Over the Still
Field guide
Session I · Begin here
Common knowledge

A character is a position in the world

Find the place
that pushes back.

You do not need a finished biography. You need a place, an inheritance, a live connection, and an opinion strong enough to make trouble.

Five choices

This is a beginning, not a cage.

Make quick choices. Keep the answer that creates tension; replace anything that merely sounds tidy. The result is a paragraph you can bring to Session 0 and argue with.

01Which chart-name feels like home?

Birthplace is only one answer. Pick the place whose habits shaped you.

02Which rung of the flight ladder marked your family?

It can be pride, livelihood, resentment, or something you escaped.

03What brought you to the Windlass?

Every character spent part of levels one through four there.

04What did you leave there unfinished?

Choose the kind of thing that can demand an answer when you return.

05What do you believe about quickening?

This is a belief, not a test. Your character may be wrong.

Your first line

Five answers make a foothold.

Choose one answer in each section. Nothing here locks your character; it gives you something solid enough to argue with.

Take these to the table

Four questions with consequences.

  1. 01

    Who still knows your face in the Windlass? Name them only when you want them to be able to find you.

  2. 02

    What did the war make normal for you? Checkpoints, shortages, uniforms, empty chairs, easy money—choose one.

  3. 03

    What do you believe about the Still that you have never checked? Give the GM a conviction worth testing.

  4. 04

    What did you want the week before you vanished? Something with nothing to do with your captors.

When your foothold feels real

Walk to the edge of Session 1.

The prologue gives you the final shared facts and stops exactly where play begins.

Read the prologue