Fifth Edition Conversion Pack

For the setting-level play philosophy this conversion is intended to preserve, see How Mar de Oro Plays.

Using the Conversion

The rules exist to make danger legible, choices meaningful, and consequences credible.

Core principle

Mar de Oro is built around credible danger, meaningful agency, predictable stakes, and consequences that follow the fiction. The GM runs a living world. The players control their characters. Factions pursue goals, armies move, ships sail, resources diminish, weather changes, and Fortera conditions develop whether the characters are watching or not. The world acts. The players react. The players act. The world reacts.

Player agency

The GM’s first responsibility is preserving meaningful player choice. Prepare situations rather than outcomes. Know who wants something, what resources they possess, what they know, what changes if nobody intervenes, and what pressures are already moving.

When a danger would reasonably reveal itself, show signs of it. Players may investigate, prepare, retreat, negotiate, exploit, ignore, or confront it. Once the warning exists, the world does not soften because they chose badly.

The play loop

1. The world acts.
2. Establish what the characters perceive, know, or can reasonably infer.
3. The players react and choose an approach.
4. Resolve genuine uncertainty with the appropriate mechanic.
5. Apply consequences.
6. The world reacts.
7. Time moves and pressures develop.
8. Ask again: what do you do?

Fiction first. Resolution second. Consequence third.

When to roll

Roll when success and failure are both plausible, the outcome matters, and uncertainty can change the situation. If the fiction already establishes the result, apply that result.

Clocks

Clocks show developing situations. They can represent reinforcements arriving, a flank collapsing, pursuit closing, a Battery ranging, a bridge failing, a Source destabilizing, or a faction finishing an operation. A clock follows the fiction. Characters can slow, accelerate, reverse, redirect, transform, or remove it by changing the underlying situation.

Warning and consequence

A warning need not reveal the whole truth. It must make the danger discoverable. A rising gauge, a strange scent, powder smoke, displaced animals, a missed signal, or a ranging impact can all create meaningful information without explaining the answer. Give the warning. Let the players choose. Respect the consequence.

Characters, Danger, and Surprise

High-level capability does not erase physical vulnerability.

Levels and classes

Use the full fifth-edition level range from 1 through 20, and all classes are available. Spellcasting and supernatural class abilities are interpreted as different traditions of interaction with Fortera, and their explanations may disagree.

Playable peoples

Use normal fifth-edition playable peoples unless a specific Mar de Oro conversion says otherwise. Playable peoples are integrated throughout Aeon’s societies. Species does not determine nationality, culture, religion, language, profession, allegiance, morality, or class.

Hit Points

Normal HP represents physical endurance together with readiness, defensive skill, reactions, positioning, stamina, anticipation, and luck. A powerful character can survive far more pressure than an inexperienced character while remaining physically mortal.

Core HP

Record Core HP once: Core HP = the character’s maximum HP at 1st level.

Core HP is not a second healing pool. It is used only during a genuine opening ambush before the character can bring the defenses represented by normal HP into play. If Core HP reaches 0, the creature falls to 0 HP and uses the normal rules for unconsciousness and death. Core HP replaces normal HP against qualifying damage; the damage is not applied to both pools.

Surprise

Use the normal fifth-edition Surprise procedure; there is no surprise round. A creature that begins combat Surprised uses Core HP against attacks and damaging effects belonging to the prepared opening ambush until that creature takes its first turn. Attackers participating in the same coordinated ambush who act before the Surprised creature’s first turn resolve their qualifying damage against Core HP.

Once the creature takes its first turn, normal current HP resumes and Core HP is no longer used for that combat. Hiding during established combat, attacking from behind, or flanking does not reactivate Core HP. Surprise happens at the opening of combat. Positioning happens inside combat.

Example: Caught on the Road

Elena, Mateo, Sofia, and Tomas are travelling along a narrow road between old stone walls. They have already passed a broken milestone and an abandoned cart. Earlier, the GM mentioned that the road ahead had gone strangely quiet and that fresh boot marks disappeared behind the wall. The group noticed neither clue and continued.

Six armed men are waiting for them.

Two lie behind the wall with muskets. Two are concealed among the rocks above the road. The last pair wait farther ahead, covering the route the characters are most likely to use if they run.

The GM determines Surprise using the normal fifth-edition procedure. All four characters begin combat Surprised.

• Elena normally has 37 HP. Her Core HP is 10.
• Mateo has 31 HP and 12 Core HP.
• Sofia has 28 HP and 9 Core HP.
• Tomas has 42 HP and 11 Core HP.

Initiative is rolled.

One of the ambushers acts first. He rises behind the wall and fires at Elena. The shot deals 8 damage. Elena has not yet taken her first turn, so the attack resolves against her Core HP. She has 2 Core HP remaining.

A moment later Elena’s place in initiative arrives. She has now taken her first turn. Her Core HP window closes. She survived the opening shot. Her ordinary 37 HP now represents her ability to react, move, use cover, anticipate further attacks, and defend herself through the rest of the fight. The 8 damage dealt against Core HP is not also removed from those 37 HP.

Another ambusher fires at her. This time the attack uses Elena’s normal HP. It deals 9 damage, reducing her from 37 HP to 28.

Across the road, Mateo has not yet taken his first turn. A second musket fires. The shot deals 7 damage. Mateo has 12 Core HP, so he survives with 5 Core HP remaining. Then Mateo’s turn arrives. His Core HP window closes. He continues the fight with his normal 31 HP.

Sofia is luckier. Her initiative arrives before any ambusher manages to attack her. She began combat Surprised, but nobody exploited that vulnerability before her first turn. Her Core HP is never used.

Tomas is not so fortunate. Before his initiative arrives, one of the men above the road fires down at him. The musket deals 13 damage. Tomas has 11 Core HP. The shot is enough to overcome his physical vulnerability before he can bring his normal combat defenses into play. Tomas falls immediately to 0 HP. His 42 normal HP never become relevant to that attack.

The remaining ambushers act later in initiative. By then Elena, Mateo, and Sofia have all taken their first turns. Any attacks against them now use normal HP. The ambush is still happening. The special Core HP window is not.

What happened

The ambushers did not receive a free round. Each Surprised character had an individual vulnerability window that lasted only until that character took their first turn. Elena was hit during that window and survived it. Mateo was hit and survived it. Sofia reached her turn before anyone exploited it. Tomas was hit hard enough to fall before his turn arrived. Initiative determined how long each character remained exposed.

Using deadly creatures correctly

A Moon-Affected ambush is near-certain to drop a low-level character. This is intended. It is also why deadly creatures must be deployed deliberately rather than improvised.

The incorrect use

Springing a deadly creature on the party without meaningful warning and letting the opening dice decide can remove a player’s agency at the exact moment they would most want it. Under Core HP, a Multiattack creature focusing one unprepared low-level character may drop them before they take a turn.

The correct use

Before running a deliberately deadly ambush, know what happens if the characters are caught. Simulate the dangerous case and give real clues they can act on:

• an unfamiliar scent or pressure change
• restricted movement or a suspicious route
• tracks, damaged surroundings, or missing animals
• Fortera or resonance signs
• a witness warning
• silence where there should be sound
• another creature-specific tell

If the party notices the signs, they can investigate, prepare, retreat, create defenses, or knowingly accept the risk. If they miss or ignore those signs, the ambush remains real.

Design the fall

A deadly encounter should have a playable failure state. Defeat can mean unconsciousness, capture, separation, injury, loss of equipment, the creature achieving its objective and leaving, an ally intervening at a cost, or another consequence established by the fiction.

This does not protect the party from losing badly. It prevents an intentionally lethal encounter from accidentally becoming the end of play merely because the GM never considered what defeat would mean. Simulate the threat. Give the warning. Design the fall. Then run it.

Death and catastrophic injury

Use normal death saves. When survival remains physically plausible, a character who would otherwise die may instead suffer a catastrophic injury appropriate to the event, such as a lost limb, lost eye, severe organ damage, or neurological injury.

Ordinary medicine can stabilize and rehabilitate such injuries. Exceptional Fortera may eventually restore physical destruction. Some events are simply fatal when survival makes no physical sense.

Physical protection

1. Can the attack reach the target?
2. Can it physically affect the target?
3. What physical layer is actually being struck?

An intact frigate hull prevents a pistol from damaging internal machinery. The sailor standing on that frigate remains vulnerable. A creature may have hide too thick for meaningful musket damage while still having vulnerable eyes, wounds, or softer anatomy. Protection determines what can hurt something.

Fortera, Overdraw, and Embedding

Power is available. Pushing beyond safe capacity changes what it costs.

Fortera

Fortera is a physical feature of the setting. Ordinary class spellcasting represents established, stabilized methods of interacting with it. Safe ordinary casting causes no special Overdraw penalty.

Wish

Wish is unavailable. It cannot be learned, cast, researched into existence, reproduced, or embedded.

Overdraw

Overdraw is voluntary. It occurs when a character deliberately exceeds their safe capability.

Capacity is the highest effect, scale, or intensity safely achievable under current conditions. For spells, each spell level above the highest level the character can normally cast safely is one tier. Other workings use an equivalent increase in scope, effect, or intensity.

Ripple

Ripple is the area affected by the spell multiplied by the listed Ripple modifier. The modifier expands the spell’s affected area. It does not increase the spell’s damage, range, duration, save DC, or other numerical effects unless another rule specifically says so. Use the spell’s listed area dimensions when applying the modifier.

The original spell resolves normally inside its normal area. The expanded Ripple represents the surrounding Fortera disturbance created by Overdraw.

Containment choices

Containment save: CON DC = 10 + 2 per tier over capacity.

On success, take half Strain. On failure, take full Strain and escalate the disturbance one severity step. Strain is Exhaustion HP and ignores armor and resistance.

Embedding

An eligible spellcaster can embed an appropriate spell or Fortera working into a physical object. Choose an Embedding Depth from 1 up to the caster’s character level.

Depth controls longevity rather than spell level. If the effect exceeds safe capacity, resolve Overdraw separately.

The appropriate spell slot is expended once when the ritual completes, then recovers normally. The slot is not committed for the item’s useful life.

Embedded ammunition resolves the physical projectile and the embedded Fortera effect separately.

Enchantment

No Fortera object is intrinsically permanent. Long-lived artifacts are embeddings whose decay has been slowed, stabilized, maintained, or repeatedly tuned for extraordinary periods.

This makes trained practitioners, infrastructure, workshops, arsenals, and shipboard maintenance strategically important.

Resonance Tuning

Resonance Tuning is a 2nd-level spell. It preserves embeddings and maintains calibrated Fortera systems.

You establish a stable resonant reference in an existing Fortera embedding or calibrated Fortera/Éterlumin system. Choose one use when you cast the spell.

Preserve Embedding

Choose one object containing an active embedded Fortera working. For the duration, the embedding’s remaining useful life does not decrease. When the tuning ends, degradation resumes from exactly where it stopped.

An embedding with 3 days of useful life remaining that receives 8 days of Resonance Tuning still has 3 days remaining when the 8-day tuning ends.

Resonance Tuning cannot restore an expired embedding, restore a consumed embedded effect, replenish charges, or extend the ordinary duration of a spell or class feature.

Multiple tunings on the same target do not stack. A new casting replaces the previous tuning period. Repeated tuning can preserve an embedding indefinitely as long as practitioners continue spending the required time and spell slots.

Calibrate System

Choose one physically serviceable Fortera or Éterlumin component or coherent system. Resonance Tuning corrects ordinary resonant drift and establishes a stable reference for the duration.

• resonators
• regulators
• Fortera instruments
• lift-bank references
• Éterlumin control systems
• embedded ship equipment
• interconnected components that must remain synchronized
• laboratory and engineering apparatus

If miscalibration is the only problem, the spell restores normal calibration. If the system is physically damaged, incomplete, or dangerously unstable, the spell can establish the stable reference necessary for engineering work but does not perform the repair itself.

Resonance Tuning does not restore Hull or subsystem HP, replace broken or missing components, replenish consumed Éterlumin, erase a Dead Zone or Collapse Zone, or reverse physical damage already caused by a failure.

Aboard ships

Shipboard Fortera practitioners use Resonance Tuning to maintain resonators, regulators, instruments, embedded equipment, lift references, and other systems whose operation depends on components remaining in agreement.

Because Éterlumin Reserve partly represents calibration and operational availability, tuning can restore usability lost solely through miscalibration. It does not create Éterlumin or restore Reserve lost through actual consumption, leakage, or destruction.

Resonance Tuning and Overdraw

Resonance Tuning is the only standard spell whose failed Overdraw can automatically produce Catastrophic Tuning Failure.

When the scale, complexity, instability, damage state, or required precision exceeds the caster’s safe tuning capacity, determine Overdraw tiers normally and use the standard containment save.

On a successful containment save, the tuning takes hold and normal Overdraw consequences apply.

On a failed containment save, the caster may Ground the Working and abandon the tuning. The target avoids catastrophic failure.

If the caster instead forces the failed tuning to completion, the target suffers Catastrophic Tuning Failure in addition to the normal Overdraw consequences.

Catastrophic Tuning Failure

• an embedding loses all remaining useful life
• a resonator ruptures
• an instrument becomes unusable until repaired and recalibrated
• a regulator falls violently out of agreement
• a lift bank loses its reference
• usable Éterlumin Reserve is suddenly lost
• a pressure or containment event occurs
• failure propagates into physically connected systems when the fiction supports it

Catastrophic failure is proportional to the target and attempted tuning. A failed tuning of one component does not automatically destroy an entire vessel unless the physical chain of failure genuinely warrants it.

Spell Knowledge and Resurrection

Fortera is knowledge, practice, infrastructure, and risk.

Spell knowledge

Spells are learned knowledge. Established campaign spells are Stabilized Workings. They may be taught through academies, laboratories, military institutions, religious institutions, tutors, apprenticeships, manuscripts, research societies, or performance traditions.

Newly developed spells are Frontier Workings until they become sufficiently reproducible to teach and document reliably. The exact custom-spell research timetable is intentionally left outside this conversion pack.

Fortera logistics

Embedding and Resonance Tuning make time, trained practitioners, workshops, and institutions strategic resources. Many lower-level casters working in parallel can maintain munitions, signals, medical tools, engineering implements, and ship systems.

A vessel fresh from an arsenal can therefore be more dangerous than the same vessel after weeks at sea. Preservation consumes practitioner time and spell slots even when the object itself remains unchanged.

Resurrection

Resurrection can restore life, but it cannot guarantee continuity.

If Soul Shattering occurs, the returned person may be altered in body, apparent age, memory, personality, temperament, identity, or some narrower aspect of the self. Determine the change narratively from the death, resurrection, character, and campaign.

The truth of what happened may remain uncertain. The player retains authorship over how their character understands and responds to the change.

High-level power

High-level Fortera users are rare strategic individuals. States remain dangerous through armies, fleets, Batteries, fortifications, arsenals, infrastructure, intelligence, and many practitioners working in parallel.

Fame creates counterplay. Once rivals understand an individual’s identity, techniques, habits, allies, and location, they can prepare intelligence operations, specialist opposition, artillery, Fortera munitions, ambushes, or peer-level rivals.

Creatures that sense Fortera directly react to workings cast near them; see creatures and phenomena.

Creatures and Phenomena

Every creature in Mar de Oro resolves at Personal Scale. The stat block describes force; understanding changes what else is possible.

Universal creature rule

All creatures in Mar de Oro are resolved at Personal Scale regardless of physical size.

Use normal fifth-edition concepts for AC, HP, movement, ability scores, saves, conditions, actions, reactions, occupied space, reach, and senses. A creature’s physical size changes its footprint, reach, protection, and area of effect. It does not create another creature scale.

Creature entries use XP as an advancement reward. They do not use Challenge Rating. Practical lethality is assessed separately through simulation and play.

Creature design principle

Moon-Affected

Moon-Affected are people whose bodies have become unusually resonant with Fortera. Their transformation can be triggered by lunar resonance, proximity to a strong Source, source-zone changes, Dead or Collapse Zones, unstable Éterlumin, major Fortera workings, or violent correction events.

The person remains present. The altered state creates an intense urge whose expression depends on the individual rather than a universal bloodlust.

Control

When significant Fortera pressure genuinely matters, an unmastered Moon-Affected makes WIS DC 15. On a failure, transformation begins.

The Urge

Each important Moon-Affected has an individual transformed urge, such as pursuit, protection, escape, silence, return, fixation, investigation, or destruction.

When an unmastered transformed Moon-Affected encounters a powerful trigger for that urge, it makes WIS DC 15. On a success it acts normally. On a failure it must act toward the urge that turn. The objective is compelled; the exact means remain as free as the character’s condition allows.

Human Trace

Important Moon-Affected retain meaningful Human Traces, such as a person, name, song, duty, place, object, signal, ship, or habit. A character who meaningfully invokes one may use an Action to grant another Control save with Advantage. Success creates a moment of control, not automatic pacification.

Mastery

A mastered Moon-Affected may enter or leave the transformed state as a Bonus Action, retains the individual’s normal mental abilities, and chooses how to respond to Resonance Sense. Mastery gives control over the response; it does not make the person immune to extraordinary Fortera conditions.

Read the creature lore →

Source Beast

A Source Beast is an intelligent, persistent Fortera correction entity. It forms when an unresolved contradiction acquires a physical body.

Once manifested, the Beast can travel independently. It may become resonantly fixated on people who became part of the unresolved disturbance and follow them far from the original Source.

It is neither good nor evil. It can understand that someone is innocent and still injure or kill them if they obstruct what it considers necessary correction. It observes, remembers, learns, recognizes individuals, changes tactics, and understands deception.

Its physical body is real and can be destroyed. Destroying a manifestation ends the immediate threat but does not permanently resolve the entity. If the underlying contradiction remains unresolved, the Beast can reform.

Force can create further dissonance. Later manifestations may adapt physically to methods previously used against them.

As characters understand the disturbance, Fortera, and their own resonance, communication, coexistence, or cooperation can become possible. Understanding does not guarantee agreement.

Manifestation Collapse

At 0 HP, the current body collapses and the immediate encounter ends. If the underlying contradiction remains unresolved, the Beast reforms after an interval appropriate to the fiction, and not necessarily at the original Source.

Force raises the Correction Level

Any destruction by force raises the Correction Level by 1. This is not limited to the party. A garrison that shells it, a navy that drives it off, a rival that cuts it down, or another creature that destroys its body all raise the Correction Level exactly as the party would, because each is force applied to the contradiction instead of resolution. A Source Beast may therefore enter play already high on the Correction Level, hardened by years of being killed by people who only ever treated it as a monster. Its strength is a record of how long the world has refused to understand it.

Each rise grants the next manifestation two things. A general hardening: +15 HP and +2 to the damage of one attack, a body braced against destruction. And an adaptation keyed to how it was last put down: resistance to the damage type that harmed it most, or +2 AC against the tactic used against it, or advantage on saves against the condition used to control it. A Beast beaten with fire returns shrugging off fire. A Beast held and cut apart returns hard to hold.

Each rise also makes the Beast more legible. On its return it is more agitated and more expressive, and the GM reveals one further true detail about the contradiction it is trying to correct. Force makes it harder to kill and, in the same motion, easier to understand.

Understanding

There is no universal Persuasion roll that pacifies the Beast. A character who discovers something genuinely true about the unresolved contradiction can alter the Beast’s understanding. It may hesitate, observe, permit approach, follow rather than pursue, communicate, redirect its attention, coexist, or cooperate.

Progress reverses the Correction Level. When the party learns something genuinely true about the contradiction, demonstrates a more coherent correction, or partially addresses the root, lower the Correction Level by 1. The most recent adaptation peels away first, then earlier ones, then the general hardening, in reverse order of how they were gained. The returning manifestation is visibly calmer: seams settling, movement less violent, correction easing. This is the party’s clearest signal that they are right.

Because any force raises the level, other actors can undo the party’s progress. If the party gains ground and a navy then shells the next manifestation, the Correction Level climbs again. Keeping progress may mean protecting the Beast from those who would simply kill it, defending the monster from the army, because every destruction sets the work back.

The Correction Level does not fall below 0. A Beast reduced to baseline through understanding does not become a weak animal. The next step is resolution: with the contradiction answered, the Beast stops manifesting, or returns willing to communicate, coexist, or cooperate rather than correct.

The Beast is therefore a feedback instrument. A manifestation that returns tougher and armored against the party’s methods means force is failing. A manifestation that returns calmer and less adapted means understanding is working. The players learn how to end the Beast by watching how it changes.

Repeatedly destroying the same manifestation without making meaningful new progress does not automatically award XP again.

Read the creature lore →

Blackwake Ray

Blackwake Rays are enormous flying animals drawn to heat, vibration, and pressure discharge. Violence can turn an inconvenient attachment into a ship crisis.

Calming the Ray

If the crew spends two consecutive rounds reducing output, extinguishing unnecessary heat, and descending gradually without injuring the Ray, it normally releases the vessel once the attracting stimulus diminishes.

Read the creature lore →

Drowned Choir

A Drowned Choir is a colonial marine organism that stores vibration and later reproduces sounds captured around wrecks. Its voices are records, not invented illusions.

Tendrils

A creature entering or beginning its turn within the Choir must succeed on DC 13 Strength or become Restrained. A Restrained creature can use an Action to escape with DC 13 Athletics. Violent struggling can cause 3 (1d6) bludgeoning damage as the tendrils tighten.

Read the creature lore →

Hushmoth Swarm

Hushmoth wing powder interferes with pressure and vibration. Their danger is what stops working around them.

Counterplay

Ventilation and damp cloth screens can disperse the powder without needing to kill the swarm. An appropriate successful Action can reduce the Field by 10 feet; at 0 feet the interference ends even if living moths remain.

Read the creature lore →

Bellmouth

Bellmouths are blind amphibians that can reproduce complex pressure patterns after hearing them once. They do not understand what the signal means.

Read the creature lore →

The Last Crew

The Last Crew is a retained coordinated pattern of a vessel’s final emergency, not a conventional ghost.

Stat linePhenomenon. No HP. XP 700.

Create the sequence

Write three to six actions from the vessel’s final emergency. One action is incomplete or missing. The Last Crew repeats the sequence.

Observation

A character who watches one complete loop has Advantage on Investigation or another appropriate check, normally DC 13, to reconstruct what happened.

Assigned Role

A character who interrupts the sequence makes WIS DC 14. On a failure, the retained pattern places overwhelming pressure on the character to perform the missing action. They have Disadvantage on actions directly opposing the pattern until the end of their next turn, but retain agency.

Resolution

Correctly completing, answering, or changing the unfinished action can alter or resolve the phenomenon. Attacking the translucent figures does not solve the retained sequence.

Read the phenomenon lore →

Reef Shepherd

Reef Shepherds are immense, normally peaceful marine animals whose armored backs can support entire ecosystems. Their defensive movement changes the surrounding sea.

Defensive Movement

After suffering 30 or more damage in one round, the Shepherd normally attempts to move away, dive, roll, or alter the surrounding water rather than selecting individual attackers to kill.

Read the creature lore →

Roadback

Roadbacks are heavily plated animals with poor eyesight and exceptional sensitivity to deep vibration. Their movement can reveal underground changes before people understand them.

A herd is simply multiple Roadbacks responding to the same deep disturbance.

Read the creature lore →

Rain Saint

Rain Saints form when heavy rain passes through disturbed Fortera memory. They repeat retained human actions and can transmit sensory fragments.

Stat linePhenomenon. No HP. XP 300.

Pattern

Choose two to four repeated actions, such as walking to a door, holding out an absent object, carrying an unseen weight, or waiting beneath a window.

Touch

Touching a Rain Saint transmits a retained sensory fragment. WIS DC 13. On success, the character experiences the fragment while retaining focus. On failure, the memory overwhelms unrelated perception until the beginning of the character’s next turn.

Pattern interference

Supplying a matching name, object, gesture, or missing action may change the sequence. Deliberately opposing the repeated pattern can make the phenomenon attempt to repeat through the living character, but the character remains free to resist. The Saint disappears when the supporting rain ends.

Read the phenomenon lore →

Keel Leech

Keel Leeches are armored vessel parasites attracted to heat, vibration, pressure discharge, Éterlumin leakage, and stable lift patterns. Mature specimens store pressure.

Read the creature lore →

Borrowed Tide

The Borrowed Tide is a colony that grows around rope, cloth, branches, bones, wreckage, and other structure. Human-shaped debris can make it resemble a survivor.

Coverage

A creature entering or beginning its turn inside the colony makes DEX DC 14. On a failure, gain one Coverage level, maximum 3.

A creature can use an Action to remove one Coverage level with DC 14 Athletics or another appropriate physical method.

Read the creature lore →

GM Quick Reference

The shortest path from fiction to mechanics.

Core loop

• The world acts. Establish what the characters perceive.
• The players react and choose an approach.
• Resolve genuine uncertainty. Apply consequences.
• The world reacts. Time moves. Ask again: what do you do?

Danger

• Give the warning. Let the players choose. Respect the consequence.
• Core HP = maximum HP at 1st level, used only in the opening ambush window.
• Core HP ends when that character takes their first turn.
• Simulate the threat. Give the warning. Design the fall. Then run it.

Firearms

• Unarmored target: Advantage. Rigid metal or armor-like protection: +2 to hit. Do not stack those benefits.
• Proficient reload: Bonus Action. Natural 1: misfire.
• Aimed fire attacks a person; massed fire attacks occupied space.

Volley

• Minimum 3 shooters, 1d10 per complete two shooters.
• Damage save: DEX DC 12 + 1 per five shooters, maximum 18; success halves.
• Suppression: WIS against the same DC.
• More than half remaining HP lost to one Volley: WIS DC 12 or break.

Formations

• 1 Battlefield square = 10 yards.
• Green / Veteran / Elite: 10 / 20 / 30 HP per section. Standard Line: 3 sections.
• Formation Bonus: +2.
• Formation ranged damage: smoothbore 1d10 per surviving unengaged section; rifle 1d8 per surviving unengaged section.
• Suppressed: half Speed and Disadvantage on attacks. Square: all sides Front, cannot be flanked, Speed 0.

Artillery

• Artillery ranges are listed in feet. 30 ft = 10 yd = 1 Battlefield square.
• Battery AC 15, HP 30. Light 6d10; Field 8d12; Heavy/Siege 12d12.
• Range determines reach; observation determines engagement. A Battery attacks an area.

Ships

• Broadside is one complete vessel attack.
• Subsystem shares: Hull 35, Rigging/Lift 20, Weapons 20, Crew 15, Command 10 percent.
• Track Éterlumin Reserve separately. Damage, depletion, and miscalibration are different problems.

Fortera

• Safe ordinary casting does not Overdraw. Overdraw DC = 10 + 2 per tier over capacity.
• Success: half Strain. Failure: full Strain and disturbance escalates.

Creatures

• All creatures resolve at Personal Scale, whatever their size.
• The stat block tells you what happens when force is used; understanding changes what else is possible.