GM Quick Reference

Difficulty Scale

Upgrade one Trial Die to a Crisis Die when the situation is actively hostile, the stakes are very high, or the character is working against someone skilled who is actively opposing them. Increase the difficulty tier only when the task itself is harder.

Adversary Tiers Summary

Initiative Types

Turn Actions

Conditions Reference

Mirrors the Player Guide (Ch 13). Conditions do not stack unless explicitly stated. Applying the same condition multiple times extends its duration rather than increasing its effect. If a condition does not specify a duration, it lasts until the end of the affected character's next turn.

Ix uses Immolation for the core ongoing-fire condition so it remains distinct from the Burn X weapon and spell quality. Knockdown applies Prone; Ensnare X and Restrained both limit movement but differ in origin and escape, see Player's Guide, Chapter Eight for quality definitions.

Fear check (summary): a source with a Fear rating 1-4 forces one Readiness check (sudden shock) or Discipline check (sustained dread) per source per scene at difficulty equal to the rating (1 Easy, 2 Average, 3 Hard, 4 Severe). Failure means Strain equal to the rating and Frightened; a success carrying two or more net means 1 Strain and no condition; adds Staggered; grants immunity to that source for the session. Minion groups and Elites roll once and become Demoralized instead. Full procedure: Chapter Nine.

GM Bane and Calamity Spends

Bane (1 per effect):

• Add 1 to target's next check
• Ally suffers 1 Strain
• Enemy recovers from a minor condition
• Resource depleted (torch, tool, ration, component)
• Environmental hazard activates or escalates
• Adversary gains a free Maneuver

Calamity:

• Critical Injury roll triggered (in combat)
• Weapon breaks, drops, or malfunctions
• Significant NPC endangered
• Faction front advances one tick
• Hidden party is alerted to the characters' presence

Fortune and Peril Points

One Fortune Point to each player and one Peril Point to you at the start of every session. Neither carries over. A spent point flips to the other side.

One Fortune Point per check. Spend early, and say what the point buys before the dice land. A Nemesis's Peril pool is a separate statistic and does not flip. Full procedure: Chapter Nine.

The Infectious Condition

Canon: Ix Adversary Catalog, Chapter Three. Summary for the table:

• Trigger: being wounded by an infectious creature's attack. Make the resistance check named in that creature's Infection or Disease ability; Willpower is the default.
• Failure: the character gains the Infected condition at Stage 1. The creature entry defines what each Stage does.
• Advancing: an untreated infection advances one Stage per extended rest, or faster if the entry says so.
• Disease X: the rating sets the difficulty. 1 = Average, 2 = Hard, 3 = Severe, 4 = Extreme.
• Repeated exposure: check again; each further success by the creature raises the difficulty one step, and a staged infection advances one Stage on a failure.
• Treatment: halts the infection; it does not clear the Stage effects already in place. Turning is usually permanent.

Full procedure, difficulty modifiers, and turning rules: Adversary Catalog, Chapter Three.

Use the Zombie starter stat block in Chapter Thirteen for a simple staged infection. For lycanthropy and vampiric turning, build the creature's staged infection before the session and decide exactly when the character leaves play if untreated.

Session Preparation Checklist

• One faction front that will tick this session
• One player-character thread to advance
• Three prepared locations (likely, possible, dead-end)
• One planned complication (a decision, not an obstacle)

Between-Sessions Checklist

• Advance untouched faction clocks
• Update NPC states based on session events
• Note any divine attention triggered by party actions
• Prepare next session's four elements

After-Combat Checklist

• Wounds and Medicine needs
• Resources spent
• Objectives: achieved or not?
• World consequences: faction clocks, NPC states, witness presence

Faction Clock Format

XP Award Reference

Campaign Stages

A stage is total XP earned in play after creation, not session count. Chronicle tier above and campaign stage here are the same axis. The per-session award does not change between stages.

Coin is a party total per session and an average across the stage, not a guaranteed payment. Loot tables, hoards, placement rates, and non-coin rewards: Chapter Eight.

Encounter Budgets

Adjust by 10 XP per character above or below four, at every stage. Terrain costs nothing and changes more than most talents. Do not raise catalog Wounds or Resistance to compensate. Worked examples and the scaling levers: Chapter Eight.

Travel Rates and Terrain

Miles per day of ordinary travel. Multiply the base rate by the terrain factor, divide the leg's miles by the result, round up to whole days.

Trackless terrain with no guide drops one further step. Water and air routes ignore land factors: halve the rate against a strong current or headwind, add one quarter running before a following wind or flood.

The Journey Clock

1. Provision. One day of trail rations per traveller per day of travel; one full waterskin per day in desert, pan desert, or salt flat.
2. Set the clock. One tick per day of travel on each leg, maximum six. A longer leg splits.
3. Guide check per tick. Survival overland, Operate afloat, Piloting aloft. Easy on a road, Average in open country or hills, Hard in forest, desert, or snow, Severe in mountain, marsh, or trackless country. Failure fills the tick and costs one extra day; failure with means lost.
4. Spend the symbols on the journey spend table in Chapter Sixteen.
5. Roll for an encounter once per tick on the terrain table; 8, 9, and 10 are non-combat. Roll twice on a forced march, at night, or after a failed guide check.

Forced march, provisioning, weather and exposure, and the ten terrain tables: Chapter Sixteen.

Soul Claims and Contract Offers

A live claim on a player character is a standing fact, not a condition: no dice modifier, no state, no Fear rating. The ladder in five lines.

• Identify the binding clause and the trigger. Average Lore, or free from an Accord clinic or a Talbar deal-keeper. One scene, before signature.
• File it where a court will accept it. Easy Negotiation at an Accord archive or the Talbar Registry. The claim becomes public.
• Renegotiate, or void it in a Themela court or by Talbar counter-claim. Hard. Voiding needs demonstrable fraud in the trigger language and a filed copy, over multiple sessions.
• Transfer the claim, or buy it back. Severe Negotiation. No price exists in Flargons; the holder names a consideration, and the consideration is the adventure.
• No check, an adventure. Make the performance trigger fail to fire, take the claim-token from the contractor before it passes to a successor, or perform the terms in full.

Death under a live claim runs the same six-step passage with no seventh step. The single decision point is step 4, judgment.

Every counter is stronger before signature than after. A contract with no consideration clause is defective and any court will say so. The d10 Contract Offers table, with the offer, the ask, and the tell for each cult: Chapter Four.

Subsystems at a Glance

Divine Portfolio Quick Reference

Planar Pressure States