Eldran is a world of eternal, stagnant peace — or it was. The gods rule from the Divine Conclave, and they have ruled so long and so carefully that nothing of consequence ever changes. Then a soul breaks: someone dies carrying more grief, hunger, or fury than a life should hold, and is reborn as something else. A demon lord. They wake with a demon core — a heart of condensed will they must guard at any cost — and they mean to remake the world in their image.
The gods cannot act against them directly; the <@the-pact-of-ismaril.lore> binds the Divine Conclave, so they do what gods have always done: they find champions and whisper. Heroes wake with purposes they cannot name. Omens gather around the right people at the right ruins. And somewhere — a guild hall in Gadresh, a ship off the coast of Omeron, a tower on the plains of Maloris — someone decides to matter.
That someone can be you. You might be a hero chosen by the gods, a demon lord risen from a broken life, or simply an adventurer — one of many souls lost in a world greater than themselves, who discovers the world's fate keeps turning on what you do anyway.
What you do at the table
A session is a conversation with stakes. Your Game Master sets the scene — where you are, what is happening, what hangs in the balance — and then it is your turn. You say what your character does. When the outcome is uncertain and the risk is real, the Game Master calls for a roll: a d20 plus the attribute that fits your approach, plus your proficiency where you have trained.
Success bends the fiction your way. Failure does not stop the story — it complicates it. You do not simply fail a climb; you fall into the room below and wake the guard. Consequences stick: wounds, debts, grudges, and time all stay on the table after the scene ends.
How you describe matters as much as what you roll. "Roll the dice, darling — but make it interesting first," as the Game Master is fond of saying. A vivid, specific description of what you do can earn a bonus on the roll itself. The full scale of that reward lives in Combat & Challenges; for now, treat description as part of the rules, not decoration.
The world does not wait
Time in Eldran is real. It is currently Monday, January 1, in the first year of the Common Era — winter in Gadresh, evening settling over the Adventurer's Guild. The Game Master advances the clock whenever something meaningful happens: a journey, a rest, a long conversation, the aftermath of a fight. Deadlines arrive. Pressures escalate. The world keeps moving while you deliberate.
Right now, a fragment of a Demon Core lies beneath the old mill outside Gadresh, calling fiends down the river. The party's first contract uncovered it; going home to heal did not make it go away. That fragment is a <@the-demon-core-fragment.pressure> with a name, and it will grow if no one acts. In Eldran, ignoring a problem is a decision — and the world records it.
The nine attributes
Everything you roll traces back to one of nine attributes. Mortal scores typically run from 1 to 20; the higher the score, the better you are, and your roll adds it directly to the d20.
| Attribute | Kind | What it does |
|---|
| Might | Physical | Raw force, physical power, direct impact |
| Agility | Physical | Speed, reflex, coordination, mobility |
| Endurance | Physical | Durability, stamina, toughness, resistance |
| Intellect | Mental | Reasoning, knowledge, analysis, problem solving |
| Awareness | Mental | Perception, instinct, reading a room |
| Willpower | Mental | Discipline, mental resistance, spiritual grit |
| Presence | Social | Influence, charisma, intimidation, social force |
| Technique | Special | Training quality, precision, control, mastery |
| Power | Special | Supernatural force, extraordinary output, advanced magic |
What you spend: the five resources
Your character carries five pools that answer "how much can you take, and how much can you spend?"
| Resource | Shape | What it means |
|---|
| Health | Bar | Physical survival. At zero you are down and incapacitated — death is not automatic; it comes only through the fiction and your choices. |
| Energy | Bar | Effort, mana, stamina, focus. Abilities cost Energy; with none left, you cannot pay for them. |
| Guard | Stepper | Armor, cover, composure — a buffer. When it breaks, pressure starts landing on Health. |
| Stress | Boxes | Mental and spiritual strain that fills upward. At maximum, something breaks — the world's overload consequence. |
| Resolve | Dots | A small reserve of determination, luck, and dramatic effort. Spend it to refuse a bad turn. |
Some callings add pools of their own. The Adventurer Foundation — the starting package most adventurers take — grants Grit, a reserve of three points spent to push through danger, exhaustion, or a failed first attempt, restored by meaningful rest or a decisive act. On a fresh sheet, these numbers are small and precious, not decorative.
Recovery is not automatic. Each pool restores by its own rule: a scene ending does not erase wounds or wash away stress. Rest, treatment, safety, and support heal you — or they do not, if the fiction says so.
Conditions
Harm leaves marks. The conditions a character can carry:
| Condition | Meaning |
|---|
| Injured | Meaningful harm requiring attention |
| Exhausted | Severe fatigue until meaningful rest |
| Unstable | A volatile state that may worsen |
| Recovering | Improving, not yet restored |
| Transformed | An alternate state granted by some power or pact |
Know your weight class
Power in Eldran runs in bands: Grounded, Exceptional, Major, World-Class, and Mythic. A Grounded fighter can hold a bridge; a Mythic being can rewrite what a region believes. Danger runs in matching bands — Minor, Serious, Severe, Critical, Existential — so you always know roughly what you are walking toward.
The world is not scaled to you. Some doors open only for the strong, and some monsters exist to be run from. Retreat is always a legal move; the dead have no second drafts.
A sheet in the wild
Take <@faln-stirme.character>, a novice warrior of the Adventurer's Guild of Gadresh: attributes clustered between 10 and 15, small pools — 8 Health, 22 Energy, 12 Guard — three Resolve, and two Grit left after a hard first contract. That is the shape of a beginning adventurer: everything is small, everything matters, and a single good decision or well-told swing can change a scene.
The rest of this book shows you how to build that sheet, what it becomes as you grow, what your abilities and techniques cost, how combat actually runs, and how the world pushes back. Start with your character — that is next.