Player's Handbook · Chapter 1

The Authoring Turn

Before a single die is rolled, the campaign opens fully out of character. For this one turn you are not the Commander pretending to be a person — you are the author of a country, deciding who your people are and why they walked through the door. No dice, no ledger, no narrator voice. Think of it as setting the terms of the story before the story begins.

This happens in two parts, both before the portal opens.

First, make the person

You build the Commander first, because the rest of the country will anchor to them. You answer, one or two questions at a time:

Name and rank — what people call you when giving orders.
Appearance and presence — what a room notices first.
Background — why you command: birth, election, appointment, mutiny, survival.
Personality and command style — how you lead, decide, and treat subordinates.
Ambitions — what you personally want beyond the mission. This is your private engine.
One real flaw — a weakness the world can bite.
Traits — two to five short color notes: Iron-willed, Distrusts priests, Old cavalryman. They never modify rolls; they shape how the world talks about you.
Loyalties — who back home you answer to or owe.

Everything on this card is locked doctrine. It survives the whole campaign unless you change it in play.

Then make the nation

Still out of character, you answer the eight questions of nationhood — the GM asks, one or two at a time, and the answers become the expedition's permanent sheet:

Identity — what is your expedition called, and what do its people nickname themselves?
Origin and era — what world did you come from, and what age is it? Then the tech tier: medieval, early gunpowder, industrial, or stranger. This door closes everything you can build or bring.
Standing order — the portal was always there and someone finally opened it. What is your order for the far side? Exactly one of: extermination, subjugation, trade, or uplift/alliance. This is posture toward the natives, and it sets the tone for everything after.
Reinforcement engine — how does home sustain you through a door that opens one day in seven? Either tribute (home demands resources each portal day and sends help on delivery) or public support (you are financed by political optics back home). There is no third option.
Divinity — do the gods actually answer here? Choosing yes means real interventions in both directions: miracles, demands, jealousy. Choosing no means faith is simply culture.
Patrons — name one to three people back home who are watching you. They will all eventually want something.
Strength — count your people. The exact number you state here is now true forever.
What you carried — what came through the convoys, and your opening supply levels.

When all eight are answered, the GM shows you the completed expedition as a single screen and says: this is who you are. Cross when ready. You are handed your personal gear from the expedition's stores, your command staff are drawn in beside you, and — still out of character — you stand at the threshold.

The world is yours to see

Just before the crossing, the GM asks you, plainly: "You step through first. Tell me — what do you see?" Talk freely: the genre, the landscape, the sky, the peoples, the magic, the dread. The GM writes all of it down, word for word, and never contradicts it. This world becomes canon from your first sentence, and everything else — every region, god, and native — has to fit inside what you just said.

Then, at last, the first crossing. A short in-universe scene. You are through, the world is dark and unknown, and the first order must be given. That is your cue to start being the Commander.

Manual updated Sep 16, 2026.

Modular Dimensional Portal: Expedition

Dimensional Portal: Expedition

A dice-driven, GM-guided expedition campaign. A single nation finds an ancient dimensional portal — always there, never opened by them — and a Commander leads the expedition through it into a strange fantasy world. Every action is resolved by a bare 1d100 and narrated honestly to its tier; the dice run the story, and the world grows under your boots. The ''modular'' stuff comes from the fact that you will create your faction, officers and the world itself in the first turns as OOC, it works, kinda.

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CreatedSep 13, 2026

UpdatedSep 16, 2026

A GM-guided 1d100 expedition campaign

You found the door. Now decide what your people do on the other side.

An expedition from a single homeworld polity stands before an ancient portal that was never meant for it — and marches through, alone with the far side for six days out of seven. You author the nation in an out-of-character opening turn: its identity, era, tech tier, its standing order toward the natives (exterminate, subjugate, trade, or uplift), how home sustains it across the portal, and whether the gods are real.

Then the dice take over. Every dawn opens with the morning briefing; every day holds exactly three plans; every action is a bare 1d100 resolved honestly to its tier — never modified, never softened. Catastrophes price real cost, successes hand back real bonuses, and supremacy means victory is guaranteed only the price negotiates itself. While you march, scout, prospect, and build, the portal opens for 24 hours each week, the world reacts to your footprint, and every death joins a strict census ledger.

The world is a clean, open map that you draw as the expedition proves ground — regions of land, areas within them, each file knowing everything while the player's scouts learn almost nothing. Somewhere beyond it all, what the player still doesn't know is where the campaign actually lives.

Glimpses

Author's note

A structured GM-played campaign for one player (through their Commander) run by a Game Master. The far side is a blank page: its genre, landscape, gods, and native peoples are co-created with the player in the opening turn, then carried forward as permanent canon.

Inside the World