When a Character makes a Check to determine the Outcome of a course of action, the odds of their Success and Failure will be affected by their Ability Bonuses.
The below Steps will show you how to choose your Ability Bonuses, as well as generate your Skilled Bonuses, your Defense Bonuses and your Effect DCs.
These Bonuses should all be recorded on your Abilities Card.
Might, Dexterity, Charisma and Focus
Your Might, Dexterity, Charisma and Focus may vary greatly from one Character to another, and are a key part of distinguishing their inherent capabilities.
For brevity, these Abilities may be abbreviated to MIG, DEX, CHA and FOC respectively.
Your MIG and DEX represent your Physical Abilities and your CHA and FOC represent your Mental Abilities. The use of these abilities are described further in the Tables below.
| Ability | Abbrev. | Description |
| Might | MIG | Your ability to exert Physical Force on the World, as well as resist Physical effects and Damage. |
| Dexterity | DEX | Your ability to move precisely or with care, to craft things, to avoid harm and to counter. |
| Ability | Abbrev. | Description |
| Charisma | CHA | Your ability to influence other Characters with language, and also your force of will. |
| Focus | FOC | Your ability to acquire and understand information from the world around you, and also your self-discipline. |
You will allocate to each of these Abilities a numerical Bonus of +3, +2, + 1 or 0. The Higher the Bonus, the more capable you are with respect to that Ability.
You may either choose for yourself how to distribute these Bonuses between your Physical and Mental Abilities, or you may allocate them Randomly.
Random Allocation of Ability Bonuses
To Randomly allocate your Ability Bonuses, use the below steps:
- Roll a d4 three times, rerolling any repeated Results. The Results of the d4 represents the below Abilities.
| d4 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
| Ability | MIG | DEX | CHA | FOC |
- Allocate the +3 Bonus to the 1st Result.
- Allocate the +2 Bonus to the 2nd Result.
- Allocate the +1 Bonus to the 3rd Result.
- Allocate the +0 Bonus to the remaining Ability.
Skill and Speed
Your Skill and Speed will vary much less from one Character to another. These are abbreviated to SKL and SPD respectively. They are referred to as your Other Abilities and are described in the Table below.
| Ability | Abbrev. | Type | Description |
| Skill | SKL | Other | Your ability to use your prior experience of an activity. |
| Speed | SPD | Other | Your ability to move quickly, your agility and how nimble you are. |
Allocate a +3 numerical Bonus to both your Skill and Speed Abilities.
Optional Rule: Aging
Some Groups may wish to represent large disparities in age in their Characters by using the Optional Rule: Aging.
If the Group chooses to use this Optional Rule, Players may upon making their Character choose whether they begin as a Young, Mature or Old example of that Character. Note that this age will be relative to how long that Character may be expected to live within that Story (e.g. an Old Human might be 50+ years old, an Old Elf meanwhile might be many hundreds of years Old).
The Game’s Balance assumes that all Character’s are Mature. Implementing this Rule can be fun, but may cause unexpected outcomes such as a significantly higher rate of Failure for Young Characters, or a much greater degree in difficulty in engaging with Combat and Chase scenes for Old Characters.
The below Table represents how this choice will modify your Starting Skill and Speed Bonuses, as well as determine your Approximate Age (with respect to expected life expectancy of Humans).
You may choose an Age Category or roll a d20 and use the Result to determine your Age. You will have a 25% Chance of being Young, a 50% Chance of being Mature, and a 25% Chance of being Old.
| d20 | Age Category | Approximate Age (Human Years) | Skill Bonus Modifer | Speed Bonus Modifier |
| 1-5 | Young | 10-18 | -1 | +1 |
| 6-15 | Mature | 18-60 | – | – |
| 16-20 | Old | 60+ | +1 | -1 |
During the course of a Story, Characters may age significantly. This may occur due to the duration of the Story, or potentially due to Magical Effects. In such cases, the Group may agree to use this Optional Rule to reflect that Change in a Character.
For Example, a Young Character may begin a Story as a squire who makes up for their lack of experience with their youth and vigor. This would grant them a -1 Penalty to their SKL, and a +1 Bonus to their SPD. However after a time skip during which they train significantly to become a knight they may become a Mature Character, losing the benefits and detriments of their Youth.
Skilled Bonuses
Once you have determined your Starting Physical, Mental and Other Abilities, you may calculate your Skilled Bonuses.
Your Skilled Bonuses represent the Bonuses you may add to an Attack or Skill Check when you are able to make use of your Skill.
You will have 5 Skilled Bonuses, Skilled Might, Skilled Dexterity, Skilled Charisma, Skilled Focus and Skilled Speed.
They may each be determined by adding the numerical Bonuses granted by your SKL to those of your other 5 Abilities.
For brevity, these are abbreviated to MIG+, DEX+, CHA+, FOC+ and SPD+ (the “+” implies that SKL has been added to those abilities, ).
For Example, a Character with a +3 MIG and a +3 SKL would have a +6 MIG+.
If an effect causes you to Modify any of your Physical, Mental or Other Abilities, ensure that any of your Skilled Bonuses are also Modified on your Ability Card.
Defense Bonuses
Your Defense Bonuses may be calculated after you have determined your Starting Physical and Mental Abilities.
These Bonuses represent your ability to instinctively resist harmful effects made against you.
You will have 2 Defense Bonuses: Body Defense and Mind Defense.
For brevity, these are abbreviated to BODY DEF and MIND DEF respectively.
They are each found by adding the numerical Bonuses of your Physical and Mental Abilities respectively:
BODY DEF = MIG + DEX
MIND DEF = CHA + FOC
If an effect causes you to Modify any of your Physical or Mental Abilities, ensure that any of your Defense Bonuses are also Modified on your Ability Card.
Effect DCs
Your Effect DCs represent the Difficulty Class Characters may need to make a Defense Check against when they are the Target of an Effect you cause.
You will have 2 Effect DCs: Martial Effect DC and Spell Effect DC.
For brevity these are abbreviated to MARTIAL DC and SPELL DC respectively.
Martial Effects represent Effects which are caused by your use of Weapons, Unarmed Strikes and Combat Training. Spell Effects meanwhile are those caused by your use of Spells and other Magical Effects.
They are each found by adding your highest Physical or Mental Skilled Bonus to 8 for your Martial and Spell Effect DCs respectively.
MARTIAL DC = 8 + Highest of your MIG+ or DEX+
SPELL DC = 8 + Highest of your CHA+ or FOC+
For Example, a Character with a MIG+ of +4 and a DEX+ of +3 would add the higher bonus, +4 to 8, for a MARTIAL DC of 11. Meanwhile if their CHA+ is +5 and their FOC+ is +6, their SPELL DC would be 14.