Welcome to Root and Stem

Root and Stem is a tabletop roleplaying game about growth — about a fragile seed of a character who, over a very long life, can climb all the way to godhood. The hard level cap is 300, and the road between a level-1 seedling and a reality-bending deity is wide open. If you can pick a die and read a result, you can play.

The heart of the game is a single, elegant idea: graduated dice. Whenever your character attempts something with real chance and consequence, you roll one die chosen from d4 all the way up to d100. The better your odds, the bigger the die — so a seasoned adventurer rolls a d100 while a long shot flails with a d4. Every roll is graded on a five-tier scale, from a fumbled Critical Failure up through a clean Success to a glorious Critical Success called an Apex.

Who you are is written in six Root Stats — Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. From those roots grow six derived Stem Modifiers, the aptitudes that feed your odds. That layered design is the whole reason the game is called Root and Stem.

Beneath every roll hums a deeper tension: Creation versus Entropy. Creation is growth, healing, and learning; Entropy is decay, injury, and fatigue. A shifting meter called Grace tracks that balance from session to session, and learning to manage it is what separates a flourishing hero from a grinding, worn-down one.

And everything — you, the ground you stand on, even a humble pebble — is woven through with Magicules, the First Primal Element. Magicules are the fabric of existence, holding the secrets of time and space and balancing Creation against Entropy. In dense concentrations they wake into spendable Mana, and that is where magic begins.

What comes next

This book walks you through playing from your first character to your first god-tier ambition:

• Making a Character — spend your starting points across the six Root Stats and bring a hero to life.
• Rolling the Dice — learn the graduated-dice system, the five tiers, Grace, and how every creature and object in the world is classed and tiered.
• Combat — hit points, defense, the attack roll, wounds, and reckless actions.
• Feats and Advancement — spend XP to raise stats and skills, and earn Forge Points at high level.
• Gear — the weapons, armor, and items you'll carry, and how they're classified in the world.
• At the Table — luck saves, Hero Points, and the social contract that keeps a session fun.

For the full letter of the rules, the Root and Stem rule files are the authority — start with the Core and The Roll chapter, then the Stats and Modifiers chapter. Welcome to the garden. Go grow something.