First Steps — Choose Your Build
Before you make a character, your table picks one build. This choice sets how powerful people can get and which formulas your game uses. Pick it once, then delete or ignore the other two so every sheet matches.
The three builds
Immersion — play as written. This is how Nephibis currently works. Baseline humans cap at 20, mutants and nanos grow without limit, demons and angels climb through stages. Power gaps are huge on purpose: a street human with a pistol is a threat to another street human and a nuisance to an Omega. Choose Immersion if you want grounded streets and cosmic threats in the same world.
Grounded — everyone lives near baseline human. All species and types sit at a similar, grounded level close to what a baseline human is now. Stat caps still differ by species, type, and build — a tank caps CON higher, a mental type caps INT or WIS higher — but nobody runs away to godlike numbers. Balanced, gritty, defeatable. Bosses can be stronger, but a smart grounded party can still beat them. Choose Grounded for crime, survival, military, and street stories where tactics matter more than raw power.
Full Anime — everyone can go overpowered. Baseline humans included. Every species and type can climb to mutant and nano heights from the current game and beyond. Caps are high or removed across the board, and growth lets ordinary people reach superhuman tiers through play, gear, training, and breakthroughs. Choose Full Anime for shonen-scale fights where a determined human with the right training arc can stand beside a mutant.
Choose your tech level
Your table also picks how much hi-tech lives in your world. Same moment as the build vote, before anyone makes a character. This decides which species, types, gear, and rules are in play — a fantasy table should never trip over power cells and hacking kits.
Full Spectrum — everything stays (default). Chrome, AI, androids, frames, mechs, drones, hacking, energy weapons, corporate scrip, the whole toolbox. Play here if you want the complete Nephibis.
Fantasy — strip the chrome. Remove from play: the Cyborg type, Android and AI species, frames, mechs, drones, hacking kits, energy weapons, power cells, and digital money (scrip, Black Ledger transfers). Keep: melee, bows, armor, medicine, barter and coin, crafting, pets and mounts. Mutants read as bloodlines, nanos as alchemy or spirit-pacts, demons and angels as spirits — same stats, new skin. Your GM reskins the fiction; the formulas don't change.
Custom — cut your own list. Keep cybernetics but ban AI, keep guns but ban mechs, keep drones but ban space travel — whatever fits the world you're running. Write the banned list down where everyone can see it.
Removing tech never breaks the math: pools just go unused (no Energy pool without chrome, no hacking without the skill's tools), and starting gear comes from the surviving lists. If you change tech later, convert the whole table together — a cyborg in a fantasy world needs a rebuild, not a ruling.
How to choose
- Read the one-paragraph pitch for each build above out loud.
- Vote. Majority wins; the GM breaks ties.
- Pick your tech level the same way: Full Spectrum, Fantasy, or Custom (with the banned list written down).
- Delete the builds and tech you're not using from your copy. If you keep them around for reference, mark them clearly as not in play so no one builds a Full Anime cyborg for a Grounded fantasy table.
- Make characters using only the chosen build's caps and formulas (Chapter 2 onward tells you how — your GM will tell you which numbers changed) and only the allowed tech.
If you change your mind later, convert the whole table together. Do not mix builds at one table — a Full Anime human beside a Grounded mutant breaks every fight.
What changes between builds
- Stat caps. Immersion uses the printed caps. Grounded lowers every cap toward baseline-human range with variance by build. Full Anime raises or removes caps for everyone, including baseline humans.
- Formulas. Each build uses its own set. Grounded formulas keep HP, damage, and pools near what baseline humans have now. Full Anime formulas use the mutant and nano scale from the current game as the baseline for everyone. Your sheet math stays the same shape — only the inputs and caps change.
- Starting point. All builds start street-level: modest stats, modest gear, full resources. The difference is the ceiling, not the floor.
Growing without levels
Nephibis has no levels and no leveling up. Stats grow because of what you do — taking hits and eating hearty builds Constitution, running and sneaking builds Dexterity, hauling and climbing builds Strength, study and craft build Intelligence, and so on. Neglect, sickness, injury, or hostile powers can shrink stats. Your build is your history of play, held inside per-stat caps set by your chosen build, species, and type. Training, gear, and breakthroughs (like Omega) move caps — play moves stats toward them.
Offspring and legacy in brief
Children average their parents' stats for starting stats, with caps adjusted upward from that start so they can grow past their parents — except Omega God, which has no cap to pass on. Only mutants and nanos at Omega tier or higher pass enhanced caps and powers; a cyborg's chrome is not genetic, and a non-Omega nano parent passes a baseline child. If both parents hold Omega tiers, the child is born at the lower parent's tier with retroactive HP, Stamina, and cap bonuses applied. Power inheritance (fire, shadow, both, blended, new, or none) and looks follow the full Offspring rules your GM uses. When your character dies, you may take up one of their children as your new character — the world remembers your name, for good and ill.
Start with Chapter 2 when your table knows its build.