Core Resolution

01The engine, in thirty seconds

When the outcome of something is uncertain, you roll one d20 and compare it to a Difficulty. Meet it or beat it and you pass. That is the whole game.p. 8

Your six Stats run from 2 to 7: Might, Dexterity, Awareness, Reason, Presence, Luck.p. 7 Every Check hangs off one of them, and every Check is either Trained or it isn't. Training doubles the Stat before subtracting, which is why it matters so much more than the Stat itself.

So a Hero with Dexterity 5 who is Trained in Finesse picks locks against Difficulty 20 − 10 = 10. The same Hero, untrained in Sneak, hides against Difficulty 20 − 5 = 15.

02Unlearn these first

If you have absorbed the shape of D&D from culture — and most people have — these are the assumptions that will trip you up.

• There is no attack bonus and no armour class. Your Attack Difficulty is a fixed number derived from your Stat and Training. It does not change because the target is a rat or a dragon.
• Monsters do not roll dice. Enemies are assumed to succeed. Their attacks land. What you roll is the defence — a Save to Block or Dodge.p. 2, 14
• Nothing is a "saving throw DC" the GM sets. Your three Saves have Difficulties baked into your Stats, permanently.
• Hit points are tiny. Max HP is Might × Level.p. 20 A first-level Hero with Might 5 has five hit points. A dagger does d4. Armour subtracting 1–3 from every hit is not a rounding error, it is your life.
• There is no initiative by default. The Heroes take a Turn as a group, then the enemies take theirs.p. 14
• Spells have no levels and no slots. There is a Mana pool, and you pay for damage, effect, delivery and duration separately.p. 90
• A natural 20 gives you a resource, not just a big hit. Crits generate Luck, which is currency you spend later.
• Skills are pass or fail. There is no degree of success to interpret. If a task has no risk attached to failing it, the GM should not ask for a roll at all.p. 191

03The odds, honestly

Worth internalising early, because it shapes how you should play. These are the chances of passing a plain, unmodified Check.

Two things fall out of this. First, an untrained Check is a bad bet no matter how good your Stat is — the best untrained roll in the game still fails three times in five. Second, the correct response to a hard problem is usually not "roll for it" but "find an angle that earns Favor, or find a different approach entirely". The system is built to reward that.p. 2

04Crits and Luck

An unmodified 20 on the d20 is a Crit. You gain 1 Luck — or you may forgo the Luck for a benefit instead:p. 8

The Luck pool

You have a pool of Luck points equal to your Luck Stat, refilled when you Rest.p. 22 Spend 1 point to:

• Advantage — grant Favor on a d20 roll.
• Fluke — reroll a die you rolled, before it resolves.

Luck is also how the game picks victims: when something needs to land on a random Hero, it usually lands on whoever currently has the least Luck. Spending your pool dry has a cost.

05Favor and Hinder

Circumstances that help or hurt don't change the Difficulty. They add a second die:p. 8

• Favored — roll d20 and d6, add the d6.
• Hindered — roll d20 and d6, subtract the d6.

They cancel one for one and they do not stack. However many sources apply, you end up rolling either one bonus d6 or one penalty d6, never more. This is the main lever the GM has, and the main thing your clever plan should be aiming to earn.

06Saves

Three Saves, each drawing on two Stats (or double one). These are Checks like any other — roll d20, meet the Difficulty.p. 22

Note that Reflex and Will each pull from two Stats, so a Hero who dumped both halves of one pairing is genuinely fragile in that direction. This is the single most common character-creation mistake.

07Damage and getting hurt

Damage is subtracted from HP.p. 8 Max HP is Might × Level, and you can't carry more than 8 + Might Item Slots.p. 20

Three modifiers on damage

Defending yourself

When something attacks you and you aren't Incapacitated, you may Block or Dodge.p. 14 If the Save passes, you ignore one of the attack's highest rolled damage dice — not the whole attack.

• Block — Endure Save. Hindered if the attack is Ranged (unless you have a Shield).
• Dodge — Reflex Save. Hindered if you're wearing Heavy Armor.

Healing and dying

A Breather — once per Shift, eat a ration and drink — restores HP equal to your Might. A full Rest (a Shift of little to no activity, fed and rested) restores HP, Luck and Mana to maximum; if you were already at full HP it removes 1 Fatigue instead.p. 11

You die at 0 HP, if your body is destroyed, or at 5 Fatigue.p. 8 There are no death saves. The book's own advice is to roll a new Hero and rejoin quickly, or invent a reason you survived — whichever keeps play moving.

08A combat round

Combat starts when someone physically harms someone else. A Round is roughly ten seconds and is divided into Turns, one per Group — not one per creature.p. 14

1. Heroes go first. If the party was surprised, each Hero makes a Detect Check; those who fail sit out the first Turn.
2. Every Hero acts during that Turn, in whatever order the table likes. Each gets one Action and their Move, in either order or interleaved.
3. Then the enemy Group takes its Turn. The GM runs each enemy's priority list of Actions; enemies don't roll to hit, so the Heroes roll Saves to Block or Dodge.
4. Repeat until a Group is dead, surrenders, or successfully flees.

Your Action

That list is not a fence. The book explicitly invites you to act "in a way that isn't accounted for here" — describe what you want, and the GM will tell you which Check covers it.

Distance

Three bands, deliberately vague: Close is within 5', Near is 5–30', Far is beyond 30'.p. 9 If you find yourself measuring diagonals, you're overthinking it.

09Statuses

Vagabond leans on a compact list of Statuses.p. 13 The one to learn cold is Vulnerable, because half the others reference it.

10If you cast spells

Casting requires open hands or a Trinket held. Spells are not slots; they are a menu you assemble each time you cast, paid for in Mana.p. 90

1. Damage, Effect, or both? Either one alone is free. Both together costs 1 Mana. Extra damage is +1d6 per additional Mana.
2. Delivery — how it reaches the target. Touch and Remote are free; Cube costs 1; Aura, Cone, Glyph, Line and Sphere cost 2; enlarging any area costs more.
3. Duration — damage is instant, effects last until your next Turn unless you Focus to sustain them.

You only make a Cast Check if an unwilling Being is a Target. Buffing an ally, lighting a torch or shaping terrain simply happens.

Which Stat and Skill you cast with depends on the Class: Arcana for Wizards and Maguses, Mysticism for Druids, Luminaries and Witches, Influence for Sorcerers, Leadership for Revelators.

Two limits are easy to miss. There is a cap on Mana spent per Cast — your casting Stat plus half your Class Level, rounded up — so you can't pour a full pool into one spell. And several Classes have a Spell they must always know: Polymorph for Druids, Life and Light for Luminaries, Ward for Maguses, Exalt for Revelators.

11Advancement

Levels run 1 to 10. Each Level raises Max HP and grants Class Features; even Levels raise a Stat by 1 (max 7), and odd Levels after 1st grant a Perk.p. 27

Two ways to pace it. The XP Questionnaire asks five questions after each session — did you complete a Quest, did you fail and let the failure stand, did you pass a Hindered Check, did you make a discovery, did you loot 50g — and awards 1 XP per yes. Or the GM writes a Destiny: nine story milestones, each worth a Level to everyone.