Glossary

Aura

Auras are expressed as “X aura.” Auras always originate from you and move with you. A creature must be within X squares of you to be targeted by an aura ability.

Burst

Bursts are expressed as “X burst.” Burst areas always originate from you. A creature must be within X squares of you to be targeted with a burst ability.

Cube

Cubes are expressed as “X cube.” X is the length of all the area’s sides.

Line

Lines are expressed as “A × B line.” A equals the line’s length, while B equals the line’s width and height. Lines must be in a straight line, forming either a rectangle or straight diagonal line shape.

Wall

Walls are expressed as “X wall,” where X equals how many squares are used to make the wall. You build the wall one square at a time, where each square must share at least one side (not just a corner) with another square of the wall. You can stack squares on top of each other. Walls can’t usually be placed in occupied squares. A wall blocks line of effect.

A bane represents a situational disadvantage a hero or an enemy has when making a power roll. When you make a power roll with a single bane, you subtract 2 from the roll.

If you make a power roll with two or more banes, you have a double bane. This means you don’t subtract anything from the power roll, but the result of the roll automatically decreases one tier (to a minimum of tier 1).

While bleeding, whenever you make a test using Might or Agility, make a strike, or use an action, maneuver, or a triggered action, you lose 1d6 Stamina after the test, action, maneuver, or triggered action is resolved. This Stamina loss can’t be prevented in any way.

When you take the Charge action, you move up to your speed in a straight line, then make a melee free strike (see Free Strikes) against a creature when you end your move. You can’t shift when you charge.

Effects that fully obscures a creature but doesn’t protect their body grants that creature concealment. Concealed creatures can be targeted, if they're not hidden. Strikes against concealed creatures take a bane.

When you make an ability power roll as part of an strike or action and the total of the roll is 19 or 20 before adding your characteristic (a natural 19 or natural 20), you score a critical hit. This allows you to immediately take an additional action after resolving the power roll, whether or not it’s your turn and even if you are dazed.

While you are dazed, you can do only one thing on your turn: use a maneuver, use an action, or take a move action. You also can’t use triggered actions, free triggered actions, or free maneuvers.

An ability’s “Distance” entry indicates how close you need to be to a creature or object to affect that target with the ability.

Certain ability effects allow you to move and affect other creatures or objects during that move, such as the shadow’s Blade Dance ability. For such abilities, the move begins in the space you first leave when you begin the move, and ends in the last space you move into.

When your Stamina is 0 or lower, you are dying. While dying, you can’t take the Catch Breath maneuver in combat, and you are bleeding, and this condition can’t be removed in any way until you are no longer dying. While you are dying, your allies can help you spend Recoveries in combat, and you can spend Recoveries out of combat as usual.

While your Stamina is lower than 0, if it reaches the negative of your winded value, you die. When you die, you can’t be brought back to life without the use of a special powerful item such as a Scroll of Resurrection.

Director-controlled creatures die when their Stamina drops to 0.

An edge represents a situational advantage a hero or an enemy has when making a power roll. When you make a power roll with a single edge, you add 2 to the roll.

If you make a power roll with two or more edges, you have a double edge. This means you don’t add anything to the power roll, but the result of the roll automatically improves one tier (to a maximum of tier 3).

Unless otherwise indicated, any effects that are determined by a power roll result occur after the power roll’s damage has been dealt to all targets.

If an effect ends with “(EoT)” at the end of its description, a creature suffers the effect until the end of their next turn, or the current turn if they got the effect on their current turn.

When you fall 2 or more squares, you take 2 damage for each square you fall (max 50 damage), then you land prone. Reduce the effective height equal to your Agility score (minimum 0).

Falling into liquid that is at least 1 square deep reduces the effective height by 4 squares.

Falling is not forced movement, but being force moved downward is considered falling.

Movement from falling doesn’t provoke opportunity attacks.

If you land on another creature, that creature takes the same damage you. You land prone in the nearest unoccupied space of your choice. If your size is greater than the creature’s Might score, the creature also falls prone.

When you first fall from a great height, you fall 100 squares in the first round. At the end of each subsequent round that you remain falling, you fall another 100 squares.

Some actions and maneuvers allow you to push, pull, or slide another creature a specific distance across the battlefield. Collectively, these types of movement are called forced movement:

Push X

You move the target up to X squares away from you in a straight line, without moving them vertically.

Pull X

You move the target up to X squares toward you in a straight line, without moving them vertically. Each square you move the creature must bring them closer to you.

Slide X

You move the target up to X squares in any direction, except for vertically.

When you force move a target, you can always move that target fewer squares than the number indicated. For example, when the conduit gets a tier 3 “push 3” result with their Call the Tunder Down ability, they can push targets any distance up to 3 squares, including choosing to not move certain targets at all.

Forced movement ignores difficult terrain and never provokes opportunity attacks. When you force move a target into damaging terrain or into terrain that produces an effect, they are affected as if they had moved into it willingly.

Every creature can use a free strike ability as an action on their turn, though doing so typically isn’t the most effective choice. Most of the time, you’ll use free strikes when the rules call for it. Specific rules let you use free strikes as part of an action that allows you to also do something else impactful, such as how the Charge action lets you move and use a melee free strike in one action.

If you are frightened, ability power rolls you make against the source of your fear take a bane. If that source is a creature, their ability power rolls against you gain an edge. You can’t willingly move closer to the source of your fear if you know the location of that source. If you gain the frightened condition from one source while already frightened by a different source, the new condition replaces the old one.

While you are grabbed, your speed is 0, you can’t be force moved, you can’t use the Knockback maneuver, and you take a bane on abilities that don’t target the creature grabbing you. If the creature grabbing you moves, they bring you with them. If the creature’s size is equal to or less than yours, their speed is halved while they have you grabbed.

The creature grabbing you can use a maneuver to move you into an unoccupied space adjacent to them.

The creature grabbing you can end the grab at any time (no action required). You can also attempt to escape being grabbed using the Escape Grab maneuver (see Maneuvers in Combat). If you teleport or if the creature grabbing you is force moved to a space that isn’t adjacent to you, you are no longer grabbed.

Whenever hero tokens are available, you can spend them in the follow ways. You can only spend one hero token on your turn or per test:

• You can spend a hero token to gain two surges.
• You can spend a hero token when you fail a saving throw to succeed on it instead.
• When you fail a test or succeed on a test with a consequence, you can spend a hero token to turn the failure into a success and to lose any consequence suffered.
• You can spend 2 hero tokens on your turn or whenever you take damage (no action required) to regain Stamina equal to your Recovery value without spending a Recovery.

You can only hide when you're not observed. You are observed by a creature if it knows exactly where you are before you hide. You need "2 degrees of concealment". First get out of sight (gain concealment), then go somewhere else to hide.

In combat you automatically hide. Outside of combat you might have to make a roll.

While hidden you have an edge on ability power rolls. You can only be targeted by area abilities. These benefits lasts until the end of the turn you become no longer hidden.

You're no longer hidden if you don't sneak, use an ability, interact with enemies or do other actions that would reveal you. You are hidden until the action is resolved.

Invisible creatures are always concealed. Strikes against them take a bane. Tests to find them take a bane.

You can long jump a number of squares up to your Might or Agility score (your choice; minimum 1 square) without a test as part of movement.

If you move at least 2 squares in a straight line, you can long jump 1 additional square.

To jump farther, make a medium Might test. On a success, jump 1 additional square, or 2 additional squares if you get a success with a reward.

The height of your jump is 1 square. If you move at least 2 squares in a straight line, you can jump 1 square higher.

You can’t jump farther or higher than your move. You can’t jump out of difficult or damaging terrain.

When you get a natural 19 or 20 on a test’s power roll, you succeed on the task with a reward, even if the test has a medium or hard difficulty.

In combat this is a Critical Hit.

Whenever a creature adjacent to you moves to a space that isn’t adjacent to you without shifting, you can take advantage of their movement to quickly make a melee free strike against them as a free triggered action. This is called an opportunity attack.

If you have a bane or double bane on the power roll against the creature, you can’t make the free strike.

While you are prone, you are flat on the ground, strikes you make take a bane, and melee abilities made against you gain an edge. You must crawl to move along the ground, which costs you 1 additional square of movement for every square you crawl. You can’t climb, jump, swim, or fly while prone. If you are climbing, flying, or jumping while you are knocked prone, you fall.

While prone, you can stand up as a maneuver, unless the ability or effect that imposed the condition says otherwise. You can use a maneuver to make an adjacent prone creature stand up.

See Forced Movement.

See Forced Movement.

When you spend a Recovery, you regain Stamina equal to your recovery value, which is one-third your Stamina maximum.

A respite is a focused period of rest and recuperation that allows heroes to regain Stamina and Recoveries. During a respite, you must spend 24 hours uninterrupted and doing nothing but sleeping, eating, dressing your wounds, and recuperating in a safe place. You can also undertake one respite activity, such as making a project roll, or changing your kit. After 24 hours, your respite ends. You can take as many respites as you like in a row to keep accomplishing respite activities—just know that while you’re resting, the enemies are still scheming and carrying out their dastardly plans.

When you finish a respite, you regain all your Recoveries and Stamina, and your Victories convert to Experience. It is best to take a respite in a safe place where you aren’t in a hostile environment or at risk of being attacked. If your respite is interrupted, the respite ends early and you don’t gain the benefits for finishing it.

The standard eightish hours of sleep one gets at night doesn’t count as a respite. The rules assume that all heroes take the time to sleep, eat, and take care of all the other functions necessary for life even if they aren’t engaged in a respite.

While you are restrained, your speed is 0, you can’t use the Stand Up maneuver, and you can’t be force moved. Your ability power rolls take a bane, abilities against you gain an edge, and you have a bane on Might and Agility tests.

If you teleport while restrained, the condition ends.

When an ability targets multiple creatures, you make one power roll and apply the result to all the creatures you target. If you have edges or banes against some but not all of your targets, you might apply a different tier of result to individual targets.

If an effect ends with “(save ends)” at the end of its description, then a creature suffering the effect can make a saving throw at the end of their turn to remove the effect.

A saving throw represents your luck in shaking off an effect. You likely already got a chance to resist the effect using your characteristic score to resist a potency, so now it’s down to fate. To make a saving throw, roll a 1d10. On a result of 6 or higher, the effect ends. Otherwise, it continues.

Whenever you shift, creatures can’t make opportunity attacks against you during your movement. You can’t shift into difficult or damaging terrain.

A creature’s size indicates how many squares they occupy during combat, which defines the creature’s space. If a creature’s size is 1, they occupy a space of 1 square. If a creature is larger than 1 square, their size equals the number of squares they take up in length, width, and height. You could also think of that space as a cube that is 2 squares on all sides.

If a creature is a size 1, their size value includes the letter T, S, M, or L, abbreviations of tiny, small, medium, and lzarge respectively. Since the minimal amount of space a creature can take up during combat is 1, this letter indicates the difference between tiny pixies, small polders, medium humans, and large hakaan, each of which occupy of a space 1 square in combat.

Objects can also have a size rating. If an object has an O (an abbreviation for oblong) next to its size, it indicates that the object’s size isn’t the number of squares the object occupies, but rather it’s relative mass and weight to a creature of equivalent size. If an ability or feature allows you to interact with objects of a certain size that rule includes all objects of that size, oblong or otherwise.

The Creature and Object Sizes table shows examples sizes of creatures and objects up to size 5, but there is no limit to what a creature or object’s size could be.

If you have a skill that applies to a test you make, you gain a +2 bonus (not an edge) to the test. You can’t apply more than one skill to a test.

When you force move a creature into another creature, the movement ends and both creatures take 1 damage for each square remaining in the first creature’s forced movement. You can also force move an object into a creature.

It is possible to move a creature or object of a larger size into several creatures of a smaller size at the same time. When this happens, all creatures in the collision take damage once.

If a creature is killed by damage from an ability or effect that force moves them, the second creature still takes damage unless the Director deems otherwise.

When force moved into a stationary object that is a creature's size or larger and the object doesn’t break, the movement ends and it takes 2 damage plus 1 damage for each square remaining in their forced movement.

If you force move a creature downward into an object that doesn’t break (including the ground), they also take falling damage.

See Forced Movement.

While you are slowed, your speed is 2 unless it is already lower, and you can’t shift.

Each creature has a stability that allows them to resist forced movement. When a creature is forced moved, they can reduce the movement up to a number of squares equal to their stability.

Your hero’s survivability is represented by your Stamina. Think of Stamina as a combination of a creature’s physical vitality and their overall energy for dodging and resisting incoming blows, spells, and other violence.

After any damage you take is reduced by damage immunity or other effects, your Stamina is reduced by an amount equal to the remaining damage.

But if both sides have creatures who aren’t surprised, the Director or a player they choose rolls 1d10. On a result of 6 or greater, the heroes’ side acts first. Otherwise the other side acts first.

Surges can be used in combat to deal extra damage to your foes and increase the value of your potencies. When you deal damage with an ability power roll, you can spend up to three surges you have to increase the damage you deal by an amount equal to your highest characteristic score per surge spent to one creature or object targeted with the ability.

When you target one or more creatures with an ability that has a potency, you can spend two surges to increase the potency by 1 for one of the creatures targeted with the effect. You can’t increase the potency by more than 1 with surges, though you can spend multiple at once to increase the potency for multiple targets. After you spend a surge, it disappears. At the end of combat, you lose all your surges.

A creature is surprised until the end of the first round of combat. Surprised creatures can’t take triggered or free triggered actions and ability power rolls against them gain an edge.

If you are taunted, you have a double bane on ability power rolls that don’t target the creature who taunted you while you have line of effect to that creature. If you gain the taunted condition from one creature while already taunted by a different creature, the new condition replaces the old one.

When making a test, it has one of three difficulties: easy, medium, or hard, as decided by the Director.

Each creature in combat gets to take a move action, a maneuver, and an action on their turn. Each combatant can perform their maneuver and action in any order, and can break up the movement granted by their move action before, after, or between their maneuver and action however they like.

You can also turn your action into a move action or a maneuver, so that your turn can alternatively consist of two move actions and a maneuver; or two maneuvers and a move action.

While you are weakened, all your power rolls take a bane.

Your winded value equals half your Stamina maximum. When your Stamina is equal to or less than your winded value, you are winded. Although being winded has no effects on its own, certain ancestry, class, item, and title abilities affect winded creatures.

You can tell when other creatures are winded and vice versa.