Begin play / The essentials
The first step
is taken together.
A group, a character, and a reason to follow the truth.
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01 / At the table
Give yourselves a reason
to stay together.
One person is the gamemaster: they present the world, its inhabitants, and the consequences of your choices. Everyone else plays one of the Marked.
Bring character sheets, pencils, and a set of role-playing dice, including D20s. The Player’s Handbook contains the full rules; this page introduces the essentials.
Decide how your characters know each other and why they will follow the next lead together. You might share an investigation, protect the same community, or owe someone a debt.
Choose the horror together.
Agree on the tone and boundaries before play. Anyone can pause, change, or skip a scene. No one needs to explain a personal boundary.
02 / When the outcome matters
Roll a D20.
Aim low.
Describe what you want to do and how. When the outcome is uncertain and failure has a meaningful consequence, the GM chooses the relevant skill or attribute and makes the immediate stakes clear.
Roll equal to or below your rating to succeed. Ordinary actions with no meaningful risk do not need a roll.
- Favour
- Roll two D20s and keep the lower result.
- Blight
- Roll two D20s and keep the higher result.
- Halo / 1
- A kept result of 1 always succeeds.
- Stain / 20
- A kept result of 20 always fails and cannot be pushed.
Favours and blights cancel one another. Each additional favour or blight adds another D20; you still keep only the lowest or highest result.
A moment at the table
The entrance beneath the altar.
Mara searches an abandoned rectory. Her Investigation is 12. An old renovation plan grants favour, so she rolls two D20s: 15 and 8.
She keeps 8. It is below 12. The scratches in the floor lead to a stone slab beside the altar.
03 / One more chance
What will this
take out of you?
If you fail a skill or attribute roll without rolling a Stain, you may push it. Reroll all the dice involved and keep the new outcome. You immediately suffer a condition, even if the new roll succeeds.
Choose a condition you do not already have and explain how the attempt caused it. That condition imposes blight on rolls tied to its attribute. Once all eight conditions are marked, you cannot push again.
Your Tether—a deeply personal object—can help you recover one additional condition during a stretch rest, once per session.
04 / Beyond the numbers
Begin with a person.
Choose an archetype, then think about the life around it. Who raised you? What do you believe about the supernatural? Which weakness draws you into trouble? What do you carry to remember who you are?
Your archetype provides a starting background, skills, equipment, and ability. Your choices during play shape what follows.