Start playing
Say what you want to do in ordinary language. The GM explains what happens and tells you any important cost or danger before you commit. You do not need to learn the rulebook first.
If you feel lost, ask: “Explain where I am, what I know, and what I can do next.” You should receive a direct answer, not another scene or a replay of the opening. Asking for an explanation takes no game time.
Find your starting life
Read the entry for the life you chose. Each opens on Day 1 at 8 a.m., called Rain 1 on the local calendar. A custom character has the same opportunities as the ready-made character; use your own name and background.
Three Days Before Dawn — a recovering school disciple. Mei has brought breakfast, and a qualification exam is three days away. Ask to see Healer Su or ask about the exam. The fuller Cloudfall guide below explains the injury, school and optional System.
Lanterns on the Freight Deck — a river apprentice. A loose boat bumps the landing, Lan invites you to rehearsal, and a paid three-day berth leaves tomorrow morning. Ask about the line, the voyage or a day ashore.
Ash Beneath the Fingernails — a working metalworker. Min brings breakfast, cracked ceramic samples and a rush commission. Compare the flawed and sound joints, negotiate the order or use the spare bench for a design of your own.
The Beast at the Village Gate — a forest guide and willing wolf partner. Saffron wants to investigate the nearby bank. Xue offers tea and separate paid fieldwork. Ask what Saffron wants, walk to the bank together or settle in for a village morning.
A Workshop on Wheels — a traveling artisan. Your cart is your workshop and sleeping nook. Ari offers six silver for a canopy repair by noon. Compare sewing with your charged mending tool, make a counteroffer or hear about the road over breakfast.
Before the Curtain Rises — a working actor. Ruyi wants to try two ways of welcoming a departing traveler. Choose either part for a free ten-minute rehearsal, ask about paid work or take the morning into town.
The Garden Above the Rain — an established gardener above the clouds. Your home and flowers are doing well. Deng brings seedlings, lunch plans and a small water-channel problem. Inspect the flow, tend your own beds or enjoy the company.
A Seal Without a Throne — a former ward mediator. Two genuine orders claim the same rice. Fan wants help negotiating a split for neighborhood meals; any change must be filed by 4 p.m. Talk through the options, ask about separate paid work or enjoy a private day.
These are starting situations, not chores you must finish. If you have already begun, continue from your current scene; this guide does not undo your choices.
If you chose Three Days Before Dawn
- Your place: Cloudfall is a martial school. Its labor disciples do everyday work while learning cultivation: training the body to use qi, the energy behind supernatural martial arts. The ready-made character is Lin Shen, an adult disciple with memories of another world. A custom character keeps the identity you chose.
- Your immediate problem: Your meridians, the channels that carry qi, are injured. You can walk and do gentle practice; forcing the flow hurts. Healer Su can examine you. You do not yet know the injury's full cause.
- The three days: The opening is Day 1 at 8 a.m. The qualification examination is Day 4 at 8 a.m. It offers a route to lessons and a better position in the school. It is not a survival deadline: you can ask for a later assessment, or pursue another life.
- The people beside you: Mei Lan is a fellow labor disciple who brings breakfast. Su is the healer in the infirmary. You do not need to remember the rest of the cast yet.
- The System, if you chose it: Think of it as an analytical assistant you can address mentally. Ask it to explain your condition or help you understand something you can examine. It can suggest tests; it does not know secrets merely because they exist in the setting.
A straightforward first move: “Ask Mei to take me to Healer Su.” Or read the breathing booklet beside your bed, ask about the exam, or choose something else. These are suggestions, not actions already taken. If you have already started playing, continue from your present scene; this guide does not move you back to bed.
Compare starting abilities
Choose a ready-made adult character or create your own within the selected opening's starting allowances. All eight lives use The Unwritten Path, the shared engine described in @Missing file. Roads Worth Sharing is edition 4. The quiet System is an optional part of the fiction, not a requirement to use the rules.
| Opening | Your foothold | Realm | Practice |
|---|
| Three Days Before Dawn | Cloudfall Labor Quarters; a disciple recovering before an examination | Mortal Tempering | Meridian Circulation |
| Lanterns on the Freight Deck | Nine Moorings Ward; a river apprentice with a berth to earn | Mortal Tempering | Meridian Circulation |
| Ash Beneath the Fingernails | Red Crucible Works; a journeyman maker with a workbench and rivals | Qi Condensation | Living Furnace |
| The Beast at the Village Gate | Resinbridge Village; a forest guide and a willing wolf companion | Qi Condensation | Spirit Accord |
| A Workshop on Wheels | Coppergrass Fair; an itinerant artisan with a workshop cart | Foundation Establishment | Array Core |
| Before the Curtain Rises | Reed Lantern Town; an experienced actor with cultivated stagecraft and small visual illusions | Foundation Establishment | Meridian Circulation |
| The Garden Above the Rain | Raincatcher Island; a gardener with a cottage and an interior landscape | Core Formation | Inner Landscape |
| A Seal Without a Throne | Jade Standard City; a former civic practitioner choosing a new purpose | Core Formation | Living Mandate |
The river opening is a gentle introduction. The forge and forest introduce one distinctive practice. The cart, theater, garden and civic openings offer established competence from the first scene. The Cloudfall opening retains the original transmigration premise and optional System mystery. Every opening has ordinary pleasures, a useful local connection, and several directions for a first session.
Make the protagonist yours
Choose name, appearance, pronouns, temperament and ambitions. The ready characters are adults; their voluntary choices remain yours. When creating a custom protagonist, use the starting life you selected in the lobby. Its profile sets your location, realm, resources, known methods, relationships and owned assets. Assign that profile's listed values to the four approaches below, using each listed value once; do not combine the wealth or techniques from several starts. Changing identity does not silently add a debt, injury, pet or vow.
| Approach | A method you can use |
|---|
| Body | Endurance, force, bodily control, carrying and holding |
| Finesse | Precision, movement, delicate craft, concealment and timing |
| Perception | Observation, analysis, diagnosis, navigation and comparison |
| Presence | Expression, persuasion, command, performance and social nerve |
The starting approach values are rank 0: 2,1,1,0; rank 1: 2,2,1,0; rank 2: 3,2,1,1; rank 3: 3,2,2,1. These are fixed starting packages for these openings, not automatic grants every time someone reaches that rank. Total action modifier remains capped at +3. Earlier accomplishments explain an experienced character's starting knowledge; they do not supply a second pile of unspent advancement proofs.
You can be a native or an adult newcomer from another world. You may choose the quiet System, a native instrument of comparable analytical capability, or ordinary senses and learning without an Interface. The quiet System and native instrument offer the same bounded expert comparison; neither makes materials, money, powers or certainty from nothing. With no Interface, you can still observe anything accessible, experiment, seek teachers and invent. Missing expert knowledge may require the appropriate study or help. An instrument is a personal analytical focus, not a second charged artifact to sell or a power source.
Read @Missing file for the six practices. A Dao path describes what you pursue; a cultivation system describes how you make power work. Neither is a class that forbids other interests. The starting practice can grow and cross-train through play.
For worked situations, read @Missing file. A life without an Interface advances through the same meaningful practice, tested research and integration described in @Missing file. You might learn from a teacher, test a method under a genuinely new condition, then integrate the proofs you actually earned. Repeating familiar work remains useful without awarding endless proofs. These are possibilities, not accomplishments already on your sheet; no mystery discovery or prescribed moral outlook is required.
Choose an outward ambition
You can seek an inheritance, enter a sword circuit, join an expedition, contend with a sovereign or found a school from your first chosen ambition. You do not have to finish a hometown chore sequence before pursuing it. Your selected life supplies real local contacts and outward invitations; accepting one still requires its actual journey and terms. Public roads, protected passenger berths and useful crew roles can carry ordinary bodies farther than their personal arts.
@Missing file connects the eight beginnings to inhabited horizons and secret realms, with actual routes and return choices. @Missing file follows six distinct careers through teachers, rivals, evidence, useful partial gains and lasting new faculties. @Missing file opens independent schools, fleets, sanctuaries and conflicts you can reshape rather than merely witness. These are possibilities, not accepted missions or powers already learned.
You can also stay, decline a patron or come home. The wider world should make a chosen life larger, not make its friendships and ordinary pleasures invalid.
Your first morning
All eight openings begin at Rain 1, 08:00, Lantern Reckoning 312, with no time yet elapsed. The world calendar is shared; traveling to a festival does not postpone it until you arrive. Except for Cloudfall, the openings begin healthy with 12 vitality, 12 qi and 0 strain. Only the Cloudfall opening begins at 10 vitality with recovering meridians, 2 silver, a patched robe, issued manual, Cloudfall Breathing and Reed-Cutting Form learned. That injury permits ordinary movement and safe practice; forced circulation or supernatural overreach adds 1 strain per committed demanding action until treated. Its examination is Rain 4 at 08:00, and missing it opens alternatives.
Say what you want in ordinary language. “Show me today's worthwhile work and a place to eat.” “I want to see what this array can do.” “Saffron and I go looking for the escaped goat.” Hear the situation, choose a method, and act. Routine sound actions work. Consequential uncertainty uses one actual roll with understandable stakes. An unfamiliar screen or catalogue entry need not become an obstacle in the fiction.
@Missing file remembers your game's time, choices and consequences. Your character records personal resources and belongings. Inspecting either passes no fictional time. @Missing file explains quick recaps, travel and downtime plans, local services, saved loadouts and companions. You can ask for a brisk montage or linger over a good conversation.
Recoverable defeat and asking before romance are the defaults. You can change tone and detail preferences as you play. Choose one immediate desire; a larger ambition can emerge later. A meal with someone interesting is already a valid first scene.
