Rules: Fortera

Native Rules

Fortera

Fortera is a physical field, engineered and studied. In the Native Rules it is a set of trained operations with real limits, not a spell list.

What Fortera is, mechanically

  • Fortera is a physical system, not magic. It never grants a result merely because an action resembles a spell.
  • Performing a Working requires Fortera Practice. The Fortera Skill alone represents analysis and understanding.
  • A Working that is opposed, strained, or attempted under pressure calls for a Fortera Test: 2d6 + Capability with Fortera, read on the normal bands.
  • Fortera Practice grants safe Capacity 2. Capacity is a safe ceiling, not a spendable pool; voluntarily exceeding it is Overdraw and carries its established cost.
  • Deep Reserve requires Fortera Practice and raises safe Capacity from 2 to 3.
  • Traditions differ in method, vocabulary, and discipline, not in physics. The same field answers all of them.

Fortera Practice

Fortera Practice is the trained permission to perform Workings. The Fortera Skill on its own represents analysis, reading signs, and understanding equipment; without Practice, a character can explain a Working but cannot perform one. Practice grants safe Capacity 2 and two starting Workings, using the existing Fortera Skill.

The Fortera Test

When a Working is opposed, strained, improvised under pressure, or attempted at the edge of a practitioner’s capacity, roll a Fortera Test: 2d6 + Capability with Fortera, read on the normal result bands, with Risk and Effect set as usual.

The 8 Workings

  • Sense

    What it does
    Detect Fortera, Sources, Éterlumin, resonance, disturbances, and physically detectable field responses.

  • Read

    What it does
    Interpret patterns, residue, or relationships present in an existing field or system. It does not reveal information that is not physically encoded there.

  • Tune

    What it does
    Restore agreement, rhythm, or calibration in an existing system. It may support living processes, but it does not recreate destroyed tissue or missing structure.

  • Redirect

    What it does
    Change an existing path of force, pressure, vibration, linked flow, or resonance.

  • Impel

    What it does
    Apply controlled force or motion to matter or a system.

  • Pattern

    What it does
    Impose temporary structured behaviour, timing, or response into existing matter, machinery, or living systems. Complex autonomous behaviour requires preparation or an extended Project.

  • Alter

    What it does
    Modify a bounded physical property, relationship, or living structure in something that already exists. Major anatomical reconfiguration is an extended Project or Source-scale effect, not a single improvised Working.

  • Echo

    What it does
    Reproduce or sustain a known physical pattern, signal, or behavioural trace when the fiction and available structure support it. It does not duplicate matter, knowledge, memory, or consciousness.

What can Fortera actually do?

  1. Can it respond? Ordinary objects usually can. Bleeding, breathing, circulation, pain, nerve activity and natural wound repair normally respond when the effect follows ordinary physiology. No separate Sense or response roll is needed. Use Sense only for an unusual, unknown response that matters; use Read when understanding the mechanism matters.
  2. Can it physically happen? Find the actual pathway, material, energy and structure. Fortera can regulate, rearrange, accelerate or redirect what exists. Knowledge, anatomy and missing mass still need a real source.
  3. Can you safely push it this far? Compare scale, speed, intensity, duration, precision and complexity with Capacity. Declare any Overdraw before rolling. More power cannot supply missing expertise, apparatus, time or a physical mechanism.

Choose the roll that answers the question

A Direct use applies one Working to an immediate physical problem. Technical work also needs tools or specialist knowledge. A Project combines systems, Workings or stages and needs time, materials, tools and expertise; use a Progress Clock only when uncertainty or pressure matters.

Roll once for the same uncertainty. If diagnosis or device design is the question, use Medicine or Engineering and let the Working provide permission or Setup. If field control is the question, roll Fortera. A later negotiation is a separate social question, even when Fortera has changed someone's physical state.

Quick calls at the table

  • Redirect a pressure line. Use its existing pressure path. Risk follows the rupture and your position; scale beyond Capacity needs declared Overdraw.
  • Sense residue; Echo a signal. Sense detects a physically present trace. Read interprets what is encoded there. Echo reproduces a known signal or pattern, rather than inventing information or duplicating its source.
  • Tune bleeding or breathing. Support the body's existing response. Standard Effect can remove Unstable when the Working addresses its cause; Broken remains. Healing support takes hours to days, with Medicine guiding diagnosis and treatment.
  • Calm panic. Tune can change stress physiology. Beliefs, memory, loyalty and consent remain the person's own; persuasion still uses the relevant social Skill.
  • Change a body or build a construct. Developmental changes take days to weeks; major growth takes weeks to months or longer, with real nutrition or supplied matter. An instantly regrown arm lacks an ordinary adult pathway. A cadaver construct needs a Project, body, apparatus and expertise; programmed movement does not restore the dead person's consciousness or sentience.
  • Alter a material or prepare a weapon. Alter can change a bounded existing property, but a direct Working cannot turn iron into gold or conjure matter. A large blast needs suitable stored energy, pressure or sufficient Capacity, and a sound device. Use normal attack, Harm, Cover and scale rules; violent one-use embeddings are consumed.
  • Meet a Source-scale phenomenon. Treat exceptional anomalies as threats, environmental or campaign problems. Their feats do not grant practitioner permission. Prolonged field exposure can change biological responsiveness and drive Moon-Affected growth over time, rather than instant transformation or transmission by bites or contact.

If the pathway cannot respond or the mechanism cannot work, explain what is missing and use No Effect. Fortera cannot read unencoded thoughts, predict the future or teleport past a missing physical route.

Native Rules, printed pp. 42–49. Longer examples remain in the PDF.

Capacity

Capacity is the safe ceiling for effect, scale, speed, intensity or duration, not a pool. Fortera Practice grants safe Capacity 2; Deep Reserve requires Practice and raises it to 3. A Working within Capacity spends no points. Greater Capacity supplies no missing matter, knowledge or permission outside a Working’s function.

  • 1

    Typical safe scale
    Delicate / local
    Examples
    Nearby disturbance, small device, light object or small existing force.

  • 2

    Typical safe scale
    Human / room
    Examples
    Person-sized system, brief human-scale force, complex subsystem or strong local pressure.

  • 3

    Typical safe scale
    Heavy / local structure
    Examples
    Several people, heavy mechanism, major Éterlumin subsystem or substantial flow.

  • 4

    Typical safe scale
    Vehicle / structure
    Examples
    Large machine, vehicle subsystem or significant structure. A Capacity-3 practitioner normally needs Overdraw, specialised apparatus or prepared conditions.

  • 5+

    Typical safe scale
    Major structure / Source scale
    Examples
    Ship-scale, major structural or Source-linked change. Normally team, apparatus, Source conditions or catastrophic Overdraw territory.

Context, resistance, preparation and available structure can shift the requirement one step. Use these as scale guides, rather than a lifting chart; the Working still decides which interaction is possible.

Native Rules, printed pp. 49–50.

Overdraw

The player voluntarily chooses to exceed safe Capacity. Establish the intended scale and known cost before rolling; Overdraw is not a point expenditure.

  • +1

    Consequence
    Mark Strained.

  • +2

    Consequence
    Mark Wounded and create a local Fortera disturbance or instability.

  • +3

    Consequence
    Risk Broken Harm and a Dead Zone or similarly serious field consequence.

  • +4 or more

    Consequence
    Catastrophic field consequence; exact results follow established fiction and scale.

Grounding changes field escalation, not any remaining personal Overdraw consequence. Controlled Overdraw changes only the personal consequence, not field consequences. The automatic field consequence starts at +2, not +1.

You can accept the strain, ground the Working, vent into an external system or resource where physically possible, or break the pattern with an established counter-rhythm, cutoff or grounding method. Deep Reserve and Controlled Overdraw can be combined; neither removes field consequences that still apply.

Embedding Fortera into items

Embedding binds a known Working into a physical object for later release or sustained use. You need Fortera Practice and the Working being embedded; knowing Pattern separately is not required.

At the table

  1. Choose a physically suitable object. Before work starts, define the Working, exact effect, physical target, trigger or activation method, and scale. This effect is fixed: the item cannot freely switch Workings or redirect unrelated relationships.
  2. Choose Depth within the routine limit below. Creation takes Depth days of work; once complete, natural useful life is also Depth days. Depth changes longevity, not power.
  3. Set the effect's required Capacity. Above safe Capacity, accept normal Overdraw once at completion, not daily and not on each activation.
  4. Complete the work. Interruptions extend the schedule without erasing valid completed days, unless the object or pattern is damaged. Stable workshop work within safe Capacity needs no automatic roll when there is no meaningful uncertainty. Roll Fortera for rushed, improvised, unstable, contested or otherwise uncertain work; Engineering can provide Setup for difficult physical integration.

  • Familiar (+0)

    Maximum routine Depth
    1

  • Trained (+1)

    Maximum routine Depth
    3

  • Expert (+2)

    Maximum routine Depth
    6

  • Master (+3)

    Maximum routine Depth
    10

Depth above 10 is an industrial, institutional or campaign-scale project. It normally needs a team, specialised facility, Significant Asset or equivalent support in the fiction. Power still depends on the Working and Capacity, not Depth.

Using the finished item

Anyone who can physically operate the item and understands its trigger can use it without the creator present, unless its design requires a keyed operator, signal or other condition. This gives access only to the fixed effect, not permission to improvise the Working.

A clearly met automatic trigger needs no Fortera roll by default. When operation is uncertain, roll the Skill that answers the question: Firearms for a shot, Engineering for a device, or Fortera when actively reading, tuning, redirecting or modifying the pattern.

A discrete effect is consumed when it activates unless the design explicitly establishes an ongoing effect. Remaining useful life does not restore a consumed effect. An ongoing effect lasts only while the physical system, required conditions and useful life remain intact.

Embedded ammunition still needs a legitimate Firearms shot. Resolve the projectile and embedded effect separately: a miss does not become a magical hit. An impact-triggered effect occurs where the projectile actually impacts, if its trigger is met.

A pressure latch and an embedded round

An Engineer with Fortera Practice embeds Tune into a prepared pressure latch at Depth 3. Three days of work give it three days of natural useful life. Pulling its mechanical trigger corrects one specific pressure mismatch; anyone able to operate it can release that fixed effect.

A prepared projectile carries Redirect. The shooter rolls Firearms as usual; the ammunition's physical impact and its fixed Redirect effect resolve separately when the stated impact conditions are met.

Preserve Embedding

At zero useful life, the pattern has expired and cannot simply be switched back on. No embedding is permanently self-sustaining; long-lived items need maintenance or larger supporting systems.

  1. A practitioner who knows Tune touches one active embedded object for at least 10 minutes, bringing it back into agreement.
  2. Routine, controlled preservation needs no roll. Under uncertainty or danger, resolve Tune normally.
  3. On completion, pause the remaining useful-life countdown for days equal to Depth. Then resume from the previous remainder. A new preservation replaces the old pause; durations do not stack.

Preservation cannot revive an expired embedding, restore a consumed effect, replenish charges, fuel or ammunition, or repair physical damage. Repeated maintenance can prolong an active embedding indefinitely, but only with continued time and access.

Example: a preserved instrument

A Depth 4 instrument has 2 days of useful life remaining. After successful preservation, those 2 days stay unchanged for 4 days. Decay then resumes with 2 days left; its life does not reset to 4.

Native Rules, printed pp. 50–52; appendix summary p. 92. Examples condensed from the rulebook.

Traditions

Codex rites, Heller engineering, scholarly analysis and folk practice differ in method, vocabulary and discipline, not in physics. The same field answers all of them, which is why a priest and an engineer can argue for an hour and both be right about what happened.

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