Grimiore Player Guide

Welcome to Grimiore, a Game System for the Magical And Supernatural. Grimiore is a d6 dice system and functions off the assumption that all players will be using magic and that some will be Supernatural creatures. Grimiore is a system that is tailored more towards the story and the characters than the mechanics and as such making compromises on the mechanics for the sake of the story is both allowed and encouraged. If a player is every unsure if they can do something that is allowed in the scope of the rules they are encouraged to ask the GM to see if a quick decision can be made. In the following sections the various systems of the game will be explained.


Stats And How They Are Used
In Grimiore the stat system is different that what you might find in most game systems. In Grimiore stats are separated into 2 categories, Link Stats and Substats. Link Stats are equivalent to Stats in Systems such as D&D in which you add the stat here into your rolls. Substats are used to show proficiency in different skills such as being able to Fight, or Persuade your way through challenges. In addition most Substats have Multiple Link Stats that can be applied to them. When making a character you may choose one of the available Link Stats and use that when calculating that stat. This choice usually cannot be changed. Link Stats and Substats are calculated through 2 different pools of points. For each point put into a stat, the stat increases at a 1:1 ratio. Both types of stats cap at a maximum of 3, although some GMs may allow players to increase Substats to 4 if they want to show mastery in specific elements of your character. 4s are a rare commodity and are not thrown around lightly.

Link Stats:
Link Stats are what represent the physical and mental capability of your character, such as how strong or smart they are. When you are creating a character you gain 9 points that you may put into Link Stats, and may be given more later on but even so they are a valuable commodity that should not be expected. The Link Stats in this system are as follows:


Strength/Steel: Steel, one of the earliest forms of the human race finding new and over-complicated ways of exerting their will over others. As such it's a natural fit as a component tied intrinsically with the human body's strength.

Dexterity/Silver: Silver, one of the softer metals. It is considered a pure and sometimes magical metal, especially when you look at metals associated with it in ancient times such as Mercury, or Quicksilver as they called it. This softness and lack of pure force makes it an excellent fit for a component tied with the human body's agility and swiftness.

Constitution/Stone: Stone, strong and unyielding it is the very backbone of the planet. It persisted long before we were here and will persist long after. It is a strong fit for a component tied with the human body's ability to persevere.

Intelligence/Parchment: Paper, Parchment, there are multiple words for this. But all of them can be used as a medium to transfer and store knowledge, therefore it's a wonderful fit for a component meant to embody the human mind's great intellect.

Wisdom/Glass: Glass, transparent and clear it shows the plain truth of anything seen through it. It can make things clearer and emphasize what is important. Therefore it is an amazing fit for a component embodying the human mind's wisdom.

Charisma/Gold: Gold, a rather useless material by itself. It's soft and heavy, impractical for many uses. But the human race's assigned value makes it one of the most valued metals in the world, making it a perfect analogy for a component meant to symbolize the human race's use of their natural charm.




Substats:

Substats are used to show your characters skill and mastery in several aspects of life. When creating a character you gain a pool of 25 Points to put into these, and may be given more later on if your character improves. The Substats and the Link Stats associated with them are as follows:


Acrobatics: Silver
Jack Be Nimble Jack Be Swift, Jack Really Should Have Invested In This Stat Before Jumping That Gap. This stat is used when you need to dodge that sword that's coming right at you. Used as a defensive stat.

Athletics: Steel or Silver
For when you really gotta go fast and want to be moving at the speed of sound, whether you're making tracks or not. This stat is used when you need to run or preform other activities that require physical fitness.

Arcane Knowledge: Parchment Or Glass
I'm not saying you're a nerd for taking this stat but I'm not, NOT saying that either. This stat is used when you want to call upon your knowledge of everything arcane, whether that be recalling what runes mean or knowing that Unicorns love getting their chin scratched.

Beastmastery: Glass Or Gold
Anything's a good boy if you try hard enough. Unless it's a good girl...or a hellhound. This stat is used when interacting with non-sentient animals.

Climb: Steel Or Silver
Climbing Targets include but are not limited to: Walls, rocks, giant abominations that have no right being on this earth, and that one bookshelf that you can never find the ladder to. This stat is used to well, climb.

Deception: Glass Or Gold
Did you know mages actually built the Brooklyn Bridge? No? Well, I suppose that's a good thing, seeing as that's a rumor that started a while back when a demon got bored and decided to test a theory on just how gullible humans really were. This is the stat you use to be a dirty little liar.

Fight(Melee): Steel Or Silver
Sometimes magic isn't always the answer. This stat is used when you need some good old fashion fists/swords/maces/chairs to faces action.

Fight(Ranged): Steel Or Silver
Now violence on the other hand... This stat is used when you want to ruin someone's day from a distance with less than peaceful methods.

Focus: Stone Or The Stat Associated With Any School You Have Magical Training With
It's not always easy to keep hold on a spell or remember the right word in the heat of battle, although it's still awkward when your Wall Of Fire spell conjures a chain link fence because you swapped an F and W. Used when you need to keep hold of your mental fortitude in the midst of battle, remember something, or keep a spell from fizzling when you get hit. This can also be under your main casting stat.

Force: Steel
Lift with your legs not your back. And push with your legs. And keep the werewolf from pulling the door open to eat your face like a piece of bologna with your legs. This stat is used whenever you need to leverage your strength against something or someone. Is also generally used for acts of strength.

Fortitude: Stone
If you got killed by poison you just weren't trying hard enough. This stat is used to resist anything physical such as poison, a Banshee's scream, or that sandwich your classmate dared you to eat.

Intimidation: Steel Or Gold
Pleasing people is for angels, piss people off, be rude, get what you want! This stat is used when you want to make people scared of you, force them into doing something, or just be menacing.

Logic: Parchment or Glass
So if the one guy tells the truth and the other only lies... This stat is used to figure things out, solve puzzles, and realize that fire is hot.

Perception: Parchment Or Glass
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADj-Ru3JQp0 This stat is used when you need to notice something.

Persuasion: Parchment Or Gold
Honeyed Words and Silvered Tongues: Both descriptions of people good with words and people who signed up to be test subjects for the Transmutation Class for extra credit.(Headmaster Tirref is still, as it were, horrified.). This stat is rolled when you're trying to convince someone, haggle, or just tell a really good joke.

Resilience: Stone
When you need to take a hit and keep going. (Mostly) This stat is rolled when you need to take a hit or generally be resilient. Used as a defensive stat.

Sanity: Glass Or Gold
Don't ask why you need this stat. For your sake. In theory, this stat makes sure nothing gets into your head that really shouldn't be there. Let's leave it at that. For your sake.

Sleight Of Hand: Silver
 I solemnly swear I didn't take this skill to pick locks. This stat is used when you need to do something that requires finesse or fine movements such as lock-picking, pick-pocketing, and pulling quarters from behind people's ears.

Survival/Alchemy: Parchment Or Glass
This leaf is either a deadly poison or makes a delicious tea. This stat is used to determine various things in nature, preform alchemy, and do various miscellaneous survival-esque things.




Health and Damage:
Health
Your Health is a representation of how close you are to biting the big one. It is determined by taking 15 and adding your total Resilience Score after adding your Link Stat.

Damage
Damage is what happens to take you closer to biting the big one. When attacking with a spell deals damage equal to the Spell Level+Your Magical Training Bonus+Your Magical Stat for that School. Meanwhile when you attack with a physical attack using Fight you may roll a dice of a size equal to your dice pool for Fight, ie someone with a Fight of 3 would roll 6d6 for Fight to attack and a d6 for damage.


Dice

When rolling dice you have 3 D6 as your default dice on any roll. This can be added to by the stats contributing to your roll. For example attacking someone with Fight(Melee) Linked to Steel would have you looking at Steel and Fight(Melee). For this example let's assume you have 2 points in Steel and 1 point in Fight. You would take the 2 points in Steel, add the 1 point in Dice and convert those all to 1 D6 each for a total of 3. You then take those 3d6 and add them to the d6 you have by default, making your roll 6d6 Fight(Melee).
When rolling dice you do not add up the results of your separate dice. Instead you look at each result separately and count them as Successes or Failures. If the dice result is 1-3, it is a Failure. If it's a 4-6 it's a Success. These successes are counted together to determine if you passed or failed the roll based on how many Successes are decided to be needed, or it's Target Number(TN). The TN is decided by the GM but can usually be decided based on it's difficulty.

Combat and Contested Rolls:
When fighting, whether that be hand to hand or spell to spell, you may encounter situations where you and your opponent's skills are tested against eachother such as Fight vs Acrobatics or Resilience for the sake of determining if a punch lands. In these cases the equivalent stats are pitted against eachother in a roll off, with the higher amount of successes being the victor. In the case of a tie, the initiator of the action is the victor.

Devil's Deal:
Sometimes your luck is on a turn for the bad and you need the luck of the devil on your side. In these cases you can call in a Devil's Deal. A Devil's Deal can be called in after you see your dice roll but before the GM Dictates the result of your roll. When you call in a Devil's Deal, you can request any number of Devil's Dice to roll and add to your roll. However when you call in a Devil's Deal the GM gains an equal number of Devil's Dice to the amount you rolled that can be used in rolls against you specifically.




Grimiore Magic
Magic, it's something that people think of as this mystical unknowable thing. Further proof people are idiots I suppose. Alchemists had it closer than anyone really. It's much closer to a science with a little bit of art thrown in. Everything you do is measured, calculated, all to get your desired effect. Each glyph and rune has it's own meaning that contributes to it's final effect.

Schools:
There are multiple schools of magic, each with their own focus and general feel of magic. Each School of Magic also has a stat associate with it for the purposes of magical rolls. They are listed as followed with their Link Stats:

Abjuration: Stone/Glass
Abjuration is the Magical School of defense, with focuses on being able to defend yourself from harm with Wards and enhancing your body for combat with Monkhood.

Conjuration: Gold/Parchment
Conjuration is the Magical School of creation and summoning, with focuses on being able to create things from nothing with Creation and summoning things to you with Summoning

Dark Arts: Stone/Parchment
Dark Arts is the Magical School of doing things that most people frown upon such as manipulating blood with Blood Magic and the dead with Necromancy, alongside various curses and other forbidden magic.

Divination: Glass/Parchment
Divination is the Magical School of learning, with focuses on being able to preform minor miracles through Divine Influence and seeing things as they truly are through Divining.

Evocation: Glass/Stone
Evocation is the Magical School of manipulating energy, with focuses on using that energy to heal with Restoration and using them to harm with Destruction.

Psionics: Gold/Glass
Psionics is the Magical School of tricking the mind, with focuses on using this to fool someone's emotions with Enchantment and fooling their senses with Illusion.

Transmutation: Parchment/Stone
Transmutation is the Magical School of changing things, with focuses on changing things completely into other things with Polymorphing and changing yourself to embody other things with Mimicry.


Parameters:
Magic in this world is made of various building blocks that form it's final outcome. There are various parameters to a spell and not every spell has every parameter.

Schools: The most basic parameter of the bunch, it dictates what type of Focus is used for the formation of the spell and acts as a stepping stone for further parameters. This stepping stone can be the difference between 2 very difference spells if the other parameters are the same. There is 1 Parameter for each school of magic.

Form: Form is how the spell manifests and acts once the spell is cast. It can be one of the most complex parameters due to the many different forms that can be used. For instance a spell with the Form of Burst would be a spell that radiates out from a single point in one single effect while a spell with a Form of Ray would be a single target focused spell.

Range: Range is how far you need to be from someone to cast the spell. This is one of the simplest parameters as it's usually a concrete range such as 20 feet or contact. There can be sub parameters on spells such as spells with the Burst or Aura Form that dictate the area of effect once the spell is cast.

Duration: Another very simple parameter, Duration is how long a spell can be kept active. This can range from anywhere from instant, meaning it does what it does and dissipates, to an hour, to as long as you can concentrate on the spell.

Purpose: A more abstract Parameter, Purpose is what the magic is meant to do. Whether that be Damage, Healing, Creation, or Hexes. The Purpose can be one of the most important Parameters of a spell, dictating whether your spell soothes the wounds of your ally or causes their wound to split open.

Element: Element is what dictates the energy surrounding your spell and how it manifests. While this parameter is most important in damaging spells it has it's uses in many other spells.

Trigger: Sometimes you need to be a little more discerning in how your spell is used or set up a spell as a failsafe, this is where Trigger comes in. Triggers are conditions in which your spell activates once it's cast.


Magical Training:
As a Mage your basic skills are only going to take you so far. Only experience and training will take you the rest of the way.

Every so often you will be given a point in Magical Training that represents how you spread your study of magic to the varying specialties of magic. You can add these points to the various schools of magic* in much the same way you add points to your Link Stats and substats. Just like other Stats you can only add up to 3 points in any given school.
Each Magical Training School has 2 options per Level that you can take, giving you a small ability related to a specialization in the school.
*Supernatural Characters: The world is full of those of the more innately magical persuasion such as Werewolves, Fae, Vampires, and many many more. When playing a character of such a nature speak with your GM to design a Supernatural School, with abilities to reflect and advance your magical nature. As a result Supernatural Characters will not have the same amount of magical flexibility in the Schools as a normal character.


Spell Use:
Spells are a science yes, but they are also an art. An art that you need to practice, practice, practice. Of course when you're practicing an art you will find some things easier than others depending on their complexity.

Spells are sorted into different categories depending on how strong they are. They are referred to here as Spell Levels.
Different spell levels are easier or harder to activate. When you cast a spell of higher than 1st level you have to roll to see if you can activate the spell, adding the Linkstat related to the school and the Magic Training of that school to it for the total dice as you would a normal stat roll with the 3 Base Dice.

For a 2nd Level Spell you need at least 2 Success
For a 3rd Level Spell you need at least 3 Successes
Ect Ect




Character Creation
Making your character's stats is one of the most important things you can do when playing the game. Below I will list the various steps to take when creating your character.

Step 1: Create Your Concept
Having a concept of the character you want to create is important and helps you properly stat them out.

Step 2: Determine Link Stats
Distributing your 9 points into your Link Stats sets the groundwork for the rest of your sheet

Step 3: Assign Link Stats to Substats
Assigning your link stats lets you get a good feel for how your character tackles certain problems and lets you know how you might want to distribute your Substat Points

Step 4: Determine Substats
Distributing your 25 Substat Points is one of the final big numbers you need to deal with

Step 5: Determine Derivatives
Figuring out how high your health is will let you keep in mind how durable your character is and what kinds of magic they might be suited to

Step 6: Assign Magical Training Points if Applicable
Showing off your abilities in the different schools of magic is an integral part of becoming stronger

Step 7: Make a list of your Magical Training Abilities and the Spells you know to keep track of them more easily.

Step 8(Optional): Go back to all your Substats and Magic Schools and make a list of your Dice totals for all of them for ease of use.

Once all these steps are completed, you are free to go on your way and see the magical world of Grimiore!