Builder's Manual · Chapter 1

WARBOUND Design Principles

WARBOUND is a custom d20 mecha game, not a fantasy system that merely wears a robot skin. The builder's job is to make sure every new entry supports the same gameplay loop: a pilot takes on a Job, risks their body and their SCAR, brings home whatever remains, then figures out what they can still pilot. Design readable decisions and lasting consequences, not a catalog of bonuses.

Design pillars

Material stakes. Credits, ammunition, fuel, repairs, food, O-Blockers, and faction reputation affect which Jobs the team can accept. Show costs to the players before they take a mission whenever those costs can be known.
Pilot and machine are separate. Track organic HP and SCAR HP separately. Medic abilities generally affect the pilot; Mechanic abilities generally affect the machine. Effects that cross that line must say so explicitly.
The machine feels real. SCARs are modular military hardware, not superheroes. Movement, weight, slots, range, reloads, and supplies matter. Powerful effects require action costs, limits, or explicit conditions.
No moral scoreboard. Every faction has interests, power, and a price tag; no bloc is automatically heroic. Choices change relationships, resources, or risk—they don't announce one correct answer.
Mysteries stay mysteries. Golems are dangerous and their origin is unknown. Do not establish a definitive origin. The Moon Bloc is deliberately undefined; do not fill that gap as if it were canon.

Maintain one rules language

If a mechanic already has a canonical rule, build on that rule instead of re-authoring it with a second formula. Checks use 1d20 plus the relevant stat against a DC, unless a specific entry says otherwise. Combat follows the canonical attack result tables; DEF is the threshold to be hit, not a damage reduction. An item's effects, cost, compatibility, and requirements are set on its item profile.

If entries conflict, follow the project's stated priority: canonical combat rules govern combat resolution; item profiles govern item data exactly; chassis and role rules govern the named abilities. Newer explicit rules override older summaries. Current combat canon states that a SCAR at 0 HP is destroyed and ejects its pilot; do not repeat the old "frame disabled" phrasing as if it meant the same thing. If the rules don't cover a case, make a clear, limited ruling and flag it as a ruling—don't quietly let it become permanent canon.

Add, don't duplicate

Before writing a new rule, search the compendium for the relevant term, mechanic, ability, or item. If a detail applies universally, give it one authoritative home and refer to it by name elsewhere. Weapon profiles, for example, set damage and ammunition; a unique mission reward doesn't need to become a second universal reward table. Short summaries are useful for navigation, but mark them as summaries and don't let them override their primary source.

A useful entry answers three questions: what is true, what can the player or GM do with it, and what changes once the crew acts? If any of those is unanswered, clarify the entry before adding atmospheric prose. The following chapters lay out the project's conventions for rules, equipment, missions, and world content.

Manual updated Oct 19, 2026.

WARBOUND SRD (custom d20 mecha system, not D&D 5e)

WARBOUND

2120. Greed and a single blue mineral broke the world. Omegitium powers every city, every war and every SCAR combat rig, and it slowly turns the lungs of everyone who touches it to blue-grey stone: the Grey Plague. Nations have dissolved into economic blocs that fight over supply lines, not borders. Independent contract pilots, the Warbound, take the jobs nobody else will, paying every day for the pills that hold the Plague back. Victory is common. A clean one is not.

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CreatedOct 16, 2026

UpdatedOct 20, 2026

The Premise

An untitled world, still taking shape.

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Glimpses

Author's note

[Tone: dark, gritty, grounded military sci-fi. Front Mission realism with clear, readable mecha action (SCAR rigs are modular real-robot military machines, not superheroes). Violence has weight: damage is tracked, repairs cost money, and a destroyed SCAR forces the pilot out of the cockpit to fight with organic weapons only. The player characters are contract pilots, never chosen ones. Money and survival drive everyone, including the player. Track daily costs (O-Blockers, rations), mission fuel, repair bills and Grey Plague stacks. Never hand out easy victories: make the players count bullets, weigh Omegitium shards, and doubt every smiling NPC. The Grey Plague is a clock, not a villain. Skipping O-Blockers is a legitimate gamble with a visible price. Keep the hourglass in the players' lungs present in the fiction. Moral choices have no perfect solution; every option costs someone. Reputation is tracked per faction, and what helps one bloc hurts another. Use reputation conflict between team members as narrative tension. The world is run by corporate-state blocs, each with a real strength and a real rot. No bloc is the hero. Do not frame the players as saviors. Golems are dangerous and unexplained: do not invent a definitive origin for them. The most frightening Golem is the one that can still say a person's name. Avoid graphic sexual content; imply and move on.]

Inside the World

150 entries · 26 types

Characters

1 total

Factions

10 total

Game Master Instructions

1 total

Game Starts

1 total

Locations

11 total

Lore

9 total

Rules

35 total

WARBOUND Items

78 total