Conflict

Most of the time the game’s just a conversation. The GM describes what’s going on, you say what you do, and the dice come out when something’s uncertain. When things get dangerous, when something’s pushing back and timing matters, play moves into rounds. A round is a beat in the action, not a set number of seconds. A sword fight, a shouting match in a council chamber and a race against a burning fuse all run the same way.

The Round

1. The GM telegraphs. Everything that’s coming this round goes on the table, face up: what it’s doing, who it’s aimed at, and how hard, in dice.
2. The players act, in any order they like, one action each. Talk it through and make a plan. There’s no initiative.
3. The round ends. Every telegraph nobody answered lands. Clocks and events nobody worked step down, and every condition steps down one size. Then the GM telegraphs the next round.

Everything else in this chapter is what happens inside a round.

Telegraphs

A telegraph is the GM saying out loud what’s about to happen, before anything’s rolled. It always tells you three things:

• What it’s doing (its intent). Pin Bram against the wall. Slip up the stair to wake the house. Slam the vault door.
• Who or what it’s aimed at: a character, several characters, a stake or a place.
• How hard (its dice). A d10.

Nothing’s been rolled yet. Now that you know exactly what’s coming, it’s up to you what to do about it.

• A threat telegraphs with its Challenge die. That’s as hard as it pushes. A glancing blow can be smaller, and a tag can say it hits harder. How many telegraphs it makes is up to the story and the budget.
• Anything can telegraph. It can be a threat, the ground (the fire spreads to the stair), an event (the bell starts to ring), or something the GM’s just decided the scene needs. If it’s on the table, it came with a die.
• The GM has a budget. It works out at about 5 steps a round for each of you, so about a d10 each, and she can split it into lots of smaller telegraphs to spread you thin. Within it, threats can do as much as the story allows. The details are in Running the Game, and you never need to track it.
• Telegraphs are honest. The GM never hides a telegraph’s size or its target.
• Running doesn’t dodge. A telegraph aimed at you lands on you at the end of the round, wherever you’ve gone. It’s already coming. To stop it, answer it. A telegraph aimed at a place, like the burning stair or the doorway under the chandelier, only hits whoever’s in it when it lands, so getting out of there gets you clear.
• Some telegraphs have only one answer. If the GM says so when she telegraphs it, that’s what happens if it lands, and there’s no trading it for something else.
• The round can change. When something you do sets off something new, like the guard seeing you and shouting, the GM can put a new telegraph on the table, as long as someone’s still got an action to answer it with. She never adds one after the last player has acted.

Your Action

Every round you get one action. It can:

• Act. Build a roll from your set action and throw it: strike, trick, talk, climb, pick a lock, work a stake, strip a tag, study something, or heal someone if you’re a Healer.
• Answer a telegraph: stop it before it lands.
• Defend: roll your Armour once for every blow that’s coming, and pull an enemy’s attack off your friends. See Defend.
• Move further than your stride. See Movement and Range.
• Lead, if you’re a Leader: an order or a rallying song, with its steps handed out to friends who can hear or see you.
• Pull something out of your bag.
• Break a condition, yours or a friend’s. Beat its die and it’s gone.
• Take a breath. Your Confidence comes up a size, as far as d6. See Confidence.

Some things are free: your stride (before or after your action, or between two), a few words, dropping something or putting it away. Taking the hit for a friend is free too.

There’s no special action for helping. To help a friend, put your action into the same thing they’re doing. That’s a combo: you add your set actions together and one of you rolls the lot. It doesn’t cost Aura, it has to be one thing in the story, and every action in it gives you a split. Any number of friends can pile into the same roll. There’s one under Answering a Telegraph, and the rest is in Working Together.

Extra actions

Now and then you’ll get more than one action in a round:

• Hold it. Do nothing this round apart from your stride, and you’ve got two actions next round.
• Spend 1 Resolve for an extra action this round. See Resolve.
• Come out of hiding. Whoever you are, coming out of hiding gives you an extra action. It’s one extra action, even if you’re Unseen as well.
• Cash in your Confidence. At d12 you’re fired up, and you can cash it in for an extra action. Your Confidence drops back to d6. See Confidence.
• A trait that says so, once a scene: Second Wind gives you an extra action, and Fast gives you a free Move action.
• The Extra action Boon gives you one extra action a scene. See Boons and Burdens.

An extra action can be its own roll, or it can go into the same roll as a combo. Put it into the same set action again and that’s 1 more step. Put a different set action in and it brings its lines with it as a new approach, like Fight with Sneak for a sneak attack, and anything that’s on both counts once.

You can’t keep your action back to use later in this round once the telegraphs start landing, because there are no last-moment reactions in Zi’Dara. Everything you might react to is already on the table, so you deal with it on your turn.

Answering a Telegraph

To answer a telegraph, spend your action and build a roll from the set action that fits the way you’re stopping it: dodge it, parry it, shove the brute’s arm aside, shout the crowd down, slam the door before it slams on you, or shoot the archer first. Then roll against the telegraph’s dice. Friends can put their actions in too, and then it’s a combo with one roll between you.

• Win, and it’s stopped. It doesn’t land.
• Lose, and it lands at once, right there and then, and nobody rolls a defence against it. A tie’s a loss, unless you pay 1 Aura.

Answering’s a gamble. It lets you throw everything you’ve got at a problem instead of trusting your Armour, but if the answer fails, you’ve walked straight into it.

• You can answer for someone else. Get your shield in front of the spear, drag your friend out of the way, or talk over the man shouting at her. If you answered by putting yourself in the way and you lose, it lands on you. If you’d rather not roll for it at all, you can take the hit for them instead, and then it lands on you for sure.
• Several dice on the same answer are advantage: your best die counts.
• Taking the source down answers everything it telegraphed. If the archer falls before the end of the round, his arrow never flies. Strip a tag and whatever it gave a telegraph goes with it, so if you take its Reach, the spear can’t reach you.
• Telegraphs aimed at a stake, a place or a clock have no defence to roll. If nobody answers them, they happen.

When It Lands

You’re never going to answer everything. Whatever nobody answers lands at the end of the round. If you don’t Defend against it either, you’re letting it ride, and it’s down to your one defence roll a round:

• Armour, rolled once, against all the blows, blades, falling rocks and teeth.
• Confidence, rolled once, against all the fear, lies, pressure and anything else that works on the mind.

That one roll stands against everything that comes at you this round. Every die aimed at you has to beat it, and ties go to you. Whatever beats it gets through, and it costs you something. The GM names what a blow costs you, and you choose what fear, lies and pressure cost (see Consequences).

Fear is a telegraph. The GM telegraphs fear, lies and pressure like any attack, say a dragon’s roar as a d10 at everyone’s Confidence, and you deal with it the usual way: answer it, Defend or let it ride. That’s your fear check, and there isn’t another one.

Your Confidence swings with it. Stop all of it in a round, every bit of fear, lies and pressure that came at you, and your Confidence goes up a size. Taking a threat down sends it up a size too (in a combo, that’s everyone who put an action in). If nothing’s aimed at you, it doesn’t move. How far it can swing, from shaken at d2 to fired up at d12, is in Confidence.

Threats get one roll a round too. The first time anyone goes at a threat in a round, roll its Challenge die, and that roll stands till the round’s over. Everyone who goes at it after that has to beat that same number, whatever die they’re rolling and whatever it’s for. If Bram rolls a 4 for the guard captain when he swings at him, that’s the 4 Wren has to beat when she shoots the captain later in the round. A Layered threat rolls all its dice the first time it’s attacked in the round, and its best die is the roll that stands. A stake works the same way.

Defend

Defend takes your action and uses no steps. When the telegraphs land at the end of the round, you roll your Armour once for every die coming at you, instead of once for the lot, then choose which roll blocks which. It’s the same with Confidence against fear, lies and pressure.

You can also pull one enemy’s whole attack onto yourself. Everything it aimed at friends within your stride comes at you instead, so you’ll roll for those too. That’s one enemy. Only a Guardian pulls from more than one: when you’re a Guardian and you Defend, everything aimed at friends within your stride comes at you, whichever enemy it’s from.

It’s what you do when a lot’s coming at one person, or at a friend whose Armour can’t take it. It only covers what lands at the end of the round, though, so a failed answer still lands at once, with no defence roll.

Taking the Hit

When an attack’s aimed at someone else within your stride, you can step in front of it and take the hit instead. It’s free, so it doesn’t use your action, and you can say so any time before it lands. You don’t roll to defend. You just take it, and it costs you the same as anything else that gets through (see Consequences).

Anyone can do it, the GM’s people too. The bodyguard throws himself in front of the knife meant for his lord, and a summon can take the hit for someone the same way (one hit takes a summon out, see Summoning).

There’s a Boon and a Burden for it, in Boons and Burdens. With the Boon, when you take the hit, you can spend 1 Aura to roll your Armour against it, the way Defend does. With the Burden, taking the hit costs you 1 Aura.

Consequences: When Something Lands

When a telegraph lands on you, or when a miss costs you something because it mattered, a consequence lands. Fear, lies and pressure have their own rule, because when they get through, you choose (see When fear gets through). For everything else, the GM names it from this list, picking one that fits:

• Step your Armour down one size, for a blow. It can’t go below d2.
• Step your Confidence down one size, for a miss where it fits, like a bluff that falls apart in front of the whole room.
• Take a Hurt. Fill a box on your Hurt track. If every box is already full, you Blaze. See Hurt, Blaze and Scars.
• Break an item. Something you carry breaks: cross it out until it’s mended. Your attuned things are magic, and they can’t be broken.
• Step your Aspiration back down one size, never below d2. The blow costs you your dream instead of your body.
• Step the Party Goal back down one size, never below d2.
• Tick a clock: step one of the scene’s clocks, or one of the campaign’s, down one.
• Something else the table agrees fits.

You can offer another. If a different one fits the story and costs about as much, say so, and it lands there instead: not the Hurt, I’ll take it on the plate. It has to fit, though: a blade can’t dent your Confidence, and an insult can’t dent your plate.

If the telegraph’s intent was something specific, like pin you, grab the painting or knock you off the roof, that’s what happens. You can usually offer a consequence instead: I hold onto the painting and take the blow. The only exception is a telegraph the GM said has only one answer.

When fear gets through

When fear, lies or pressure get through your Confidence, the GM doesn’t name the cost. You choose, for each one that gets through:

• Let it shake you. Your Confidence drops a size.
• Bury it. Take a Hurt, and your Confidence stays where it is.
• Hold your ground. Spend 1 Resolve, and neither happens.

Nothing takes your Confidence below d2. Anything that would is a Hurt instead, or 1 Resolve to hold your ground. At d2 you’re shaken, and you won’t go at a threat, in a fight or face to face, unless you spend 1 Resolve each time you do.

If a telegraph at your Confidence had a specific intent, like Frightened or Taunted, that’s what happens when it gets through, unless you trade it for a cost the usual way. The cost you trade it for is one of those three.

Player versus Player

The rules are the same when one player goes at another. Both dice hit the table, ties go to the defender, and the one defence roll a round counts here too. Whoever throws the punch spends the action and names the cost, and whoever takes it can offer another. When it’s fear, lies or pressure that gets through, whoever it got through to chooses what it costs, the same as with anyone else.

Threats

A threat is anything that pushes back: a person, a beast, a mob, a storm, a rumour. Every threat comes down to two things, a Challenge and a handful of tags.

The Challenge is the threat’s defence. It’s the die you’ve got to beat, and it never steps down. There’s no Challenge above 6, so anything bigger is a Challenge 6 with more tags, and the tags are what make a boss a boss.

Tags

A tag is something true about a threat that the whole table can see, use and play to: Armoured, Reach, Loyal, Calls for Help, Bound to a Place. Tags don’t make its dice bigger. They tell you what the threat is, what it does and what you’ve got to get through, and a tag only changes the dice when it says so. Every tag is one of three kinds:

• How it comes at you. Reach, Fast, Venom, Fear. These are what its telegraphs can do to you.
• What keeps it going. Armoured, Shield, Flies, Regrows. These are its health, and every win strips one.
• What drives it. Loyal, Greedy, Scared, Code of Honour. These are what it wants, fears and loves, and they’re how you talk to it, buy it, scare it or turn it.

Its defence against every intent is its Challenge die. A Challenge 5 defends against a sword at a d10, and against a bribe at a d10. It rolls that die once a round, the first time anyone goes at it, and what’s different from one intent to the next is what a win takes away.

Tags are its health

Most threats in Zi’Dara don’t have hit points. Count a threat’s keeps-it-going tags, and that’s how many times you’ve got to beat it to bring it down. Every win strips one. Strip the last and it falls. A threat with none at all falls to one good win.

• A mook has none or one, so one good hit does it.
• A named threat has two, which makes for a proper fight.
• A boss has three or more, some hidden, and a weak point. A boss that should last has Tough as well, and Tough works like hit points.

Tough

Some threats are built to last, and those have Tough. It works like hit points: a number the crew has to knock down, like Tough 40. Every winning die against it takes off the number it rolled, and when it gets to 0, it’s gone.

Plain Tough comes off anything that hurts it. Tough can have a name too, like Natural Armour 40 or Commanding Presence 20, and then only what fits it chips it: blades and hammers chip Natural Armour, shaming a captain in front of his men chips Commanding Presence, and bribes and threats chip a crowd that’s Loyal 20. Either way, Tough is one of the threat’s keeps-it-going tags, just a big one. Its other tags are the specific things you can go after: knock it out of the air, break the shield, gag it before the shout wakes the house.

• Some come first. Tough marked first, like Natural Armour 40 (first), has to go before anything under it can be stripped. You chip through the hide before you get at the rest.
• Every die can chip it. Call several dice at it, each as its own intent. It rolls its defence once that round, and every die that beats that roll takes its number off.
• You always know what’s left. The GM says the number out loud every time it drops.
• Openings and weak points ignore the numbers. A weak point still ends the threat at once, and an opening works the way it always does: one win ends a Mook or a Named threat, and a Boss loses two tags, with Tough counting as one of them.
• Piercing still gets through. A Piercing weapon ignores Armoured, Tough or not, even when it comes first.
• Conditions chip too. A condition that would strip a tag, like a spent Burning, takes its die’s size off Tough instead. A d8 Burning takes 8.

Hidden tags and weak points

Some tags are hidden. The GM knows them and you don’t, until you find them. A hidden tag still counts. It keeps the threat going, or drives it, whether you know about it or not. Study finds them, and so do paying attention, asking the right person and the Oracle.

A weak point is a tag that holds the whole threat together, like the binding that animates a suit of armour, the true name of a ghost, or the one person a zealot would never hurt. Break a weak point and the threat falls at once, however much it had left. Weak points are usually hidden, and finding one is the reward for paying attention.

What a Win Does

When your die beats a threat’s defence, your intent happens. Most of the time, that’ll be one of these:

• Strip a tag, whichever one your intent went for. Knock the shield away and Shield is gone. Get inside the spear and Reach is gone. Prove the lie and Silver-Tongued is gone. A stripped tag stops counting, and if it was keeping the threat going, the threat’s one step closer to falling.

• Take it down. If nothing’s left keeping it going, a win meant to finish it finishes it. Your intent says which: dead, beaten, out cold, fled, surrendered or convinced.

• Take it out now. If you’ve made an opening, one win ends a Mook or a Named threat, whatever tags it’s got left. There are three kinds of opening:

  • Its weak point.
  • It’s helpless: bound, asleep, or a quiet knife at the throat of a guard who never saw you coming.
  • You get around everything that keeps it going: a thin blade through the visor of a threat whose only keeps-it-going tag is Armoured, or fire on a thing that only Regrows.

  A Boss takes more than one mistake. An opening against a Boss strips two tags instead of one, and only its weak point ends a Boss in one blow.

• Put a condition on it, like burning, pinned, disarmed, blinded or frightened. The condition carries your die, and the crew can spend it later. See Conditions.

• Move it. Shove it off the stair, drag it into the light, or drive it back through the door.

• Learn something (that’s Study).

• Stop a telegraph (that’s answering).

• Anything else the intent said. Grab the key from its belt, cut the rope it’s climbing, make it drop the child.

Take a threat down and its telegraphs go with it, which is often the best answer of all.

Stakes, Clocks and Events

A scene’s rarely just a fight. There’s usually something the crew wants, like the paintings out of the vault, the witness alive or the ship off the dock, and something it costs them if they don’t get it. Those are stakes. A good scene has two or three, and not enough actions to do them all.

• A stake works like a threat. It has a Challenge, and tags for everything in the way: Locked, Heavy Load, Someone Must Agree. Every win strips one, and once you’ve stripped them all, the stake’s yours. A stake with nothing in the way is done with one win.
• A clock is a die on a stake that steps down at the end of every round nobody works on it. Working it means rolling against the stake that round. When it steps down past a d2, the chance is gone and the stake’s lost. Start it at a d6 for a close call, a d8 for most scenes, or a d10 when there’s time.
• An event is something running on its own clock, like the watch arriving, the fire spreading or the ritual completing. Left alone, it steps down one size every round, and when it steps down past a d2, it happens. Engage it and beat its die to slow it (step it back up) or drive it (step it down, when you want it to happen sooner).
• A scene clock is an event on the whole scene, face up from the start. When it runs out, the scene turns: the watch arrives, the floor gives way, the ship sails.

The scene ends when the stakes are settled, not when the last enemy falls. A crew that walks out with the paintings while two Wardens are still standing has won.

Conditions

A condition is a tag carrying a die. It can be against you (Burning d8, Pinned d6, Frightened d10) or for you (Warded d8, Unseen d6, Blessed d12). Good or bad, every condition works the same way.

• Its die is the die that placed it. Beat a Warden with a d10 meant to set it alight, and it’s Burning d10. When nothing pushes back, like a ward on a friend or a blessing before the charge, there’s no roll, and the die you built is the condition’s die (see Wards and blessings).
• Passive: one step, while it lasts. A condition against you costs you a step on whatever it gets in the way of, and a condition for you gives you a step on whatever it helps. The condition says what fits. It counts once on a roll, however many actions go into it.
• Active: spend it for one big thing. Every condition has one strong effect. Spend it and it happens, and the condition’s gone. Spending it doesn’t cost anything: no action, no roll.
• It fades. At the end of every round, every condition steps down one size, and past d2 it’s gone. It lasts as many rounds as it has steps, so a d4 lasts two and a d12 lasts six.
• Break it. Spend your action and beat its die: put the fire out, shake off the fear, tear down their ward. A friend can do it for you, if they can reach you.
• One of each, once a round. Nobody carries two of the same condition, and the same condition goes on the same target only once a round, whoever places it. Spent or broken, it can’t go back on them until next round. Place it again in a later round and the new one replaces the old one, die and all. Different conditions are fine: a Warden can be Burning and Pinned in the same round.

Who spends it

• A condition for you: you do, whenever it fits.
• A condition on a threat: anyone in the crew, on their turn.
• A condition the GM put on you: the GM spends it at the end of the round, and she says so when she telegraphs. Until then it’s yours to break, so if you don’t want it, spend your action and put it out.
• A threat’s own good conditions: the GM spends them when they fit, out loud.

A threat can break a condition too. The GM telegraphs it (the Warden beats at the flames, a d10 against its Burning) and it rolls at the end of the round. If the crew wants that Burning spent, spend it first.

Wards and blessings

A ward or a blessing reaches one friend. Split it, and the second die can reach another friend you can touch. Nothing pushes back, so there’s nothing to roll: the die you built is the condition’s die on that friend, and a split’s second die is the condition’s die on the second.

It works the same for any other condition you put on a friend, like Heartened or Rallied.

Conditions to start with

These are examples, not a complete list, so write your own in the same shape: a name, a passive and an active. The passive is always one step, for or against. The active is one strong thing that pulls one lever: a Hurt, an action, movement, Armour or Confidence, an item, a telegraph, a clock or a secret.

Against you

For you

Unseen’s spend is an extra action, and so is coming out of hiding. If you’re doing both at once, they make one extra action between them (see Extra actions).

Marked

Marked is a special condition, and it’s the Hunter’s. A Hunter spends their action and rolls against a creature to mark it, and if they win, it’s Marked with the die they won with. It doesn’t work like the rest: it doesn’t give a step, and nobody spends it. Instead, anyone who acts against that creature rolls the Mark die too, as one more die against it. It fades a size every round, like any condition.

Hurt, Blaze and Scars

Your Hurt track is three bars of three boxes, nine in all. It’s one track for body and mind, so a spear and a night of horrors fill the same boxes. When a consequence is a Hurt, fill the next box.

Fill a bar and write a Catch in it, and your Confidence drops a size as well. The Catch is an injury like cracked ribs or can’t stand the dark, and it works like any other Catch, so you can let it bite whenever you like and take 1 Aura, as long as it brings real trouble every time. A bar that’s already got its Catch doesn’t get another when it fills again.

At the end of every scene the loose boxes clear. You drop back to 3 boxes for each Catch on your Hurt track, so the bars with a Catch stay full and the rest empty out.

Some of you have more than three bars. Bram’s Unyielding gives him a fourth, and the Hurt Boon adds one (the Burden takes one away). See Boons and Burdens.

Take a Hurt with every box full and you Blaze. Declare something extraordinary and it happens, no roll. From your very first Blaze, you can choose for your character to die. If you don’t, they’ll leave the scene and take a Scar.

A Scar crosses out one box for good, unless the GM decides the story has earned it back, like a miracle, a ritual or a year of rest. Then the box opens again. Scars are for the story, and it’s up to you where it is on your body. A Scar doesn’t do anything else. When every box is crossed out you’re scarred out, and your next Blaze is your last.

Healing

You don’t have to wait for downtime to heal someone, but only a Healer makes a heal roll. It’s an action, built like any other roll from what fits how you’re doing it, and you roll it against your patient’s wound die. That’s a d6, a size bigger for each Catch on their Hurt track: a d8 with one, a d10 with two and a d12 with three.

• Each of your dice that beats it clears one box, so split your roll to clear more.
• A heal reaches one person. Split it, and the second die can reach a second person you can touch.
• A heal can clear any box, even one in a bar with a Catch, but the Catch stays. At the end of the scene they’re back to 3 boxes for each Catch, the same as always.

Quick heal. Anyone can do this one. Pay 1 Aura to clear one box on one person, no roll. It still takes your action. It’s how a crew with no Healer gets by: Dorrie can’t stitch a wound, but she can spend the Aura and her action to clear one of Bram’s boxes.

Traits and gear that say they heal still work the way they’re written, because none of them is a heal roll. Field Dressing is a quick heal without the Aura (see Traits), and so is a medical kit.

A few archetypes have their own way past a Hurt. A Bloodsworn can spend Aura and their action to clear their own boxes, whoever’s holding a Maker’s item can break one of its tags instead of taking a Hurt, and a Shifter can strip an animal tag instead. Cashing in fired-up Confidence clears a box too (see Confidence).

In downtime, each Catch on your Hurt track takes a downtime slot to heal, and none heal for free. A trait that says so can spend one slot to clear a Catch on everyone in the crew. See Downtime.

A few Boons and Burdens change your wound die, or let you heal on your own. They’re in Boons and Burdens.

Social and Mental Conflict

Social and mental conflict run on the same engine and the same dice. A threat has one Challenge whether you’re trading blows or trading words. There are only two differences: its telegraphs come at your Confidence instead of your Armour, and its keeps-it-going tags are the duty, pride and fear that keep it saying no. Strip them all and it gives in. Find what drives it and you might not need to strip anything.

Your Confidence swings in an argument the same as it does in a fight (see When It Lands), so keep an eye on Dorrie’s in this one.

A Full Fight, Start to Finish

The crew are in the lower corridor of the Vane manor: Vesk, Dorrie, Bram and Isolde, all as they start in the six crew. Bram’s just forced the vault door, and it was loud.

That’s four keeps-it-going tags each, so grinding a Warden down will take four wins. The crew doesn’t know yet that there’s a faster way. Bram’s Armour is a d6 and Vesk’s is a d4, and Dorrie’s and Isolde’s are both d2s. Everyone’s got 5 Aura and 2 Resolve, and they all start the scene on d6 Confidence, apart from Isolde, whose Iron Will starts her on d8.

Round 1: The telegraph

That’s 5 + 4 + 5 + 5 + 2 = 21 steps, about what four players get, and it’s five telegraphs against four actions. The sweep at Vesk’s a glancing blow as it goes past, so the GM makes it smaller than it could be.

Bram goes first. Isolde’s Armour is a d2, there’s a spear coming at her, and Bram’s a Guardian.

Isolde studies the right Warden.

That changes the whole fight, because now nobody has to grind through four tags. Isolde isn’t done, either.

A ward reaches one friend. Isolde could have split it and put the second die on Bram, because she can touch him, so a d4 for Vesk and a d2 for him. Bram’s got his plate, though, so Vesk gets the lot.

Dorrie takes the maid.

Vesk doesn’t bother with the Wardens. She goes for the stake.

End of Round 1. The maid was answered, and Bram pulled the spear off Isolde, so four telegraphs land.

• The doorway (aimed at the stake) lands with no roll. The right Warden fills the vault door, and Get the paintings out gains a new tag in the way: Blocked.
• The pin and the spear at Bram. He Defended, so he rolls his d6 Armour once for each. The pin’s d10 rolls 10 and the spear’s rolls 6, and Bram rolls 4 and 2. He spends 1 Aura on his Guardian’s +2, so the 4’s a 6, and puts it on the spear. The tie goes to him, and it rings off his shield. That 6 is his d6’s top face, but the +2 got it there, so there’s no Aura back. The 2 can’t stop the pin, and the GM names Pinned. Bram doesn’t want to be stuck against the wall with another Warden coming, so he offers a Hurt instead: it cracks his ribs on the stone, but he’s free. That’s his first box.
• The sweep at Vesk. She rolls her Armour once, a d6 with the ward, and gets 2. The sweep rolls 7, so it lands, and the GM names her Armour. Her Aspiration’s still at d2, so she’s got nothing better to offer, and her leathers go down to a d2. A ward only takes a Hurt, so she keeps it.

Nobody worked Leave no trace, so its clock steps down to a d6. The household wakes steps down to a d6 as well, and Vesk’s ward fades to a d4. Nothing came at anyone’s Confidence this round, so it hasn’t moved for any of them.

Round 2: The plan

That’s 5 + 8 + 5 + 3 = 21 steps. The portraits were the hidden ground tag: Portraits That Watch.

The table talks it through. The sigil under the left Warden is the target, and Bram’s right next to it.

Dorrie’s no Healer, so she can’t make a heal roll, but a quick heal’s for anyone. Her 1 Aura clears Bram’s box before anything’s rolled. Then Isolde rolls for the combo. Nobody’s gone at the left Warden yet this round, so its d10 rolls too, and it comes up 9. The d12 comes up 11. The chalk bites through the old line and the left Warden stops mid-step. The armour empties out like a coat coming off a hook, and clatters to the marble, and its d10 at Bram goes with it.

One Warden’s down, and three of its four keeps-it-going tags weren’t even touched, because the sigil was its weak point. Taking a threat down sends your Confidence up a size, so Bram’s on d8 now and Isolde’s on d10.

Vesk has the bundle, but the doorway’s Blocked and there are spears coming.

Dorrie’s other action goes on the stake nobody’s watching: Leave no trace. She sits the maid down and gives her a story to tell. Her Talk is 4 steps, a d8, against A Servant Saw Bram. The stake is Challenge 3, so it rolls a d6, and her 5 beats its 2. The maid saw a stranger, and she’ll swear to it.

End of Round 2. The left Warden’s gone, so its d10 at Bram never lands. The rest do.

• The two spears at Vesk. She’s on the rope when they find her, because climbing away doesn’t stop a telegraph aimed at you. She rolls her Armour once against both, a d4 with what’s left of the ward, and gets 3. The d8s roll 6 and 2. The 2 doesn’t get through, but the 6 does, and since her Armour’s already at d2, the GM names a Hurt. Vesk spends the ward, and it takes the Hurt instead.
• The spear at Dorrie lands on Bram, because he took the hit. He doesn’t roll, and the GM names a Hurt. That’s one box, and thanks to Dorrie it’s his only one.
• The portrait’s whisper goes against Isolde’s Confidence, a d10 now, and she rolls it once: 2. The d6 rolls 4, so it gets through, and what it costs her is her call. She could bury it and take a Hurt, or spend her last Resolve to hold her ground. She lets it shake her instead, and she’s back down to d8. The portrait goes quiet, and keeps looking at her.

The work on Leave no trace kept its clock where it was, and The household wakes steps down to a d4.

Round 3: The turn

The GM leans in. The right Warden abandons the doorway and comes for Isolde with everything it’s got: a d10 at her, a d10 at Bram and a d10 at Vesk’s rope. The butler’s lantern appears on the main stair, a d8 aimed at Leave no trace. Then the GM plays her twist. The portrait that whispered Isolde’s name speaks out loud, and it knows the name of the person inside the second Warden.

Isolde doesn’t go for the second sigil. She speaks the name instead, which is the other way to end it, because the hidden tag A Person Inside is a weak point of its own. Her set action for this is The dead, her first Title and speak with the recently dead, 3 steps with the action. A hundred years isn’t recent, so speaking to this one is going beyond, and that’s 1 Resolve, her last. She brings in A Person Inside, a tag she knows, for 1 Aura, and that makes 4 steps, a d8. The right Warden’s d10 rolls 6, and her d8 comes up 8, its top face, so she gets 1 Aura back. The right Warden kneels on the marble, and its three telegraphs go with it. Taking it down puts Isolde’s Confidence back up to d10.

Bram ties the bundle on and heaves it up the rope, and Vesk puts her action into the same thing, hauling from the top. His Lift and carry is 3 steps, and she’s got nothing that fits, so she adds 1 for her action. That’s 4 steps, a d8, against the stake’s d8: 7 against 3. Heavy Load is gone, and the paintings are theirs.

Dorrie meets the butler at the foot of the main stair as the housekeeper, with a smile and a story about the wind and a loose shutter. That’s her Pass as someone else: her second Title, pass as someone I’m not, keep my story straight under questions and her signet pin, 5 steps. She splits it into a d6 to answer the lantern and a d4 to strip Watched. The lantern’s d8 rolls 4 against her 6, and the stake’s d6 rolls 3 against her 4. That’s two top faces, which fills her Aura with one to spare, so the spare goes to Bram. Leave no trace is theirs too.

At the end of the round the household clock steps down to its last die. When it runs out there’ll be lamps lit on every floor, but by then the crew will be three roofs away, and the maid will be swearing she saw a stranger. When the scene ends, Bram’s one box clears, because nobody filled a bar. Everyone’s Confidence goes back to d6, and Isolde and Dorrie get 1 Resolve back each.

What the fight taught

• The crew never ground a Warden down. They studied, found a weak point and a hidden tag, and took both routes.
• The stakes mattered more than the enemies. Vesk spent her whole first round on padlocks instead of spears, and it won the scene.
• Every cost was out in the open. Bram traded a pin for a Hurt, Vesk’s leathers took the sweep she couldn’t stop, and Isolde chose to let the portrait shake her rather than spend her last Resolve. Nobody lost anything they didn’t see coming.
• One action each made them work together. The sigil fell to a combo, and Bram took Dorrie’s spear for free after she’d cleared his box.

Isolde doesn’t take a Scar this time. She takes something better: the name of the person who was inside the armour, and the knowledge that there are more of them in this house.