keeping. 

Glyphs. The pictographic writing system of the Mazrian Empire, often written on papyrus scrolls. It’s used throughout Tel-Kanan for commerce and bureaucratic communications. 

Group effort. A set of actions combined toward a common goal. Group efforts are usually more freeform, compared to the 12 basic actions. 

Guard. Protection against lethal damage from Attacks. It includes your Armor as well the active guard granted by armaments you wield defensively. An Attack must beat your grace + guard to inflict life damage. Ranged Attacks can only be guarded by armor or shields, and some Attacks can’t be guarded at all. 

Guide. The player who runs the game. Be nice to them—it ain’t easy!

Heal. When you heal, you remove deathmarks and recover life, in that order. You can heal yourself during a rest, and some items and magic abilities can heal you as well. 

Hero. If you’re not the Guide, you play as a hero character. 

Ideal. A guiding principle: Fellowship, Freedom, Glory, Honor, Justice, Order, Power, or Truth. Most characters have a pair of ideals. You can invoke ideals to gain advantage on actions. 

Idol. A small statuette of a god or goddess.

Imperial implement. A magical device manufactured in the Empire and powered by resonant jewels.

Invoke ideal. If you roll poorly on an action, you can take -1 spirit and explain how one or both of your ideals pushes you. The Guide determines the size of an ideal die you can then roll as advantage. The size depends on how dramatic and fitting your invocation is. 

Item. Anything you wield, wear, carry, or have packed.

Jewel. A gem that powers imperial implements. 

Kananite. Someone from Tel-Kanan, and the language spoken by them. That language is also known as Common.  

Level. A rough approximation of a hero’s power. When heroes gain a level, they gain an ability of their choice from their origin, calling, or lore. 

Life. How much injury you can sustain. Your Life equals your core Spirit + Strength + Weight. Excess life damage becomes deathmarks. 

Lord Adod. The god of Tel-Kanan, often identified literally as the realm’s vast cyclone whose winds hold up its floating islands. He is often portrayed as a muscular man with horns and sometimes has a bull’s head. 

Lore. Cultural skills and knowledge accumulated over a lifetime. You can learn new lore by gaining 3 revelations. 

Magic. A mysterious force that pervades the Skysea. Magic is deeply connected to the Rephaim. There are four main categories of magic: breath, dark, light, and soul.

Maneuver. An action reflecting a combination of grace and awareness.  The basic Maneuver actions are Act First, Deceive, Evade, and Outflank. If you Maneuver against a foe, you succeed if you beat their awareness. 

Mark. Gain marks of attributes—awareness, spirit, strength, or grace—at the end of each session, and when you learn an ability. Increase a core attribute when you gain enough marks to equal the new value. 

Max attribute. The highest amount of an attribute you can hold, not counting overflow. It is usually equal to your core attribute, but certain items or effects can reduce your max below your core.

Mazr. A once-mighty empire of animal-headed people and the tenuous hegemon of Tel-Kanan. The empire once drifted in the Great Belt, a huge river in the Skysea south of Tel-Kanan. Mazrian is also the name of their language. 

Monster. A creature from the Chaos realm, sometimes called demons or spawn of Yom. They can be classified according to the various “Faces of Yom.” 

Mot. The god of Death. It is said Mot resembles an enormous, gaping mouth below the Sea of Clouds, and swallows all.

Move. An action reflecting a combination of strength and grace. The basic Move actions are Attack and Rush.If you Move against a foe, you succeed if you beat their grace. 

Mystic weapon. A magical club, sling, or staff with intricate patterns of holes carved in their wood or woven into their fabric, enabling its wielder to cast Messenger magic. 

Object. Something that is not alive, as opposed to a character.

Origin. Where a hero or other character is from. The four origins are Kananite, Mazrian, Shinarian, and Zordin.

Overflow. When an attribute or life exceeds its maximum value. Many endeavors generate overflow at the end of a rest. You can only have up to +5 overflow for a given attribute.

Oxhouse. A secret writing system developed by the Kananites. It is a small set of Glyphs that each stands for a sound in the Shinarian language, rather than a word or idea.

Person. A Kanaanite, Mazrian, Shinarian, Zordin, or other entity capable of humanlike sentience and empathy.

Position. Your spatial relationship with other characters. There are four positions: the Fray, close, hidden, and on high. 

Regard. Your social relationship with other characters. There are three “notches” on the regard scale: friendly, wary, and hostile. 

Rephaim. A diffuse pseudo-consciousness that flows throughout the Skysea. It occasionally collects in whirls and eddies—accumulating upon artifacts or manifesting as wraiths—and can be channeled into magic spells.

Rest. A period of safety and comfort lasting at least a few hours. During a rest, you regain all your attributes to their max, you can heal, and you can perform one endeavor. 

Revelation. A piece of lore. Gain three revelations about a lore to learn the lore. 

Round. See Turn.

Shinar. A lost kingdom of golems. The people of Tel-Kanan descended from Shinarians—from those who did not want to transfer their souls into clay bodies.

Skysea. The world of the game. The Skysea has four layers, from top to bottom: the Sea of Heaven, the Sea of Air, the Sea of Clouds, and the Sea of Death. The realm of Tel-Kanan is an enormous cyclone in the Skysea.

Skyship. A large conveyance resembling a sailing ship. Its many oars trail magical streamers that interact with the Skysea’s wind and Rephaim to generate lift. 

Spell. A specific magical technique or expression. Many spells require focus of a particular type to cast. 

Spirit vessel. A magical item that a Shinarian can physically attach to their body to enhance their capabilities. 

Spirit. Attribute representing willpower and determination.

Strength. Attribute representing physical might and constitution.

Talent. A standard unit of weight. On the Skysea, a talent is roughly equal to 50 pounds or 25 kilograms. 

Tel-Kanan. The assumed setting of the game: a realm of floating islands circling a vast cyclone in the Skysea. Tel-Kanan has long been ruled by the foreign Mazrian Empire, and its people originally descended from the kingdom of Shinar.

Threshold. The number an action result needs to beat to succeed. 

Turn. In battles and other time-sensitive situations, each character takes one action on their turn. A round passes when all heroes or all foes take their turns.

Weather-gage. Being upwind or physically above a threat approaching your conveyance. Vying for the gage is a group effort. Getting the gage doesn’t make you faster than the threat; it lets you determine what happens when the distance closes.

Weight. Measured in imperial talents. A weight of 3 is average. Your weight is tied to your Strength and equals the amount of grace damage you suffer when you fall.

Wraith. A creature of loose sentience formed of pure Rephaim. Their existence is ephemeral unless they’re bound to a particular object. 

Yom. The god of Chaos. It is said Yom can take many forms or faces, but most often resembles an enormous dragon, serpent, or worm. 

Zordin. Mysterious nomadic people from the Chaos realm who have been dreamtouched to gain strange and fantastical traits. Also the name of the language they speak.