What This System Is For

Root and Stem is a base layer: a complete, playable graduated-dice engine with the setting deliberately stripped out. The intended workflow is clone, replace the examples, play. The rules, GM instructions, and core content all ship finished; your job as a builder is world content — characters, creatures, locations, lore, factions, and species — plus whatever mechanical extensions your setting needs.

Design commitments

Three decisions shape everything, and the content you build should respect them:

• One resolution mechanic. Every meaningful attempt in the game resolves through the same graduated Action Roll: pick a die from d4 up to d100 based on your Skill-to-Challenge Ratio, roll it, and read the result on a universal five-tier scale (Critical Failure, Failure, Partial Success, Success, Critical Success). New content should never introduce a second dice system. It should introduce new inputs to the one roll — gear bonuses, conditions, attunements. See the Core and The Roll chapter of the rules for the exact die bands and tiers.
• Stats are precious. A character begins with 15 points spread across six Root Stats, each capped at 6. That scarcity is the whole budget of the system. A single point in STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS, or CHA reshapes what a character can attempt and which die they roll, because stats feed the Stem Modifiers, the Skill-to-Challenge Ratio, and — through Proficiency — the floor of every roll. The fastest way to break Root and Stem is to hand out stat bonuses casually. Make a stat point earn its place.
• Build what the world needs. Root and Stem is genre-neutral because it describes the world with one universal Class & Tier system rather than a fixed list of classes or spell schools. Everything that exists — a hero, a goblin, a tree, a sword, a pebble — is a Character, Creature, Nature, or Object with a Tier from 0 to 10+. Build the pieces your setting calls for: creatures to fight, gear to find, locations to explore, lore to uncover, and fractions of the elemental and Magicule cosmology that powers its magic.

The cosmology is a content dial

Magic in Root and Stem runs on Magicules, the first primal element present in everything, which concentrates into spendable Mana for any being that becomes a Vessel. The Five Primal Elements and Six Higher Elements sit along a Creation–Entropy scale, with the Element of the Mind at the center. You don't have to flesh all of it out. A gritty low-fantasy setting can lean on a single element and a faint Magicule resonance; an epic one can map every attunement. Nothing else needs to change, which is why the equipment catalog spans fantasy, modern, cyberpunk, and sci-fi eras side by side.

The chapters that follow cover the workspace anatomy, then the things you'll build most: feats, creatures, and gear, and finally balancing and reskinning.