How to Play
← Welcome ✧ Taking Actions →
The floating islands of the Skysea serve as the setting of the game. Like "levels" in a videogame, each island works as a self-contained area of play.
As the players approach and explore a floating island, the Guide describes the scene and offers choices: where to land, which landmark to head toward first, what approach to take. The other players, taking on the roles of heroes, ask questions and decide what to do.
In this section, we’ll look at how a Guide interacts with three sample heroes: Chom the Champion, Wandu the Wanderer, and Matreyis the Mastermind. Their character sheets, included below, show their abilities and statistics referenced here.
Page cover artwork by Sansiia
The Conversation
When Sky and Sea Were Not Named is first and foremost a game of shared imagination. The Guide describes a scene or situation. The other players describe what their heroes do. Inevitably, the players’ choices will lead them into risky situations. At that point, players take actions and break out the dice to see what happens.
But before any dice are rolled, there’s another aspect of the game to play: a conversation. The Guide can’t possibly describe every single thing the heroes see or hear. The other players should always ask questions about their surroundings and the characters they meet.
This conversation is freeform and doesn’t involve rolling dice, but it’s still a vital part of the game. Here are some ways to structure the conversation to help everyone get on the same imaginary page, to help players roleplay their heroes, and to help the Guide describe the world in a clear and evocative way.
Ask Questions Like a Hero
Each aspect of your hero—your origin, your calling, and the lore you know—includes a short list of questions you can ask the Guide. These questions aren’t exclusive—they’re intended to frame the kind of things your character would know and signal to the Guide what kinds of information they should answer with.
When you ask the Guide questions about your surroundings or characters you meet, name the aspect of your character that would help you discern an answer.
Chom: There has been battle here. As a Champion, who do I think prevailed? Guide: If the locals succeeded in driving off whoever attacked the island, you'd expect to see them out and about, cleaning up. You don't.Wandu: I'm a Zordin. Does this look like it could be the work of my people—specifically the nasty dragon-mounted raiders I've heard about? Guide: That certainly fits the rumors you've heard. Though you don't see any dragons or other monsters, at least not from above.Revealing the World
Inevitably, the heroes’ players will ask questions that the Guide doesn’t have immediate or specific answers for. It’s okay for the Guide to improvise rough answers and tell players the gist of what they would know without delving into the details.
It’s also okay for the Guide to give incomplete information that’s intended to spur the hero to embark on a riskier approach to gain the answer they seek. Just because a hero asks a question doesn’t mean the Guide is obligated to reveal everything.
Matreyis: As a Mastermind, do I think it's smarter to land in the harbor or try crash-landing in the forest? Guide: It's hard to answer that question without more information. You don't know if or how many invaders are still around, or where they are.When to (Not) Roll the Dice
If you’ve played other roleplaying games, you may be accustomed to rolling dice to determine whether your character knows something, remembers information, or notices a vital clue. But in WSSWNN, you don’t need to “roll to know.” Rolling dice is reserved for actions that carry some inherent risk.
That said, learning information often requires putting yourself into a risky or contested position. Scouting a temple, for example, might put you in line of sight of the monsters occupying it—unless you take the Hide action.
Chom: Why not land in the harbor? Let us confront this evil directly!Wandu: We’re already too late to stop whatever happened. Landing in the forest will give us more cover and a better chance to scout the situation.Matryis: Alright, I agree with Wandu. Let's try crashing in the forest.Inevitably, as the heroes’ exploration brings them closer to danger, the game shifts into action.
Actions and Dice
Characters take actions to overcome challenges and opposition. When a character takes an action, their player rolls a die. The higher the roll, the better the character does. There are four types of actions: Attack, Brace, Compel, and Maneuver.
Attacks use melee and ranged weapons, or fists and feet. They also include taking hold of a foe to set up certain brace actions.
Braces are acts of strength and determination. In combat, braces include grappling or shoving foes and standing fast to raise your guard.
Compels are acts of will and intellect. They include deceiving and persuading other characters, and bolstering allies in combat.
Maneuvers rely on fast thinking and agility. In combat, maneuvers include evading, outflanking, and hiding from foes.
WSSWNN uses six kinds of dice. Shorthand notes the number of sides each die has: d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, and d20. Each character uses a particular-sized die for each type of action. For example, mighty Chom the Champion uses a d8 to attack and brace, a d6 to compel, and a d4 to maneuver. Agile Wandu the Wanderer, on the other hand, uses a d8 to Maneuver, a d6 to attack and compel, and a d4 to brace.
Guide: As you vent the gasbag, the balloon descends, slowly but surely, toward the treetops. The pointy, uneven, probably-not-weight- supporting treetops. The three of you can each take one action before the balloon crashes.Matreyis: I’m still piloting this thing, right? Maybe I can wedge the gondola safely against some sturdier-looking branches.Wandu: I’m just gonna jump off before we crash and try to snag a tree branch on the way down to break my fall.Chom: Fah! I fear no tree. Brace for impact! Guide: Okay, Matreyu and Wandu, roll your Maneuver dice. Chom, roll your Brace die.
Success, Failure, and In-Between
Most actions have three possible outcomes: ✦ Success, ⬖ Struggle, and ⓧ Failure. Which dice rolls correspond to which outcomes is determined by two numbers: the failure threshold and the struggle threshold.
For moderate challenges, the failure threshold is 3, and the struggle threshold is 6, abbreviated ⓧ 3 | ⬖ 6. Easier or harder challenges have different thresholds, determined by the Guide. The struggle threshold is usually double the failure threshold.
When a hero acts, the Guide compares their roll against these two numbers and determines which outcome happens:
✦ Success: the action roll beats the struggle threshold. The hero safely overcomes the challenge!
⬖ Struggle: the roll doesn’t beat the struggle threshold, but does beat the failure threshold. The hero can only succeed with a complication or sacrifice.
ⓧ Failure: The roll doesn't beat either threshold. Woe! Something nasty befalls the hero.
For our heroes in the balloon, the Guide decides that safely crash-landing in a forest is a ⓧ 3 | ⬖ 6 (moderate) challenge. That means an action roll of 7 or higher is a ✦ Success, a roll of 4–6 is a ⬖ Struggle, and a roll of 3 or lower is a ⓧ Failure.
Matreyis: (rolls Maneuver) Not good. I got a 2. Chom: BRACE FOR IMPACT! (rolls Brace) That’s a 4. Wandu: (rolls Maneuver) I got an 8 to jump into the forest!Guide: Matreyu, you fail. Your trajectory is good, but you realize at the last moment that you’re descending way too fast. When you hit the trees, you’re ejected hard out of the gondola and fall to the forest floor. Take -1 life, and the balloon is pretty much wrecked. Matreyis: Ouch!Guide: Chom, you struggle. You don’t go flying out of the gondola and you’re not injured, but you do suffer -1 stamina from the effort.Chom: Thank my mighty thews!Guide: Wandu, your fast reflexes save your skin. Tell us how you land safely. Wandu: I grab a vine on the way down, pendulum myself across the canopy, and land on my feet after a double backflip.Challenges are somewhat freeform, and the Guide and other players can use the numerical results as scaffolding for their own narrations. The Guide also determines which types of actions—typically braces or maneuvers—are applicable to the challenge at hand.
Characters in Opposition
Conflicts inevitably break out between heroes and non-player-characters (NPCs). Opposed actions, like challenge actions, can succeed, struggle, or fail. But opposed actions are more structured and specific. Whether a hero attacks a monster with a spear, shoves a raider back on their heels, outflanks an armored foe to strike their weak point, or persuades a frightened local to join the party, the action results in one of three specific outcomes.
To determine which outcome happens for a given action, players compare the action roll to two numbers: the target character’s relevant attribute and their relevant defense. All characters have four attributes and four defense stats. Each type of action is resisted by a certain attribute/defense pair.
The system works the same as for challenges: the attributes are the fail thresholds, and the defenses are the struggle thresholds. If an action roll beats its target’s corresponding defense, it’s a ✦ Success. If it beats the target’s attribute but not their defense, it’s a ⬖ Struggle. If it beats neither attribute nor defense, it’s a ⓧ Failure.
Guide: Wandu, you can see the balloon tangled up in a treetop, but you’ve landed some distance away. And you quickly realize you’re not alone in the forest. You hear a strange sound beyond the foliage: a kind of alien chittering, followed by quick footsteps—Wandu: Hide! I want to hide. Guide: Alright, there’s plenty of underbrush for cover here. Roll Maneuver.Wandu: (rolls Maneuver) That’s a 3.Hiding is a Maneuver action, so it’s contested by a foe’s Intellect (attribute) and Awareness (defense). The action’s description—found in Chapter 2: How to Play—explains what happens for each of the action’s three possible outcomes:
✦ Success: You’re hidden from the character(s) until after you act.
⬖ Struggle: The character(s) can take -1 awareness to discover your position.
ⓧ Failure: You fail to hide. You remain exposed to the character(s).
In this case, Wandu is trying to hide from a pair of spindly monsters called girtablins (Intellect 0, Awareness 3) who are scouting the area.
Against 0 Intellect, Wandu can't outright fail (only a hero with penalties on their Maneuver roll could). But a 3 doesn't beat their Awareness, so she ⬖ Struggles to hide. Like most opposed actions, Hide favors the defender on a struggle outcome. The monsters notice Wandu hiding, but at a cost—the Guide notes their current Awareness drops from 3 to 2, leaving them slightly distracted and vulnerable to future maneuvers.
Guide: From the foliage, you see a pair of creatures scurrying through the forest. Each looks like a cross between a human and a shrimp, spindly little things, four feet tall. You recognize them as monsters from the Chaos. They both hold sharpened sticks in their clawlike appendages. Wandu: Are they scouting? Guide: Seems likely. They clearly noticed the balloon, and they were headed that way. But now they’re distracted. Wandu: By what? Guide: By you! They screech menacingly, point their makeshift spears at you, and scurry toward you, fast. What do you do?Life and Death
In WSSWNN, bloodthirsty monsters are real and pose an imminent threat to the people of Tel-Kanan. While violence may not be the best solution to a problem, combat is a big part of the game. Heroes should always be prepared to defend themselves and their allies!
In battle, heroes must overcome their foes’ defenses while managing their own—particularly Guard, which prevents attacks from inflicting lethal damage. The girtablin monsters, armed with long spears that keep foes away, have 5 Guard. Wandu, only armed with a dagger, has 3 Guard. She’s outnumbered and vulnerable, but she’s fast—and the monsters are distracted.
Instead of attacking directly, Wandu considers the risky Outflank maneuver, which costs her -1 awareness. Outflank’s outcomes are:
✦ Success: Make a free melee attack against the foe and add your Agility.
⬖ Struggle: The foe can take -1 Awareness to cause your maneuver to fail.
ⓧ Failure: You provoke a free melee attack from the foe.
Like hiding, the outflank maneuver succeeds if it beats the foe’s Awareness, which is currently only 2. Wandu reduces her own current Awareness from 6 to 5 and rolls to outflank.
Wandu: I don’t like the odds … but I don’t want to give them the chance to warn their monster buddies. I’m going to outflank the nearest one. (Rolls Maneuver) That’s a 4. Guide: These monsters are quick, but you’re quicker. As the first monster darts toward you, you sidestep around its spear. Make a free attack. Wandu: (rolls Attack) That’s another 4, plus 3 from my Agility, so: 7.An attack succeeds, or hits, when it overcomes a foe’s Guard. The girtablin’s Guard is 5, so Wandu’s dagger strikes true.
Her dagger, like many weapons, inflicts damage equal to the result (7), minus the foe’s Guard (–5), minus the foe’s Armor (–1) = -1 life. A glancing blow, but the spindly little creature only has 2 Life.
Guide: A 7 hits. You dart around its spear and plunge your blade into its body, but its carapace blunts some of the impact. Still, the monster screeches and staggers back, its many appendages twitching.A successful or blocked attack also usually inflicts -1 Guard, as the blow staggers the foe—making a future hit more likely. The Guide signals all this to Wandu’s player with the above description, while privately noting the attack’s effects on the girtablin’s stats: -1 life and -1 guard.
Wandu: Hyah! Guide: But you still face two foes—one wounded, one at full strength. Meanwhile, Chom and Matreyis, you hear the screech of a wounded monster nearby. What do you do?