Basic rules:
Character Creation and Levelling up:
You start with 1 in all stats, 0 in all skills and no abilities. You have to buy stuff with xp, rather than list all the costs here just click around on the sheet this is attached to. You'll notice as you add stuff the xp spent in the top right will count up. You all have 70k to spend atm.
Stats:
You have 9 stats, arranged into a 3x3 grid where each row and column has a label. Stats run 1-5, where 2 is human average. If you're doing something active you use a stat plus a skill. For reactive things, usually noticing or avoiding some threat, you add up all the stats in the right row or column depending on the danger.
A brief rundown of each stat:
Strength - Physical strength
Dexterity - Manual control and hand-eye coordination
Mobility - Speed and acrobatics
Intelligence - Smarts
Perception - Noticing and finding things
Wits - Thinking on your feet
Charisma - Raw people power. Used socially for things like asking a personal favour.
Faith - Belief in a higher power or a cause or just in yourself. Used socially for things like a heartfelt plea.
Wisdom - Wiseositude. Used socially for things like suggesting a better plan.
Columns:
Body (strength+dexterity+mobility) - Overall health. Used for things like resisting poison or disease, also increases hp.
Mind (intelligence+perception+wits) - Overall awareness. Used primarily for noticing or deducing things.
Soul (charisma+faith+wisdom) - Overall morale. Used to resist the effects of fear and despair, many spells are resisted with soul.
Rows:
Active (strength+intelligence+charisma) - Energy and vive. Used for things like resisting fatigue.
Passive (dexterity+perception+faith) - Patience and calm. Used for things like resisting being taunted.
Reflex (mobility+wits+wisdom) - Reaction time and situational awareness. Used for things like avoiding traps. Also used for initative in combat.
Skills:
Skills come in 3 types and the main difference between them is their xp cost. Magic skills are the most expensive. The magic skill itself just lets you do basic mage stuff like see magic. You also need a specific magic skill to do magic of that sort. Once you have that you don't need specific spells, a shadow mage can just do whatever they like with shadows. All magic skills can also be used as a basic ranged attack. Your specific magic skills can't be higher than the magic skill itself.
Combat skills are the next most expensive. For most characters that just means their weapon skill, but some characters have one or two special combat skills that are used by their abilities. When you add a weapon/magic skill you choose which stat to use for attack rolls although it has to be sensible for the weapon/magic in question.
Lastly is minor skills. There is no fixed list of minor skills. If you want to be good at accounting go ahead and add it to your sheet. Skills are interpreted fairly widely, so accounting will help you if you want to say identify a foreign coin for instance. Let me know about new skills you make and I might widen/narrow them depending. So if you wanted running, I'd suggest athletics instead.
1 in a skill is amateur level. 2 is professional. 3 is best in town. 4 is master and 5 is world class.
Armour:
Armour determines how high people need to roll to hit you. No armour is 2, light armour is 3, medium 4, heavy 5 and with buffs you can hit 6. You can pick any armour you like for free but a lot of abilities can't be used if your armour is too heavy.
HP:
Every point of body stats you gain increases your hp by 2, but you can also spend xp to increase your hp directly. This can be done 5 times, increasing in cost each time, for 2 hp each. This means the absolute max hp is 40.
Abilities:
Abilities are unique and do whatever it says in their text. They have 4 speeds: Slow is anything that tends to be too slow for combat. Action means it takes your turn in combat. Reaction means it triggers when something happens. Passive means it's always on. Abilities have their own xp cost and often prerequisites like stats, skills, other abilities or armour. Abilities also have categories listed with them, this is just to make it easier to find relevant ones, categories don't mean anything in game.
Earning XP:
There are 3 main ways to earn xp and you can expect to earn on average about 10,000 per session. You get 5,000xp for turning up to a session, nice and simple, and a lot of sessions that will be all you get. If the group achieves a meaningful goal you get a big chunk of xp and everyone gets this. I'll also probably do small amount of bonus XP to a single player if they do something cool and fun. Obviously this means Andy should be 5k down on the rest of you atm but fuck it, you're all at 70k. That's 60k starting, 2.5k for the prologue, 5k for session 1, 2.5k for finding the murderer. If you die you need to make a new character and you keep all your xp except the 5k for the session where you died.
Skill checks:
Skill checks where you're actively doing something you take a stat + a skill and roll that many d6s. The more 5s and 6s you get (called successes) the better you do, usually 1 is enough but harder things might need more. In some cases 2 characters will both make rolls and compare the totals. Passive/reactive skill checks (called saves) use one of the rows or columns of stats, you add up all 3 and roll that many d6s just the same. Typically you won't get a choice about which row or column you use for these checks.
Combat:
At the beginning of combat everyone rolls reflex (i.e. bottom stat row) for initiative. Whoever gets the most successes goes first, ties are broken by the reflex stat itself, then by mobility, then wits, then wisdom then a roll off. This turn order is used for the entire fight. Rather than use a map with tiles, we have a looser idea of where people are called groups. Any number of characters can be in a single group and that implies they're all near each other.
At the start of your turn you give a description of what your character does and what the result of that is. You get a ton of leeway, go nuts and do something fun. You get to describe your enemies defence/injury etc as well. If you roll badly we just retcon it. You'll typically get a +1/+2 bonus for giving a good description.
You take one action a turn and you can use this to move to any other group (including a new one you create), make a melee attack against someone in the same group as you, a ranged attack against someone in a different group or use an action ability. To make an attack roll you add a stat+a skill as normal, then your stunt bonus and roll that many d6s. Every die that is equal or higher than the target's armour value deals one point of damage. If you make a ranged attack roll and roll no 5s or 6s then it hits a random member of the target's group instead, which can still be the target themselves. If you fall to 0 hp or lower you must roll a d6. 1-5 and you're unconsious for the rest of the fight, 6 you're dead.
Making a ranged attack, using certain abilities such as spells or moving groups will give any enemies in your group (the group you move from) that are using a melee weapon a "free attack" on you. If the total damage you take from these attacks is more than the 5s and 6s you roll for your action then your action fails. If it's a spell that doesn't use a roll then it's more damage than your magic skill and it fails. If an ability causes you to change groups and it doesn't explicitly say that it avoids the free attacks you take for moving then you take them and they can interrupt that ability. Moving normally can't be interrupted.
You can also attempt to flee on your action. This means just turning your back and running. Any of your enemies can decide they want to chase you. You all make a body roll, if any of them get more successes than you you fail. You also take a free attack from everyone in your group, if you take more damage than successes you fail. When you fail, it's treated as a normal move to a new group except your pursuers move with you. If you succeed, you're not in the fight anymore and your pursuers go in a new group together or leave the fight and continue chasing at their choice.
Combat openings:
The rules for the beginning of combat differ a little depending on the situation. If it starts at long range then you group with allies as you please and cannot move to an enemy group on the first turn. Medium range, like across the street, just group with allies as you please no special rules. Short range, like a bar fight or friendly talk gone sour, you all start in the same group. With an ambush, the ambushers choose the opening groups and no matter initative everyone on their side always goes before everyone on the other side.
Special combat rules:
In addition to their opening, many fights use special rules depending on what's happening. If there are lots of unimportant npcs joining in then they're called extras and they stay in a special group called the melee. If the other side has extras, you must pass through the melee to go to the other side's groups and vice versa. After the first turn, if the melee contains no characters (i.e. not extras) from one side then that side's extras flee or are overwhelmed and the melee rule is no longer in effect for that side.
If the fight is happening in confined quarters there may be a limit to the number of groups that there can be.
I'll probably add more special rules at some point and the list of abilities will keep growing as I add more abilities for npcs.
Saving/loading:
In the top right is a text area. Save the weird text to save your character and then copy it back in to load it again. Please try to post an up to date character string to discord.