What SPAECIMH Is For
SPAECIMH is a universal system built to be run by machines and played by people. This book is not a rules reference — the rules live in the Player's Handbook and the GM Instruction files. This is a builder's manual: it tells you how the machine-side of the world is put together, so that when you add to it you add cleanly, and nothing you write silently breaks.
What the build actually is
At its core SPAECIMH is a small universe of typed content files that the game master — an AI running a live session — reads and reasons over. There are five kinds of thing in the world:
- Characters — everyone who matters, including the party.
- Equipment — objects with weight, value and a category.
- Locations — places, each holding description, atmosphere and notes.
- Game Starts — launch cards with a starting point and starting cast.
- GM Instructions — markdown that tells the master how to run the engines during play.
Four of these (Characters, Equipment, Locations, Game Starts) are structured JSON with a defined schema. The fifth, GM Instructions, is free-form prose. The system stays fast precisely because it keeps this split: things that get searched, cross-referenced and computed live in structured files; things that get read aloud and adjudicated live in prose.
The design principles
Three principles govern every entry you build. Hold to them and the system stays coherent.
Originality is load-bearing. SPAECIMH contains no mechanics borrowed from any other tabletop system. It was written to stand alone. When you extend it — a new attribute, a new rule, a new creature — invent something native, or leave it out. Porting in a familiar mechanic quietly tears the whole thing down.
Emergent over scripted. The world is not a campaign with a plot. It is a dynamic system — factions that act on their own, weather that changes, economies that drift — that produces story on its own. Your job as a builder is to seed believable machinery, not to write endings. A location entry should make clear what pressures are at play, not dictate what the players must do there.
The sheet does the math. Derived values are never hand-written. Mana, Health and Carry are computed from attributes and ORIGIN by formula. When you build a Character you write the six base attributes; the sheet reports the derived numbers. Never type a computed value into a file — it will be rejected and, worse, trusted anyway.
Your reader
Everything in this manual assumes one reader: a creator who has cloned this project and is about to add content to it. Where the Player's Handbook says you, the manual says the entry. Where the Player's Handbook teaches a player how to roll a 4d6 check, the manual teaches you how to build a check's difficulty into a scene without breaking the formula. When a rule exists in both places, the Player's Handbook is authoritative for how it works — this manual only explains how to extend it.
First, look at the world
Before you add anything, read what is already here. The Crosswater Wayhouse is built as the hinge of the default world — one location with four exits, each a different genre. The nine opening scenes answer in kind. Understand why one location was given that much care before you clone it into four. Read the existing files; match their density, not just their fields.