INTRODUCTION

EIDOLON: Become Your Best Self is a role-playing game for 2-5 players. You and your
friends will use the rules in this book to collaboratively tell a story full of absurd, intense
action, intriguing supernatural mysteries, and the indomitable power of friendship. At the
heart of it all are Eidolons, magical projections of the soul. Each person’s Eidolon is
unique, a creature summoned straight from its master’s heart, with abilities that bend
the very laws of reality. They’re incredibly powerful, but that power comes at a cost: your
Eidolon is you at your most exposed, your most fundamental. Unleashing your Eidolon
means showing the world who you really are; it means confronting yourself with who
you really are. EIDOLON is a game about self-acceptance and self-improvement. About
grasping the power within yourself to fight for the world you believe in. It’s about the
power of the individual, and the way the bonds of friendship make that power even
greater.

If that sounds like a good time to you, then read on!

WHAT YOU’LL NEED

● Two six-sided dice

● Character Sheets for each player
● Scratch paper

Feel free to replace some or all of these things with digital equivalents.
THE BASICS

EIDOLON is a Powered by the Apocalypse RPG. One player will assume the role of the
Game Master, or GM. Their job is to build the foundation for the story your group will tell
together; with input from everyone else, they’ll create the setting, the core conflicts, and
the inciting action for the plot. Everyone else will act as “players,” and create “player
characters” that serve as the story’s protagonists. The GM will present characters,
mysteries, dilemmas, and crises to the players, who will then have their player
characters react in character-appropriate ways. The GM will then respond, describing
how the world pushes back against the player characters’ reactions, and how it
demands further action from them. In this way, your group will construct a narrative
piece by piece, through a combination of planning and improvisation. As an additional
wrinkle, the players will frequently have to roll dice to determine the outcomes of their
actions, injecting an element of random chance that keeps the narrative exciting and
unpredictable for everyone involved.

If you’ve never played an RPG before, it’s a lot of fun!

READING THIS BOOK

We’ve done our best to organize the information in this book in the most logical order
possible, and we think that reading it through from start to finish is going to be the
easiest way to absorb the information you need to play EIDOLON. But, that might not
necessarily be the case for you! The rules and systems of this game are very
interconnected, so you may find that the choices we made in organizing this book don’t
quite suit you. You should feel free to skip around and read things in any order you
want, with a few exceptions. For one, you should probably wait to read RUNNING
EIDOLON until after you’ve read everything else (and unless you’re going to be your
group’s GM, it’s optional whether you read it at all!). More importantly, before you go
jumping around, you should read the next section. As you might guess from its name,
it’s pretty crucial information!

THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT RULE IN THE ENTIRE GAME

The rule you’re about to read is foundational to everything else that’s in this book, and
it’s critical that you keep it in mind both as you read through the rules of the game and
as you’re playing it. It is the one rule that you can not, under any circumstances, ever
break. The entire game falls apart if you do.

Here’s the rule:

Always Play in Good Faith.

We said before that EIDOLON is a game about collaboratively creating a story with your
friends. It’s about something else too, something that’s so obvious that it maybe goes
without saying: EIDOLON, being a game, is about having fun! The experience of
creating a story with your friends should be an enjoyable one, and this book’s #1 goal is
to provide you and your fellow players with a good time.

But, we can’t make this game fun by ourselves. We need your help.

Playing in good faith means that, while playing EIDOLON, you are always keeping the
two following priorities in mind:

1. Do everything that you can to ensure that everyone playing is enjoying

themselves.
2. Always play in service of creating a good, interesting, exciting story.

Nothing should ever come in the way of Priority #1, and Priority #1 is the only thing that
should come in the way of Priority #2. We’ll refer back to the concept of playing in good
faith over and over again throughout this book, and what we mean is holding these two
priorities above all else.

Depending on the situation, playing in good faith can mean a lot of different things. If
you’re a player it might mean something like, “don’t exploit the rules to make your
character feel unfairly advantaged.” After all, the goal is to tell an interesting story, and
manipulating the rules to benefit yourself potentially undermines that. It could also lead
to the other players having a worse time. As the Game Master, playing in good faith
might mean something like, “don’t just try to kill all the player characters.” Again, that’s
probably not going to be fun for anyone (for more information on GMing, see RUNNING
EIDOLON).

Now, the thing that makes this tricky is that what counts as good-faith play depends a lot
on context. The two examples above are good rules of thumb, but there might be times
when a character suddenly getting an overwhelming advantage is, well, cool! Or, there
may be times when putting the player characters through serious, deadly hardship feels
appropriately high-stakes. In general, if everyone is happy with what’s happening in the
game, then there’s no problem. As long as you’re working to tell a good story and to
create a fun experience for the entire group, playing in good faith doesn’t set any
specific, hard limits on what you can do.

Well, actually, there is one hard limit.

Sensitive Content

As your group collaboratively builds your story, it’s possible that you’ll touch on fraught
or sensitive subject matter. As a player, maybe you want to reveal that your character
has a really traumatic backstory. Or as a GM, maybe you want to confront the player
characters with a particularly heinous form of evil to combat. Maybe someone is
interested in exploring sexual themes in-game. If any sensitive subject matter arises
during play, you need to make sure that everyone in your group is comfortable
exploring that territory. If anyone isn’t on board, it needs to be excluded from the game,
no questions asked. If someone says that they’re comfortable with something but
changes their mind later, then the rest of the group needs to find a way to remove that
element from the story, even “retconning” the plot if needed.

Whenever possible, you should consult your group before broaching any potentially
sensitive subject, and get their consent in advance of it coming up in-game. To be clear,
yes, that might mean sometimes “spoiling” certain plot points, but remember: making
sure that everyone is having a good time is the one thing that’s more important than
telling a good story. If a particular subject matter makes another player feel
uncomfortable or unsafe, then it’s impossible for them to have a good time if that subject
matter becomes a part of the experience. If asking the other players in advance about
what you have in mind would make you uncomfortable, then that alone is a pretty good
sign that you should probably set that idea aside.

Before you ever get started playing EIDOLON, it’s a smart idea to talk with your group
and establish an initial list of off-limits subjects. This list can always be added to later,
but knowing in advance what kind of material other members of your group want to
keep out of the game will help prevent conflict further down the road and ensure that
everyone is getting off on the right foot.

Look Out For Your Fellow Players

Playing in good faith means that you’re always trying to ensure that everybody in your
group is having a good time. In addition to everything else we’ve laid out in this section,
always do your best to pay attention to everyone’s needs. Role-playing games are a lot
of fun, but they can also be very mentally and emotionally taxing. Play sessions can go
on for a long time, scenarios can be tense and stressful, and taking on the role of a
character can be emotionally draining.

Make sure to take regular breaks, and don’t let your sessions last longer than what’s
comfortable for your group. Pay attention to your fellow players; someone may be too
shy to speak up and request a break or an end to the session, even if that’s what they
need. Check in with everyone regularly to make sure that they’re good to keep going,
and if you’re the GM, tailor the scenarios you present to your players so that they have
lots of natural stopping points. You should also try to make time to talk with the other
members of your group before, after, or between sessions, in order to get a sense of
how they feel about how the game is going. Always do everything that you can to make
sure that EIDOLON is a fun, positive experience for everyone involved. And remember,
that includes you too! Your needs are just as important as everyone else’s. If the game
is stressing you out, taking up too much of your time, or negatively affecting you in any
way, talk with your group and figure out what can be done to correct that.

Bending the Rules

We mentioned before that playing in good faith is “the one rule that you can not, under
any circumstances, ever break.” Does that imply that sometimes it’s okay to break the
other rules? Well… we’ve put a lot of thought and effort into designing this game, and in
general we think you’ll get the best experience if you follow all of the rules, all of the
time. But, we most likely won’t be there playing the game with you. We don’t know the
circumstances you’re playing in or the specific needs of your group. Which is to say…
yes, sometimes, it’s okay to break some of the rules. Which rules can you break, and
when can you break them? Play in good faith! If a rule in this book is getting in the way
of telling the story your group is trying to tell, or if it’s making it harder to have a good
time, then break away! Ignore a rule just once, throw it out altogether, or tweak it to your
liking. This should never be your first move when trying to resolve an issue, but if it’s the
right move, then you shouldn’t shy away from it.

Basically, we want to give you as much freedom as possible when playing EIDOLON,
but that won’t go well unless you agree to use that freedom to create a fun experience
for everyone. If you’re not playing in good faith, it can be really easy to abuse some of
this game’s rules and create scenarios that aren’t fun for the folks playing with you, and
as a result, probably won’t be fun for you either. Throughout this book, we’ll be pointing
out areas where the “good faith” rule is especially relevant, but it’s something you
should always keep in mind.

Alright! Now that we’ve explained THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT RULE IN THE
ENTIRE GAME, we’re ready to discuss all of the rest of the rules! You know, the ones
we just gave you permission to break! Like we said before, feel free to flip through this
book and read it in whatever order makes the most sense to you, or just read it through
linearly!

ONE MORE QUICK NOTE

Throughout the player-focused sections of this book, we’ll frequently be writing in the
second person. Sometimes when we use the word “you,” we’ll be literally referring to
you, the person reading this. Other times, we’ll be referring to the character you play in
the story your group creates. We’re not going to distinguish between these two uses of
the word; for the most part, the rest of this book is addressed to a sort of a mixture of
you and your character.

If you’re new to this kind of game and aren’t used to reading RPG books, this might
seem a little strange, but this is the sort of headspace you’ll need to be in while playing.
You’ll need to think as a player, as someone who’s guiding the events of the story and
making strategic and creative decisions, and simultaneously you’ll need to think as your
character, as a person really inhabiting the world your group has created and reacting to
it appropriately. This book is therefore written to be geared toward that frame of mind.

THE WORLD OF EIDOLON

This chapter is dedicated to explaining the “soft rules” of the game. We’re not going to
get into things like stats or dice quite yet (you can find all of that in PLAYING
EIDOLON). First, we’ll explain how the world of this game works. We want to lay out the
ground-rules for the fiction of EIDOLON, so that you have a greater understanding of
the context surrounding the “hard” rules of the game. More importantly, we want to get
you acquainted with these ideas as soon as possible, so that you can start thinking
about what kind of character you want to play as, and what kind of story you and your
group want to tell.
SETTING

This is a game about collaboratively telling a story, and a crucial part of any story is the
setting. Where do EIDOLON stories take place?

The Default Setting: “Here…-ish.”

We envision this game as being set in a fictionalized version of reality, a place that
reasonably resembles the modern day of the world we currently live in. Your specific
story might be set in a town or city that doesn’t really exist, and you might want to tweak
a couple (or a lot!) of details when creating your setting, but in our minds, EIDOLON is a
game about the real world being derailed and overturned by the supernatural influences
described throughout this chapter.

But, that’s just us.

Choose Your Setting

You’re pretty much free to set your group’s story anywhere you want to. You can set it in
the past, on a sci-fi moon base, on an alternate earth, or anywhere else, really.
Decisions regarding where and when your game is set are mostly up to the GM, but as
players you can absolutely offer input about what kind of world you want to role-play in,
and as the GM you should take player input under consideration.

There’s really only two rules when determining the setting of your game:

1. For the most part, even if your game isn’t set in the real world, the setting should
feel real. Things should feel concrete and understandable, with a certain internal
logic to how things work. Initially, there shouldn’t really be “magic” in your setting;
your story should in part be about magic encroaching on the world of your game,
and the consequences that brings with it.

2. No matter what your setting is, The Undertow has to be a part of it.

THE UNDERTOW
The Undertow is a central concept to EIDOLON. You will always be contending with it to
some extent while playing this game. Its pervasive effects will be influencing the events
of the story on every level; in fact, the rules instruct the GM to “make The Undertow
seep through every crack of the world” (see RUNNING EIDOLON). So, what is it?

The Undertow Is Another World

The Undertow is an alternate reality, an imaginary dimension that sort of “overlaps” the
real one. It’s a place where thought and feeling are made physical, a universe made out
of the collective unconscious. Every abandoned idea, suppressed emotion, and
silenced thought becomes a piece of The Undertow. When someone passes away, their
consciousness fades from the real world and sinks deep into The Undertow’s bedrock.

The Undertow’s geography roughly correlates to the real world; most real places will
have some kind of analogue in The Undertow. But The Undertow isn’t bound by
physical laws, and its spatial properties are strange and variable. The Undertow is an
abstract space defined by thought and feeling, and the definition of “reality” in The
Undertow is every bit as volatile and unpredictable as the human heart.

Also, it’s full of monsters. Especially strong elements of human cognition will manifest in
The Undertow as surreal, powerful creatures known as Shades. The appearance and
temperament of a Shade is dependent on the emotions and ideas that it was born from.
A Shade born out of pleasant, happy feelings might be cute and cuddly, while a Shad
created by negative or violent emotions will be monster-like and incredibly dangerous.

There are places where the barrier between The Undertow and the real world is
especially weak, and some of the surreal effects of The Undertow can bleed over into
reality. Myths and urban legends might be completely made up, or, they might be
accounts of when someone came face to face with The Undertow.

If some references would help give you a better picture, the Metaverse from Persona 5
and the Red Room from Twin Peaks are solid touchstones here.

The Undertow Is a Metaphysical Force

The Undertow gets its name from the way that it “pulls” on the real world. The vast
majority of people won’t ever see The Undertow, but they will feel its influence. Like the
moon, The Undertow has a sort of “gravity,” but instead of pulling on ocean waves, it
acts on the tides of the human psyche.
While there is a physical component to the world of The Undertow, that world is made
up entirely of a kind of psychic energy, the collective mental power of every conscious
mind. It has a natural ebb and flow to it, one that reflects the state of the real world and
the minds of the people living in it. Someone sensitive to that energy, who knows how to
read it and what it means, can learn some pretty profound things about the real world
(check out the Dredge the Undertow Move in THE BASIC MOVES).

The Undertow’s influence impresses the weight of collective ideas and feelings onto
individuals, encouraging them to “go with the flow.” This isn’t inherently a malicious
force. In fact, it can even be positive: at its most benign, The Undertow can contribute to
a sense of unity and communal cohesion. But it can also compel people to submit to
and support the status quo, and depending on what exactly the status quo is, that can
be an extremely dangerous thing. The Undertow can blind people to the injustice
around them and apply a mental pressure that holds them back from doing something
about it. In more extreme cases, the “current” of The Undertow might become turbulent,
leading to mass hysteria. Everyone gets swept up in the pull of The Undertow from time
to time, and while the consequences of that might be harmless, maybe even beneficial,
they can also be deadly.

The Undertow Is What You Want It to Be

We’ve given you some broad, high-level ideas of what The Undertow is and how it
works, and we don’t really want to go beyond that. The Undertow is intended to be
something mysterious, surreal, and amorphous, so we don’t want to pin down too many
hard details about how it works or what it looks like. Those details will be up to your
group to decide, particularly your GM.

It’s also up to you exactly how The Undertow factors into your game. It will always be
there in some regard, and play a role in certain parts of the game, like The Phantom
Clock (see PLAYING EIDOLON), but it will be up to you and your group to decide just
how central a role The Undertow plays in your story. Maybe it will only have a minor,
indirect influence on the narrative, and your game will be set entirely in the real world,
with The Undertow staying confined to your setting’s darkest corners. Or, maybe your
group’s adventure will kick off with all of you getting dragged into The Undertow, and
your game will be about trying to make your way home. Or maybe you’ll zip back and
forth between the two worlds to contend with a conflict that spans both dimensions,
struggling to mitigate the ways that the worlds affect one another. Any ideas you have
about how to work The Undertow into your narrative are completely valid approaches to
telling a story in EIDOLON.

Just keep in mind that The Undertow does need to be present in some form or another.

Because The Undertow is where Eidolons come from.

EIDOLONS

As a character in EIDOLON, your subconscious mind drifts through the metaphysical

miasma of The Undertow. Your psyche is both a part of and caught up in the current,
and to some extent the flow of those dark tides will always influence your actions in the
real world. You can never be completely free of the social and metaphysical pressure
that surrounds you; you are, to some extent, not the sole arbiter of your actions and
decisions.

At least, that’s usually true.

Under certain circumstances, you can reconnect with the vast torrent of energy flowing
out from your soul into The Undertow. You can gather that energy and will it to take solid
form, a physical manifestation of your most ideal self. Unshackled from the limitations of
the human body, from the very laws of reality, this perfect projection of your heart has
the power to swim against the current of The Undertow, to liberate you to express your
most sacred truths and stand up for your vision of justice. Most dramatically, your
flesh-and-bone body becomes a portal through which that energy can travel, bursting
forth into the real world as an Eidolon, a flawless reflection of your soul, revealing your
inner power and beauty to the entire world.

Some Notes on Subtext

Before we get too deep into explaining exactly how Eidolons work, it’s worth pumping
the brakes and chewing on those last few paragraphs for a moment.

A critical reaction to that description of what an Eidolon is might point out that it arguably
comes off as a little, well... Randian. “The mindless masses are slaves to The Undertow,
but not you. You’re special. You have the power to rise above other people and shape
the world how you want it, and it’s right for you to do that.” Something like that.
We really can’t deny that interpretation as a valid reading of what we’ve written. Which
is why it will be incumbent on you and your group to avoid, contradict, and subvert that
reading through the narrative you build.

Eidolons aren’t meant to represent some kind of inherent superiority over “normal
people.” Rather, they’re supposed to represent the courage it takes to assert your
values in an environment that’s hostile to them, or maybe even hostile to you. It’s not
about rising above other people so much as rising above societal inertia and toxic
norms. It’s about the value and dignity of the individual, but it’s not about individualism.
No one’s an island, not even if their soul has become a superpowered avatar of their
will. That’s why your Eidolon is strengthened through failure and through cultivating
relationships with others (see CHARACTER CREATION AND ADVANCEMENT).

As a whole, the story your group creates shouldn’t support the idea that some people
are inherently better than others, because frankly, that’s a rotten idea. But, that doesn’t
mean that none of the characters in your story are allowed to hold that viewpoint. It’s
certainly a great worldview for a villain to have, for instance. Even the character you
play as might believe that their power makes them superior to others, though if they’re a
good person they’ll have to abandon that idea sooner or later. Even if they’re a bad
person, the overall narrative of the campaign shouldn’t support their viewpoint.

You Are Your Eidolon, Your Eidolon Is You

Remember that your Eidolon is not a distinct entity from yourself. It has a body of its
own, but its mind is your mind, and its body is really just a projection of your soul. If your
Eidolon is injured, you’ll be injured too, and vice-versa. If your Eidolon is humanoid, then
when one of you is wounded, the other will have a wound appear on the same part of
their body. If it’s not humanoid, you’re free to interpret where and how your shared
injuries work. As a rule, your Eidolon will be a lot more capable of defending itself, so
you should generally try to make your Eidolon take hits for you (see COMBAT).

Eidolon Appearance

Eidolons can virtually look however you want them to. The powers that it has might
influence the way you want it to look, but really, the sky’s the limit. About the only thing
we’d recommend is keeping their size somewhere in the neighborhood of a human
scale. Really big or small Eidolons can represent some logistical problems that will
make creating a story with them a challenge.
...Or, hell, if your group is up for it, make every Eidolon Godzilla-sized and make your
game a kaiju adventure! We’re sure as hell not gonna ban you from doing that. But, rule
of thumb, they probably shouldn’t be bigger than, say, a car, and no smaller than a doll.

Eidolon Powers

Just like its appearance, your Eidolon’s power can be pretty much anything that you
want it to be. You are a little more limited here though, because your Eidolon’s abilities
need to fit into one of the broad categories defined by the Playbooks.

Playbooks will be explained in greater detail in CHARACTER CREATION AND

ADVANCEMENT, but broadly, each Playbook represents a different set of aptitudes to
describe different types of Eidolons.

Each Playbook’s Character Sheet has a field for your Eidolon Power, which is always
framed like a sentence with blanks. As an example, The Vanguard Playbook’s Eidolon
Power is phrased as:

“My Eidolon obliterates enemies by ________________.”

You can write literally anything you want in that blank. Maybe your Eidolon obliterates
enemies by punching them really hard, or by biting like a snapping turtle, or by tearing
open holes in space-time. It can seriously be whatever you want, as long as what you
write in the blank makes the sentence complete and coherent. If the blank is too small
for your idea then feel free to write it out on a separate sheet of paper and keep it
attached to your Character Sheet. The only two guidelines we’d suggest here are the
following:

1. Don’t make your power a complicated run-on sentence with lots of clauses and
caveats. Keeping your Eidolon Power simple will make it easier for the other
players to understand your abilities, as well as limiting their scope. Limits are a
good thing! They force you to get creative when using your powers.
2. Don’t twist your Eidolon Power so that it reads like the Eidolon Power of a
different Playbook. Just choose the Playbook that suits the powers you have in
mind.

Now, these are guidelines. In most situations, following them is a good idea, but if you
have a complicated idea for a power that you think would be really cool to have, or you
really want an ability that sort of straddles the line between two Playbooks, talk it over
with your fellow players and your GM and figure out if they’re okay with your idea. As
always, play in good faith.

In general, the Playbooks are designed to be as broad as possible. If you really put your
mind to it, you can probably come up with some Eidolon concepts that wouldn’t be
well-suited to any of the Playbooks, but we did our best to be as all-encompassing as
we could be.

As the GM, remember that you’re not required to make Eidolons that slot neatly into the
Playbooks.

Eidolon Range

Each Playbook lists an Eidolon Range on its Character Sheet. The distance between
you and your Eidolon can never be more than this range unless it’s severed (see the
next section). Your Eidolon is free to move anywhere within that range as you see fit,
even vertically, but it’s not capable of moving beyond that range. If something tries to
force it out of your range, you’ll be dragged along with it.

Eidolon isn’t a game that uses any kind of hard rules for movement systems, so your
Eidolon’s Range exists purely as “flavor;” it has no direct mechanical purposes, but it
does inform the ways in which you and your Eidolon can interact with the world of the
game.

Eidolon States

During play, your Eidolon will shift between a number of different states to help you track
when and how you can use it. The GM will usually be responsible for changing your
Eidolon’s state.

These states are:

Sealed- If someone’s Eidolon is sealed, it means that it’s still locked away in The
Undertow, and has yet to truly take form as an Eidolon; this is the state that most
people’s Eidolons are in. It’s worth noting that this means that everyone, literally
everyone, already has an Eidolon. Most of them are just sealed.
Ready- This is the default state of someone whose Eidolon has been awoken. If your
Eidolon is ready that means that it’s alert, unburdened, and waiting to carry out your
orders.

Severed- If someone’s Eidolon becomes severed, then their ability to control their
Eidolon is temporarily disrupted. Usually, their Eidolon will fade from the world at this
point, though under some circumstances the Eidolon may begin acting independently,
or become somehow trapped or imprisoned. Once the barrier to your ability to summon
and control your Eidolon is eliminated, your severed Eidolon will become ready again.
This might mean defeating an enemy with an Eidolon-severing power, or it might just
mean taking a moment to center yourself and reconnect to your Eidolon.

EIDOLON OPTIONS

There are some crucial details about how Eidolons work that we’re leaving up to you to
decide. Your group, or in some cases maybe just your GM, should have solid answers
for each of the following questions before you start playing.

How Do People Unseal Their Eidolons?

What’s the process that leads to someone being able to summon their Eidolon? This is
a question that will most likely be up to your GM, and they might keep the answer a
secret, leaving it for you to discover through the course of the game. The method that
people use to awaken their Eidolons can be anything you want: maybe it’s an alien
virus, or something achieved through meditation and intense training, or maybe your
Eidolon spontaneously manifests when you’re shot with a magic bow and arrow.

There’s one thing you need to keep in mind though: anybody can have an Eidolon. In
fact, everyone already has an Eidolon, it’s just that most of them are sealed. Remember
earlier, when we talked about how you need to take care not to turn Eidolons into a
metaphor for some people being better than others? This is an important part of
avoiding that pitfall. Literally everyone in your setting can potentially gain the power to
summon an Eidolon. Whatever causes people’s Eidolons to awaken in your setting, it
can’t involve Eidolon masters being some kind of special “chosen ones.”

Are Eidolons Tangible?

How do Eidolons interact with the physical world? Can they pass through walls? If so,
can they hold objects? Do they walk on the ground, or float above it? Does it vary from
case to case? Any answer you choose to these questions is fine, you just need to make
sure that everyone’s on the same page.

Can Everyone See Eidolons?

Are Eidolons visible to everyone? Or are they invisible to you if your Eidolon is sealed?
Do you lose the ability to see Eidolons when yours becomes severed? Can a person
“recall” their Eidolon and return it to The Undertow when they’re not actively using it, or
is it always somewhere in the physical world?

If everyone can see Eidolons then it will mean that your characters might have to spend
a lot of time keeping their Eidolons hidden, or else deal with the consequences of
people seeing them. It’s totally fine if that’s the direction you’d like to go in, but keep in
mind that if you don’t want to deal with that, it’s okay to say that they’re just invisible to
most people.

How Smart Are Eidolons?

Eidolons share a mind with their masters, but how exactly does that look in action? Are
they mindless drones that do what their masters tell them, or do they have a degree of
autonomy? Can they talk? If they can, their personality should be reflective of their
masters, since they still ultimately share the same mind.

Again, any answers to these questions work, and it’s even okay if the answers are
different for each person. It’s just important to set some ground rules, since it’ll inform
how people role-play.

Are Eidolons Themed?

Is there some kind of cohesive theming that every Eidolon follows? For instance, is
every Eidolon based on a figure from mythology? Or maybe each one is inspired by
their master’s favorite band? Your Eidolons certainly don’t need to have a theme, but it
can be a fun way to add a sense of aesthetic cohesion to your game. But, if everyone
just wants to go their own way when coming up with their Eidolon, that’s of course
completely okay.
Relatedly, feel free to call them something other than “Eidolons” in-game. Depending on
how and why they’re discovered, it’s possible they’re given some other name in-fiction.
Feel free to choose any term you want to stand in for “Eidolon,” if you think it’ll better
suit the persona of your game.

PLAYING EIDOLON
This chapter covers all of the “hard” rules of EIDOLON, the concrete numbers-and-dice
stuff that will give structure and limitations to how you build your story. Most of this
chapter only applies to the players, but GMs should read through it too to make sure
they fully understand the rules.

Let’s start with the basics.

STATS

Stats are an important part of what defines a player character. They don’t provide a
complete picture of who you are, but they’re a useful snapshot of what you’re good at,
and what aspects of your personality stand out more strongly than others.

In most RPGs, stats can represent just about anything about a person, from their
intelligence, to their physical reflexes, to their hardiness against things like poison. Stats
work a little bit differently in EIDOLON. In this game, every stat reflects an aspect of
your character’s psyche. The ways of thinking and feeling that your character excels at
translate directly into the physical attributes of their Eidolon, which means that for our
purposes, someone’s interior qualities are more important than their exterior ones.

The Stats

Here are the five stats that every player character has. Each stat is usually abbreviated
with its first few letters.

POWERFUL- Your assertiveness and force of will. Someone with high POW will be
tenacious, stubborn, and forceful. Someone with low POW will be meek and passive.
ELEGANT- Your grace and subtlety. Someone with high ELE will be efficient,
quick-witted, and confident. Someone with low ELE will be awkward and vacant.

GENIUS- Your brilliance and mental fortitude. Someone with high GEN will be
perceptive, insightful, and inventive. Someone with low GEN will be incurious and
impulsive.

GLAMOROUS- Your allure and social charm. Someone with high GLAM will be
exuberant, charismatic, and leave a big impression on others. Someone with low GLAM
will be reserved and asocial.

BIZARRE- Your… “you-ness.” The things that make you unique and unlike anyone else;
the things that make you “weird.” Being weird is a good thing! It gives you a unique
perspective and opens you up to possibilities that others might not consider. Someone
with high BIZ will be eccentric and intuitive, with an understanding of the world that’s
different from how others see things. Someone with low BIZ will be literal-minded and
unimaginative.

For each character, numbers are assigned to each of these stats, ranging from -1 to 3.
The higher the number, the stronger that element of the character’s personality is, and
the stronger their Eidolon is as a result.

Stats Are Interrelated

Something that’s important to understand is that these stats aren’t necessarily

completely independent from one another when it comes to defining your personality.
For instance, having low POW makes you more passive, but if you also have high ELE,
that means you’re graceful and confident. That seems contradictory, but that’s okay:
people can be contradictory! Those two aspects of yourself will blend together to create
a unique identity, and exactly how they blend together is up to you. Maybe you’re…
confidently passive! Or maybe you’re passive in some contexts and more confident in
others! Follow your gut and play in good faith when deciding how to role-play. Your stats
should inform what you do and say, but they don’t need to fully dictate your behavior.

Stats Represent the Interior Self

Relatedly, you might notice that the name of each stat is very… intense. That’s by
design! The stats are meant to represent ideal, undiluted aspects of your personality,
aspects which then directly translate into the power of your Eidolon, a being that’s
meant to be an ideal, undiluted version of you. So, you’re not “odd,” you’re BIZARRE.
You’re not “smart,” you’re GENIUS.

Now, having said that, you don’t need to feel pressured to play your character as
someone who behaves with maximum intensity at all times. A high-GLAM character will
tend to be extroverted and loud, while a low-GLAM character will tend to be quiet and
shy, but they don’t need to be that way all the time. Your stats are about your attitude
and psychology, how you are on the inside. Exactly how those extreme attributes
express themselves in your outward behavior is up to you. Maybe your outward
personality is completely at odds with who you are on the inside! That would suggest a
complex character who may have some intense internal conflict, which is rich territory
for role-playing.

Stats Transcend the Physical

Because your stats describe your heart and mind, and not your body, you don’t need to
worry about whether your stats “make sense” with your physical attributes. POW
doesn’t represent physical strength, but determination and tenacity. Someone with high
POW might also have big muscles, but they could just as easily be overweight, or
underweight, or have any kind of build at all. Someone might have high GLAM even if
they aren’t conventionally attractive, or high ELE even if they’re not particularly agile or
dextrous. Again, the ways that your stats manifest themselves physically is completely
up to you. The stats are meant to embody your psychology, or say… the “aura” that you
project. Your stats are who you are, not what you do or how you look.

Stats Are for Players Only

It’s important to note that only the player characters have stats. Many of the non-player
characters (NPCs, the characters that the GM plays as) will also be powerful, elegant,
genius, glamorous, and bizarre, but they don’t need to have hard numbers assigned to
these attributes. That’s because stats have an effect on dice rolls, and since players are
the only ones who ever roll the dice, they’re the only ones who need stats for their
characters.

And since we just broached the topic, we should switch gears and talk about Moves!

PLAYER MOVES
Back in the INTRODUCTION, we described the basic flow of a play session of
EIDOLON: the players act as their characters, describing their actions and voicing their
dialogue, and the GM describes the ways in which the greater world reacts to them.
Then, the players decide on the next course of action their characters will take, and
things continue to go back and forth like that. Moves are the primary component of the
game, giving definition and structure to that interaction.

Both the players and the GM use Moves, but the GM’s work a little differently, so for
now we’ll just be focusing on the Player Moves. You can find more info on the GM
Moves in RUNNING EIDOLON.

Player Move Structure

Player Moves are for any action taken by a player character where their success isn’t
guaranteed, either because what they’re doing is inherently risky or because some
opposing force is working against them (or both). The GM and the player will decide
which Move most accurately describes the action being taken, and then follow the
instructions for that Move. The vast majority of the time, the Move will say to “roll +[the
name of a stat].” This means to roll 2 six-sided dice, and then add the value of your
character’s stat to the result. From there, three outcomes are possible:

● If the result is a 10+, it’s an absolute success. You accomplish exactly what you
set out to do.
● If the result is a 7-9, it’s a mixed success. You might only achieve a part of what
you were trying to do, or might have to pay some kind of cost in order to
succeed, depending on the Move.
● If the result is a 6-, the GM gets to make a Move of their own, and it gets to be as
“hard” as they want it to be. You might fail at what you were trying to do, or your
success might come at such a great cost that it wasn’t worth it. Or, maybe you
succeed completely, but your action results in an unintended consequence.
Exactly what happens is up to the GM, but things aren’t going to go your way. It’s
not all bad though; you also get to mark experience when you roll a 6-. We’ll
cover that in greater detail in CHARACTER CREATION AND ADVANCEMENT.

Pretty much every player Move follows this basic structure, but most of them also add
unique wrinkles to exactly how the Move works. Many of them will get more specific
than these general descriptions, and some provide additional bonuses on a result of
10+ or additional negative consequences on a result of 6-. Each Move is a little
different, but they generally don’t deviate from this structure.
Types of Player Moves

Player Moves come in two different varieties:

● Basic Moves are Moves that anybody can use at any time. They represent broad
categories of action, and will be used frequently by all the players. The next
section is a complete list of Basic Moves.

● Playbook Moves are Moves specific to a character’s Playbook (see

CHARACTER CREATION AND ADVANCEMENT for more on Playbooks).
These are further broken down into three categories: Starting Moves, Advanced
Moves, and Master Moves. A player character can use their Playbook’s Starting
Moves at any time, while Advanced and Master Moves must be earned through
character progression (again, see CHARACTER CREATION AND
ADVANCEMENT). Some Playbook Moves are “passive,” and have continuous,
ongoing effects, or effects which happen automatically when certain conditions
are met. These Moves don’t require dice rolls.

Not Every Action Is a Move

Remember that you only need to make a Move if what you’re doing is risky, or if it’s
being opposed by some other force. If neither of those things are true, you can just do
what you want to do without any dice rolling. Driving to work doesn’t require a Move;
driving to work when you’re running late and need to get there on time might require you
to Beat the Odds (see the next section).

You Don’t “Use” Basic Moves

Keep in mind that you don’t use Basic Moves, the way you might use an action in a
video game or some tabletop games. Instead, you just describe what you do, and the
GM decides which Move suits the action you’re taking.* Then, you roll to determine how
successful you are.

As a rule, this also applies to Playbook Moves, but there are definitely exceptions.
Sometimes you do explicitly choose to use one of your Playbook Moves, usually in
cases where the action you take is very specialized and specific to the Move in
question. However, you should generally act first, and make a Move second. GMs: if a
player slips up and just says that they want to use a Move, it’s not a big deal; ask them
to describe what their character making that Move looks like.

*If you disagree with the GM about which Move suits your actions, feel free to discuss it
with them. But also, try not to hold things up too long. Play in good faith!

Forward, Ongoing, and Hold

Three more concepts occasionally come up in the description of various Moves:

“Forward,” “Ongoing,” and “Hold.”

Forward is a bonus that you get to apply to a follow-up Move. If a Move says “gain +1
Forward,” then you’ll add +1 to the result of your next Move. Sometimes there’ll be
stipulations attached, and you’ll only add +1 to the next Move you make that meets
those requirements.

Ongoing is similar to Forward, but it applies multiple times. As long as someone has “+1
Ongoing,” they’ll get to add 1 to the result of their dice rolls. Like Forward, Ongoing
might have conditions attached to it that you have to meet in order to get the bonus.

Hold is a kind of currency that you earn from certain Moves, which you can spend at
any time for various effects. It’s basically a way to delay the benefits received from
rolling successfully. If a Move says, for instance, “Hold 3,” then that means you have 3
Hold to spend on the Move. Hold is specific to the Move you earn it from, so you can’t
earn Hold from one Move and then spend it on a different one.

It’s a good idea to jot down any time you earn Forward or Hold so that you don’t forget
to use it later. It’s also courteous to make sure the other players are tracking their Hold
and Forward as well. Part of playing in good faith means making sure that everyone is
getting the full benefits of their successful Moves!

Making Moves With (and Without) Your Eidolon

Your Eidolon is much more powerful than you are. If you use your Eidolon Power when
making a Move and you aren’t opposed by any supernatural forces, add +1 to the result
of your roll. However, this only works if your Eidolon’s Power is useful to the task at
hand.
For example, if you’re an Alchemist (see THE PLAYBOOKS) and your Eidolon Power is
“My Eidolon can transform any pancake batter it touches into the best dang pancakes
you’ve ever tasted,” then that... might be useful for Dazzling someone, but probably isn’t
gonna be much help when it comes to Investigating. You’re certainly welcome to state
your case for why your Power should give you a bonus for non-obvious reasons, but
don’t try to argue your way into a bonus every single time.

Keep in mind that you can still use your Eidolon to make Moves that don’t play into their
powers, even if you don’t get a roll bonus from it, and that can carry benefits all on its
own. Your pancake chef Eidolon probably won’t get a bonus when trying to Investigate,
but it might still be able to access locations that you can’t get to directly and Investigate
them for you.

(Check out EIDOLONS for more information on Eidolon Powers.)

Using your Eidolon Power will make you more likely to succeed, but the converse is
also true: if you make a Move that’s opposed by supernatural forces and don’t use your
Eidolon Power, subtract 1 from the result of your roll. If you’re being attacked by an
enemy Eidolon or Shade, or if some force from The Undertow poses a threat to you,
then you’ll need to make use of your Eidolon’s abilities to level the playing field.

That’s the basic rundown of everything you need to know to understand how Moves
work! The next section will explain the Basic Moves, the Moves that will make up the
majority of what you do during a session of Eidolon.

THE BASIC MOVES

● Beat the Odds: When you struggle against fate, act under pressure, or attempt
something difficult that no other Move accurately describes, you are Beating the
Odds. The GM chooses which of your stats is most applicable to your action. Roll
and add that stat to your result.
○ On a 10+, you succeed against all odds.
○ On a 7-9, something goes wrong. The GM will either explain how you only
partially succeeded, or else describe some kind of cost to your success.

Beating the Odds is sort of a catch-all Move, and as such it’s one of the Moves you’ll
use most frequently. Anytime you attempt something which has a high chance of failure
and which no other Move is a good fit for, you are Beating the Odds. Depending on
context, that could mean anything from winning a carnival game to outrunning an
avalanche.

Remember that you only need to roll the dice when your success at something isn’t
guaranteed. It’s up to the GM’s discretion when an action can be taken without rolling
and when it requires you to Beat the Odds, but, they should save this Move for critical,
significant actions, where both success and failure have interesting outcomes. Keep in
mind too that the GM can decide that an action is simply impossible and not allow you
to try to Beat the Odds to make it happen; however, this is something the GM should
rarely resort to. EIDOLON is for telling stories about magic and heightened action, and
the GM’s motivation for restricting player actions should be preserving the narrative and
dramatic integrity of the story, not maintaining “realism” or “plausibility.”

As the GM, the stat you should have your player roll when Beating the Odds should
usually be fairly obvious: if their action is about brute force or tenacity, then it’s +POW. If
it’s about coming up with a clever solution on the fly, it’s +GEN. If you’re unsure about
which stat to apply, then use +ELE as a catch-all. ELE represents a character’s
composure and grace, which will pretty much always be tested when Beating the Odds.
Your players might be angling to roll a specific stat that their character is proficient in.
Listen to them, and take their cue when appropriate, but if you strongly feel that a
different stat is appropriate, your opinion trumps theirs. Don’t abuse that fact to force
players to roll suboptimal stats just to make it harder for them to succeed; that wouldn’t
be playing in good faith. When your players roll a 7-9, it’s up to you to describe what a
“partial success” or “cost” means, but it should naturally follow from the situation and
should be appropriate for the current stakes.

● Investigate: When you carefully study a person or situation, you are Investigating.
Roll +GEN. On a 10+, ask 3 of the questions from the list below. On a 7-9, ask 1.
The GM must answer you as honestly as possible. On a 6-, you must still ask
one question, but the GM’s answer will be unfortunate for you. Depending on
what you’re Investigating, some of the questions may not apply. If there’s no
sensible answer to the question you’ve asked, the GM can tell you to ask a
different one instead.
○ What’s hidden here?
○ What happened here recently?
○ What weaknesses can I exploit?
○ What poses the biggest threat?
○ Who’s in control?
○ What complications should I be wary of?
Investigate is an important and versatile Move. It can provide you with crucial clues
when pursuing a mystery, and in combat it can help you figure out how to crack open
the defenses of a particularly tough enemy.

When we say that the GM needs to answer “honestly,” what we mean is that they can’t
later contradict the answers that they give you. They can (and frequently will) make an
answer up on the fly, but once they’ve answered your question, the information they
provided is what stands as the truth of the matter.

Now, that said, their answers also need to follow logically from the context of the
situation. Succeeding on an Investigate roll doesn’t give you psychic powers, and the
GM only needs to provide answers that you could logically ascertain from your
investigation. That’s also part of answering honestly. As always, the GM needs to play in
good faith when answering Investigate questions.

● Scrap: When you throw yourself into the heart of a conflict and strive for victory
through force, you are Scrapping. Roll +POW. On a 10+, you come out on top of
the physical exchange. Choose one of the following:
○ You create an opportunity for your allies, giving +1 Forward to the first
person (other than you) to make use of it.
○ You impress, surprise, or intimidate your target.
○ You take control of the situation.
On a 7-9, you still win the exchange, but not cleanly; choose one of the above
and advance your Damage Track by 1.

Scrap is a Move for when you’re in direct, physical conflict with someone else. It
represents a full exchange of blows, rather than a single attempt to inflict harm. If you
only partially succeed, then you took some hits yourself during your assault.

If you sneak up on a target or ambush them such that they wouldn’t have the chance to
defend themselves or counter-attack, then you don’t need to Scrap; instead, you simply
carry out the attack successfully. Remember, Moves are for when you need to attempt
something with a significant chance of failure. If your target can’t fend you off, then
there’s no chance of failure. Obtaining the position or opportunity necessary for an
ambush probably involves a Move, like Beating the Odds or Revealing Your Master
Plan, but assuming you’ve gotten that far, the actual moment of the attack doesn’t
require an additional roll.
 ● Bombard: When you launch a projectile at an enemy to strike a blow without
putting yourself at direct risk, you are Bombarding. Roll +ELE. On a 10+, you hit
your target dead-on. On a 7-9, you still hit your target, but you must choose one
of the following:
○ To make your shot you have to move into danger, described by the GM.
○ You hit the target, but your nerves are rattled. Take -1 Forward.
○ Your shot causes collateral damage.

Bombarding is for ranged attacks, when you want to do something harmful to someone
from far away. “Far away” here is a little open-ended, and should be defined by context.
If the enemy needs a ranged weapon of their own to launch a counter-attack against
you, then you’re Bombarding and not Scrapping.

Unlike Scrapping, you have to roll to Bombard even if you’re ambushing the enemy. The
challenge of lining up your shot and successfully hitting them from a distance means
that you might miss even an unaware target.

For more information on fighting in EIDOLON, see COMBAT.

● Dazzle: When you try to charm someone into doing or believing something
they’re not inclined to, you are Dazzling them. Roll +GLAM. On a 10+, you
convince them. On a 7-9, they’ll be open to persuasion, but they’ll require either
evidence of your claims or a promise to do something for them in return.

Dazzle is a Move you can use to get something you want without having to resort to
violence. Many situations can be dealt with just by talking things out, and some
characters will be more adept at using charm and nuance to get their way instead of just
punching through every problem. Bear in mind however that you can’t Dazzle someone
who’s unwilling to listen to you, or who you can’t communicate with.

Also, note that on a 7-9 you have to promise to do something for them. You don’t
necessarily have to keep that promise, though breaking it will probably carry
consequences.

● Threaten: When you have someone at a disadvantage and try to coerce them
with violence, you are Threatening them. Clearly state what you want them to do
and what you’ll do to them if they don’t comply, then roll +POW. On a 10+, a
GM-controlled character yields to your demands. A player character may either
 yield, or suffer the established consequences. On a 7-9 against a GM character,
the GM chooses one:
○ They attempt to remove you as a threat, but not before suffering the
established consequences.
○ They do what you say, but will bear a grudge against you from now on.
○ They attempt to deceive you into believing that they’ve done what you say.
On a 7-9 against a player character, they may either yield or suffer the
established consequences, but they get +1 Forward to the next time they act
against you.

Threaten is a Move for when you would rather make someone do what you want
through force, rather than through charm. This Move also highlights something that
might not have been obvious before: you’re allowed to make Moves against other
players! It most likely won’t come up too often, but you can absolutely Threaten the
other player characters, Investigate them, Scrap with them, or anything else!
Regardless of who you’re Threatening, keep in mind that you need to be able to follow
through on your threat. If you’re bluffing, then you’re trying to get them to believe
something they’re not inclined to, which means you’re Dazzling them.

Also, keep in mind that on a 7-9 against a GM-controlled character, the GM won’t tell
you whether the target is doing what you say with a grudge or lying about doing what
you say. You won’t know for sure until the consequences of their actions bear out.

● Reveal Your Master Plan: When you enact or reveal that you've already enacted
a clever plan to nullify a threat or put yourself at an advantage, you are Revealing
Your Master Plan. Roll +GEN. On a 10+, your plan is executed perfectly. On a
7-9, some complication leads to a delay in the plan’s execution or puts its
success at risk.

At its core, this Move is a way to enable the thinkers and strategists in your group. Any
time you try to do something to give yourself an edge by using smarts and clever
planning instead of brute force, you’re Revealing Your Master Plan. It can sometimes be
a little ambiguous when a given action counts as Revealing Your Master Plan and when
it counts as Beating the Odds with +GEN. Generally speaking, Revealing Your Master
Plan is more proactive and aggressive, while Beating the Odds with +GEN is more
reactive and defensive.

There’s also something a little tricky about Revealing Your Master Plan: you can do it
retroactively, announcing that you’ve actually been preparing to enact a plan for some
time now and are only just now pulling the trigger on it. Using Reveal Your Master Plan
in this way can be a little bit complicated, and while you should feel free to do it as often
as you like, you need to play in good faith when doing so.

Retroactively Revealing Your Master Plan is for situations like at the end of an action
movie where everyone thinks the hero was shot and killed, only for her to reveal that
she’d been wearing a bullet-proof vest all along. Or when the villain finally gets
possession of the magic artifact, but the hero reveals that they swapped it out for a fake
before the villain even arrived. It’s exciting and dramatic, but it’s also explicitly
retroactive, adding details to the story that weren’t there before.

Your master plan should be plausible in the context of the fiction, and usually you should
do your best to avoid actively re-writing events that took place in your game. Instead, if
you’re retroactively Revealing Your Master Plan, you should reveal that you’ve been
doing things “off-screen” to bring about your plan, during some point in the past when
your time wasn’t explicitly accounted for. You might also reveal that you’ve been doing
something subtle for a while that wasn’t worth directly commenting on until it was time to
Reveal Your Master Plan.

● Dredge the Undertow: When you meditate on the realm beyond the physical in
order to ascertain a hidden or significant truth, you are Dredging the Undertow.
Roll +BIZ. On a 10+, the GM will reveal new and detailed information about your
situation. On a 7-9, the information will be vague or incomplete. On a 6-, advance
the Phantom Clock 1 hour, in addition to any other consequences.

This move allows you to channel The Undertow, to allow the vast psychic energy of that
world to seep into your mind and give you insight that would be impossible for you to
learn otherwise. It’s somewhat similar to Investigate, but it allows you to see beyond the
physical to get at truths that no amount of investigation could reveal.

Keep in mind that exploring that kind of space might draw attention from certain
supernatural forces, and your GM might use that when making a Move if you roll a 6-
when Dredging the Undertow.

See EIDOLONS AND THE UNDERTOW for more information, or THE PHANTOM
CLOCK to learn more about what’s going on with the 6- result here.

● Help or Hinder: When you give assistance to another player to ensure the
success of their Move, you are Helping them. When you get in the way of
 another player and deliberately try to stop them from succeeding, you are
Hindering them. Roll +TIE with them. On a 7+, they take either +1 or -2 Forward,
your choice. On a 7-9, your actions either put you in danger or come at a cost.

This Move is for when you want to provide assistance to another player, or when you
want to interfere with something they’re trying to do. It also serves an important purpose
for inter-player conflict. When someone wants to make a Move against someone else,
whether that be Scrapping, Threatening, Dazzling, or Investigating, the person they’re
targeting can try to Hinder them.

We haven’t talked about what “TIE” means yet. We’ll get to that in TIES.

● Face Death: When your Damage Track reaches Defeated, you Face Death. Roll
+BIZ. On a 10+, you pull through, and you’re rendered unconscious until the
others can tend to you. On a 9-, the forces of the Undertow will offer you a
choice: release your grip on the real world and let your soul sink into the
Undertow, or return to the land of the living in exchange for paying a cost or
doing a favor for the beings on the other side. On a 6-, the cost will be something
you value more highly than your life.

Everyone dies sooner or later, and the dangerous circumstances EIDOLON player
characters frequently find themselves in means it might come sooner for them than
most. Luckily, their connection to The Undertow means they have a path back to life.
Unluckily, that path is gated off by the things that live in The Undertow.

Because of the way Face Death works, your character is never forced to die. You will
always have the option to let them keep on living for as long as you want to play as
them. However, sometimes character death is dramatically appropriate. Anytime your
character Faces Death, put some serious thought into whether it’s time to let them go.

● Push Yourself: When you absolutely need to succeed at something and force
yourself beyond your normal limits to make that happen, you are Pushing
Yourself. Use this Move after rolling on any other Move, and reroll the lower of
the two dice. If the final result is still a 6-, advance the Phantom Clock 1 hour.
Each player may only use this Move once per session.

This Move gives you a partial do-over when you roll poorly at a moment when it was
really important that you succeed. Keep in mind that you can only use this Move one
time per play session, so make sure to save it for a critical moment.
THE DAMAGE TRACK

Each player character’s health is represented by a Damage Track, located on their

character sheet. The Damage Track has 6 states: Invigorated, Fresh, Winded, Battered,
Desperate, and Defeated. At the start of every play session, each player’s Damage
Track is set to Fresh; this is considered the “default” state for your Damage Track, and it
can only ever reach Invigorated through special circumstances brought about by certain
Playbook Moves.

Any time harm comes to a player character, they advance their Damage Track, moving
it one space closer to Defeated. A few Moves will explicitly outline when a player must
take damage; for example, anyone who rolls a 7-9 when Scrapping advances their
Damage Track by 1. Outside of these specific cases, it’s up to the GM’s discretion when
someone should advance their Damage Track. In fact, damaging the players is one of
the GM’s Moves; see GM MOVES for more.

Keep in mind that no matter what the source of harm is, getting hurt always results in
advancing your Damage Track by only a single space. Whether you’re shot, stabbed, or
have your molecules twisted inside-out by an enemy Eidolon, you only advance your
Damage Track once. The Damage Track is less about accurately modeling the harm
that your body endures, and more about providing a means to measure the dramatic
stakes of your circumstances. The more hits you take, the closer you come to defeat,
and the higher the tension rises. The GM should generally work to flavor the damage
you receive to make sense with where your Damage Track is; if you’re at Fresh and get
shot, then it should only be a glancing blow, whereas if you’re at Desperate and get
shot, it should be in a potentially lethal place.

When your Damage Track reaches Defeated, you immediately Face Death (see THE
BASIC MOVES).

THE PHANTOM CLOCK

The Phantom Clock is an element of the game that tracks your group’s overall
relationship with The Undertow. Channeling The Undertow through your bodies is how
your group summons and controls your Eidolons (see EIDOLONS AND THE
UNDERTOW), so keeping a positive, disciplined grasp on the energy flowing through
your souls is essential. Every time a player fumbles their control over The Undertow’s
power, it collectively brings everyone closer to a disaster. The Phantom Clock is in
essence a measure of your group’s overall morale, imbued with supernatural
significance by your link to The Undertow.

You can keep track of what time the Clock is set to however you’d like: tally marks, a
digital counter, or maybe even set a real analogue clock that you keep on the table and
set accordingly! At the start of your first play session, the Phantom Clock is set to 1:00.
As it progresses, a sense of dread and malaise slowly overcomes your team. When the
Phantom Clock hits midnight, the last person to make it advance temporarily loses
control of their Eidolon. It becomes severed and transforms into a Phantom, a berserk
Eidolon whose form is inspired by its master’s Greatest Fear (See CHARACTER
CREATION AND ADVANCEMENT for more on Greatest Fears).

The Phantom Clock is advanced by one hour:

1. When someone rolls a 6- when Dredging the Undertow. The player tapped into
the dark forces that exist beyond the physical world, and the advancing clock
represents the psychic blowback that happened as a result

2. When someone Pushes themself on a Move and rolls a 6-. The player drove
themselves beyond their normal limits and still failed, causing a blow to their
morale.

3. As a consequence of certain Playbook Moves, each of which has their own

justifications that are similar to the two listed above.

4. If a session ends without the Phantom Clock advancing. This represents the
gradual wear that your team’s adventures have on them.

If the Phantom Clock hits midnight as a result of the automatic advancement described
in #4 above, then it’s up to the GM to decide which player’s Eidolon becomes a
Phantom. GMs: when deciding which Eidolon to turn into a Phantom, focus on
characters who are lagging behind in Experience, or who haven’t gotten much spotlight
lately.

A Phantom’s Crash Limit is decided by the GM (see the next section for elaboration on
that). Additionally, it no longer shares a Damage Track with its master, so it’s possible to
hurt one without hurting the other. Defeating it will change it back to normal and cause it
to become ready again. Once it’s been beaten, set the Phantom Clock back to 1:00.
If the same Eidolon transforms into a Phantom more than once, it will likely evolve and
become more powerful, and if its master’s Greatest Fear has changed since last time,
its form will reflect that. The specific ways that Phantoms develop over time is left up to
the GM.

Fighting your Phantom is a massive event in your character’s personal arc. Phantom
fights represent a moment when a character’s internal struggles violently overtake the
narrative and demand immediate attention. A character’s fight against their Phantom
should be a symbolic expression of their struggles with their Greatest Fear. Notably, a
character is never weaker than when facing their Phantom. They can’t call on their
Eidolon for help, and they’re being directly targeted by a monster designed to strike their
greatest psychological weaknesses. Reaching out to their friends for assistance is going
to be the only reliable path toward victory in a Phantom fight. Triumph over a Phantom
is an incredible achievement, and as a result, a player gains a full level if they win
against their Phantom (see CHARACTER CREATION AND ADVANCEMENT).
Because a Phantom fight is a literalization of grappling with your Greatest Fear, you will
likely also conquer that fear through the course of the fight, marking experience. Facing
your Phantom is a big deal!

COMBAT

We’ve mentioned before that one of the things EIDOLON is about is “kickass fights with
magical soul powers.” If we’re going to follow through on that, then we need some rules
to define how fighting works in this game!

For the most part, combat isn’t particularly different than any other activities you might
engage in: you describe what you do, the GM asks you to roll for the appropriate Move,
and then describes what happens before asking you what you do next. Scrapping and
Bombarding are the two Moves with the most obvious applications for combat, but
hypothetically any Move could be relevant in a fight.

It should generally be clear from context whether “combat” is beginning or ending. If

someone instigates a physical conflict with someone else, then those two characters
have entered combat. Once the physical conflict is resolved, combat is over. Go with
your gut and play in good faith to determine when exactly combat has “officially” started
or finished. As the GM you may want to signal to your players when you consider
combat to be initiating so that they can use any relevant Moves.
Turn Order

There’s no concrete turn order in combat, but the GM should be making sure that
everyone has equal opportunity to participate. If someone hasn’t spoken up about what
they’re doing for a little bit, the GM should prompt them to take a “turn.” The GM might
want to implement a loose turn order just to make sure everyone’s getting to contribute
equally, but if someone wants to “pass” or someone else wants to “cut the line” (with the
permission of the people they’re cutting in front of), then that should be allowed. The
rule of thumb as a player is that you shouldn’t try to take another action in combat
before every other player has gotten to do something.

The Flow of Combat

Combat in EIDOLON is focused on building an exciting dramatic arc, with tension and
stakes continuously rising until a final climactic moment. The combat systems are built
in such a way that building a satisfying dramatic arc is prioritized over “realistically”
modeling what a fight might look like between a group of combatants with
superpowered astral projections. Instead, enemies will present a series of escalating
threats that must be addressed and neutralized. Often, the player characters won’t be
able to successfully deal with these threats on their first try, which will lead to their
Damage Tracks advancing. As the threats are dealt with, they’re replaced with more
dangerous ones, ratcheting up the stakes of the battle as the enemy grows
progressively more desperate, until they are finally defeated.

Crashing

Unlike player characters, the enemies the GM throws at you don’t have Damage Tracks.
They have a similar but notably different way of tracking the harm you’ve done to them:
their Crash Count.

Every time you significantly wound, overwhelm, or nullify the threat of an enemy, the GM
will Crash that enemy. When an enemy Crashes, your party will temporarily take
definitive control over the conflict. The enemy’s Crash Count will increase by 1, and
then the enemy will regroup and launch a counter attack. At this point, something will
happen to put the party at a new form of disadvantage. This can be anything the GM
thinks of: an environmental shift that puts you at a disadvantage, the arrival of enemy
reinforcements, or the revelation of a secret technique the enemy had been holding
back until this point. Every time an enemy recovers from a Crash, they’ll become a more
dangerous threat, increasing the tension of the battle.

Note that only a GM can Crash an enemy. No Player Moves have the ability to force a
Crash, even on a 10+. You may find that even though you successfully pummel the
enemy with blows or ensnare them in the perfect trap, they simply aren’t vulnerable to
your attempt to hurt or overwhelm them. This cuts both ways, however; because no
Moves are explicitly used to Crash an enemy, any Move could hypothetically lead to a
Crash. You could Scrap with an enemy to beat them into submission, Bombard them to
neutralize the threat they pose from afar, Dazzle them into believing a devastating lie
that ruins their focus on the fight, or anything else you could think of. Some Moves, like
Investigate or Dredge the Undertow, are less obviously suited to inflicting harm, and will
generally be used instead to create an opportunity for a Crash via some other Move, but
it’s not outside of the realm of possibility to Crash someone by Investigating them. It’s
ultimately up to the GM to decide when you’ve done something that puts you at a
significant enough advantage to warrant a Crash, and as always they must play in good
faith when making that determination. Not everything you try will work, but if it feels right
and you roll well, then it will work more often than not.

See the Crash an Enemy GM Move for more information.

Every time an enemy is Crashed, their Crash Count increases by one. Each enemy has
a predetermined Crash Limit, set by the GM in advance. Once an enemy’s Crash Count
reaches their Crash Limit, the enemy is completely defeated. Whether this means the
enemy is killed, knocked out, or surrenders to the party is determined by context. Crash
Limits are kept secret from players, so you never really know how close you are to
winning a given battle.

Most enemies will have their own Crash Limits and Crash Counts, but sometimes it
might make sense to treat multiple enemies as a single entity. Maybe it’s a swarm of
shadow monsters, or a duo of Eidolon masters who fight perfectly in sync with one
another. In these cases, the GM is free to give these groups a single Crash Limit, and
have every member of the group Crash together. The party will only earn a Crash if they
wound, overwhelm, or nullify the threat of all of the enemies who share the same Crash
Limit.

Restoring your Damage Track

When combat is over, regardless of whether you won or lost the fight, your Damage
Track will be restored to Fresh if you’re still alive. Once a battle has ended, the dramatic
stakes settle down, your characters have time to rest and recuperate, and without
having to focus on fighting for their lives, the Undertow energy coursing through them
allows their wounds to heal rapidly. Anyone who Faced Death regains consciousness
(unless they chose to die), and finds themself restored.

Note that this restoration only happens at the end of combat. If your character manages
to sustain harm from a non-combat source, they’ll have to carry it with them unless one
of their friends can heal them somehow, until the session ends or until the end of their
next combat encounter.

TIES
By this point, we’ve covered just about every element of the game, and we’re nearly
ready to start having you create a character. There’s just one more aspect of the rules
we need to cover, something that didn’t quite fit in either the “soft rules” of EIDOLONS
AND THE UNDERTOW or the “hard rules” of PLAYING EIDOLON: Ties.

Every piece of this game, from your Eidolon to your stats, are different ways of
expressing your character’s “true self.” However, that “self” doesn’t exist in a vacuum.
We are all part of a vast, interconnected world. You partially make that world what it is,
and the world in turn partially makes you who you are. Ties are a representation of your
connections to others, how you relate to them and how you understand them. You can’t
ever fully understand another person, but that means that your understanding can
always improve and grow. Ties represent how well you understand the people around
you.

CREATING TIES

You create a new Tie with someone any time you have a significant moment of
connection or confrontation. Any time another person becomes important to your
journey, your world, or your self, in either a positive or a negative way, you form a Tie
with them. Under the “TIES” section of your character sheet, write a short sentence that
sums up what you think of this person: write who the person you’ve formed a Tie with is,
as your character understands them. This sentence should be short and concise, with
as little extraneous detail as possible. Because of that, it will necessarily be incomplete
and inaccurate. That’s not only okay, but encouraged. Feel free to let your character’s
biases and misconceptions inform your Tie as much as possible. Here are some
examples of good initial Ties:

“Harvey only cares about himself.”

“Chris is like a younger me.”
“Virginia is good at her job, but kind of cold.”
“Sloane is a danger to everyone around her.”
“James is trustworthy.”

Many RPGs have similar systems to Ties, and usually focus more on having you define
the relationship you have with the other character, rather than your understanding of the
person themselves. To be clear, that’s not how Ties work. Your Tie should be focused
completely on the other person.

USING TIES

Occasionally during gameplay, you may have to roll +TIE when making a Move. Most
often, this comes up when Helping or Hindering someone (see THE BASIC MOVES).
What this means is that instead of adding any stat to the result of your roll, you instead
add the value of your single most relevant Tie.

When a new Tie is created, it has a value of +1, which you should write next to the Tie.
Over time, your Ties will develop, and as they do you’ll increase the value of the bonus
the Tie bestows when rolling +TIE.

DEVELOPING TIES

Like we said before, your initial Ties will obviously fail to fully capture the essence of the
people they describe. When your character witnesses a person they have a Tie with
behaving in a way that doesn’t suit their Tie, the Tie develops. Broadly, this will
happen for two reasons. Usually it will be because the person in question does
something that contradicts your previous understanding of them; someone who you
thought was selfish acts charitably, or someone who you thought was kind-hearted
reveals a meanstreak. Sometimes, it will be the exact opposite: the person you’re Tied
to will fulfill your understanding of them so strongly that the language you used
previously doesn’t feel strong enough anymore. When this happens, rewrite the
sentence you wrote about them to reconcile your previous understanding of them with
your new understanding. This version of the Tie can be a little longer to accommodate
for the added nuance, but do your best to keep it concise.

For example, the Ties listed out earlier might develop to look something like this:

“Harvey only cares about himself, but that’s because he’s afraid of getting hurt.”
“Chris is like a younger me, but he’s better than I was at his age.”
“Virginia seems cold, but she cares in her own way.”
“Sloane’s a bigger danger to herself than anyone else.”
“I’d trust James with my life.”

Once you’ve rewritten your Tie, increase the bonus the Tie grants by one. You also
mark experience for growing closer to the people around you (see CHARACTER
CREATION AND ADVANCEMENT)!

For the sake of keeping the game moving, you generally shouldn’t stop play in order to
update your Ties. Instead, take time between sessions to reflect on how the events of
the previous session influenced your character’s relationships, and develop your Ties
accordingly. Make sure you share your changes with your group by the start of the next
play session!

You can develop any Tie twice, moving its TIE bonus from +1 up to +3. Once your Tie
hits +3, something deeper will need to happen to advance your relationship further, and
the Tie becomes locked until you can reset it.

RESETTING TIES

Ties are a representation of your understanding of other characters. As you spend more
time with them and learn more about them, that understanding shifts and changes, and
the Tie gradually develops. Once you’ve reached +3 Tie with someone and they still act
in ways that defy your understanding, then it’s clear that you’re not going to reach a
deeper understanding of them just by observing and thinking about them. You need to
initiate a dialogue.

At some point during a session, find some time to have an extended 1-on-1
conversation between your character and the person they’ve developed a +3 Tie with,
where you make an active effort to understand them more deeply. If they also have a +3
Tie with you, then this conversation should be mutual. GMs: pay attention to your
players’ Ties, and make sure to build your sessions with space for these conversations
to take place when necessary. Each player character’s Tie represents a relationship
based subplot in your ongoing story, and a tie reaching +3 signals that it’s time for that
subplot to take center stage for a moment in order to resolve a major arc in the
relationship. These scenes don’t need to take place the second a Tie hits +3; after all,
the player with the +3 TIE will likely want to enjoy that bonus for at least a little while.
However, the scene should take place at the earliest opportunity that it would make
narrative sense for the characters to take a moment and have an interpersonal
conversation.

Once this scene has taken place, the Tie resets; you mark experience, set the TIE
bonus back to +1, and rewrite the Tie, incorporating your deeper understanding of the
character you’re tied to. There might still be an echo of your old Tie in this new Tie, but it
should feel like a new and distinct viewpoint on who this person is. A reset Tie
represents a major turning point in your relationship, and you should understand the
other character on a deeper level than you used to now. Your new Tie should reflect
that. Using our previous examples, reset Ties might look something like this:

“Harvey doesn’t fully understand his own feelings.”

“Chris is completely lost and in need of guidance.”
“Virginia is cracking under the pressure of her responsibilities.”
“Sloane desperately needs a real friend.”
“James is the greatest husband I could ever ask for.”

Even after resetting a Tie, you won’t have comprehensive knowledge of the other
character; completely and fully understanding another person isn’t really possible. But,
that just means that you get to develop your Tie all over again. The longer a Tie lasts
for, the more slowly it should develop and reset, as your understanding of the person
that Tie represents becomes deeper and deeper, but there is no limit to how many times
you can develop or reset a single Tie.

CHARACTER CREATION AND

ADVANCEMENT

If you’ve read the previous three chapters, then you’re ready to create a player
character and start playing EIDOLON! If you haven’t read the previous three chapters
yet, then you can still start creating a character, but you might be flipping through the
book a lot while you do! This chapter will walk you through the process of creating your
character, and then detail how you can make that character stronger as you progress
through the game.

CHARACTER CREATION

We’ve listed out all of the steps involved in creating a character below. This is the order
that makes the most sense to us, but a lot of these steps are pretty interchangeable,
and can be done in any order. Some of these steps will require you to talk with your
fellow players and your GM. If you’d like to go through all of the steps of character
creation together as a group to make everyone’s characters, then great! You can also
feel free to work on your character by yourself, and save the steps that require the full
group until you get together for your first play session. Do whatever works best for you!

Come Up With a Concept

First things first: what kind of character do you want to play as? What kind of person are
they, and what kind of things do they want? By this point, your GM may have already
given you some rough ideas about the setting or premise of the story you’ll be telling; if
they have, how does your character fit into that? What is their Eidolon, and how do its
powers reflect their personality? You don’t need to answer all of these questions right
away, and in fact discovering the answers to them might be a big part of your game. But
you do need at least a rough sketch of who your character is, so that you know how to
role-play them. Don’t forget to give both them and their Eidolon a name!

You should also figure out how you and your Eidolon look at this point. In particular, you
should have a solid description for the appearance of your Eidolon, since it can look like
literally anything and the rest of your group will need a good idea of how it looks in order
to imagine it. If you feel like it, it might even help to draw a picture of your Eidolon to
show the others. Even if you’re not a great artist, it will help to solidify it in the other
players’ minds. Toss in a drawing of your character as well if you’d like!

Choose a Playbook

Once you know who you’re playing as, look through the Playbooks in the next chapter
and decide which one suits them best. You might need to tweak your Eidolon’s abilities
so that it can properly fit your Playbook’s Eidolon Power. Talk to the rest of your group if
you’re struggling with that, and find a solution that works for all of you. Once you have a
Playbook chosen, go ahead and fill in your Character Name, your Eidolon Name, and
your Eidolon Power.

For more information on Eidolons and Eidolon Powers, see EIDOLONS.

Assign Your Stats

Each Playbook has default starting stats that we’ve set based on which ones are the
most useful for the Playbook’s abilities. However, you are by no means beholden to
what’s on your sheet. Your stats are one of the ways that you express who your
character is, so you should feel free to adjust them to your heart’s content. To set your
own stats, assign one of the following numbers to each of your five stats:

● -1
● 0
● 0
● 1
● 2

For more info on stats, see STATS.

Take Care of Playbook-Specific Creation Rules

Some of the Playbooks will have special instructions for you to carry out “at creation.”
Go ahead and do those now. If you have any questions, talk about them with your GM.

Assign Your Greatest Fear

Everyone has a Greatest Fear, some spot of intense psychological vulnerability. Decide
what your character’s Greatest Fear is and write it down on your Character Sheet. This
can be anything you want, but in general it’s going to work better if it’s something
personal and psychological as opposed to, say, “spiders” or “heights.” That said, it’s
your character! Write in the fear that you think suits them best.

Your Greatest Fear will factor into character advancement, but it’s also related to The
Phantom Clock. See THE PHANTOM CLOCK for more information.

Take an Advanced Move

You’re starting out at Level 1, which means that you’ve already earned an Advanced
Move! Look through the list of Advanced Moves in your Playbook and check the box
next to it to denote that you can use it. Remember that some of them have prerequisites
that you need to meet before you can take them, which means they’re off the table for
Level 1.

Create Your Starting Ties

This is the point where you need to get everyone else involved. Each player is going to
write down 3 initial Ties for their character. Unless you’re playing with only a single
player and a GM, then at least one of your Ties must be with another player’s character,
and one of your Ties must be with a GM-controlled character. What you do with your
third Tie is up to you.

These Ties serve to establish your character’s place in the world at the start of your
story. These are the relationships and priorities that they’ve cultivated prior to the events
of your game. Talk through your character’s history with the others in your group in
order to figure out which starting Ties make the most sense for you, and to establish a
shared history with other player characters that you have Ties with. Remember also that
just because you have a Tie with someone, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they also
have a Tie with you. If you’re playing with a bigger group of players, it’s probably wise to
avoid establishing mutual Ties at the start, to ensure that the web of connections
between the group’s characters is broad and interconnected. That’s just a rule of thumb
though; do whatever makes the most sense for your group!

Depending on the circumstances of your specific game, it might make sense to hold
back on this step until after your first session. For instance, if your story is going to start
with some or all of the characters not already knowing each other, then it would make
sense to hold off on your starting Ties until all the player characters have gotten
acquainted.

Have Fun!

With that, you’ve created your character! Once everyone has finished character
creation, you’re ready to begin playing! Schedule a time for your first session, or just roll
right into it from your character creation session!
CHARACTER ADVANCEMENT

As your group progresses through the story of your game, you’ll grow in strength and
develop new abilities. This section will cover how your progress is tracked, and the
ways in which you can expand your abilities.

Marking Experience

Your character sheet has five Experience boxes on it. Under certain circumstances, you
get to check off one of these boxes. This is called marking experience. When all five
boxes are marked, you’ll level up (which we’ll explain in greater detail briefly), then
erase the marks and start over.

You mark experience when:

● You make a Move and the result is a 6-, after adding your stat and any other
bonuses. Failure is a powerful teacher. Marking experience on a bad roll is a way
to represent you learning from your mistakes.

● You advance or reset a Tie. As you grow closer to those around you, you can
draw more deeply on their strength and add it to your own. The more you invest
in the people around you, the stronger your heart becomes. See TIES for more
information.

When you defeat your Phantom (see THE PHANTOM CLOCK), you instantly level up,
bypassing your Experience boxes completely; if you have 3 Experience marked and you
defeat your Phantom, then you level up but keep those three Experience marked.

Leveling Up

Any time you mark five experience, you level up! Erase your current Level from your
Character Sheet and replace it with the next number up. Then, you can choose one of
several options to make your character stronger. If you’re level 2-4, you can choose one
of the following:

● Take an Advanced Move from your Playbook, as long as you’ve met any
requirements it has. Check the box next to the Move you take, and from here on
you’ll be free to use it at any time.
 ● Increase one of your stats by 1. None of your stats can have a value higher than
2.

Once you reach level 5, you can take either of the previous options, or one of the
following:

● Take a Master Move from your Playbook.

● Change Playbooks. Your character evolves to a point that their Eidolon gains an
entirely new set of abilities. Choose a new Playbook and set your level back to 1.
Add your old Playbook’s Eidolon Power, Starting Moves, and 3 Advanced or
Master Moves to your Character Sheet. If the Moves you choose have
requirements, add them to your new sheet as well.
● Retire. Your character exits the story and stops being an active protagonist. They
might come back some day, but if they do, change their Playbook to The Veteran
and set their level to 1. If you’d like, you can also relinquish control of them to the
GM.

THE PLAYBOOKS
Here you can find all of the Playbooks for the different types of characters you can play.
Each Playbook contains a Character Sheet {or they will in the final version}, a list of
Starting, Advanced, and Master Moves, a brief rundown of how the Playbook is meant
to function, and a few example Eidolon Powers to give you an idea of how you might
use the Playbook. Read through CHARACTER CREATION and then check this section
out to see which Playbook best suits you!

THE VANGUARD
Your Eidolon is very good at, well, fighting other Eidolons. It’s not the fanciest power in
the world, but so what? As far as you’re concerned, words like “finesse” or “nuance” are
synonyms for “waste of time.” Sometimes you might be a little reckless, but you will
never stop fighting for yourself or for your friends. You have an incredible strength of
spirit, and will always push as hard as possible to win the day. Stand up, make a fist,
and hit ‘em where it hurts.

“My Eidolon obliterates enemies by ________________.”

Range: 10 Feet
Stats: 2 POW -1 ELE 0 GEN 1 GLAM 0 BIZ

Starting Moves

Break Through: Use your Eidolon’s power to force your way through a physical
obstacle. Roll +POW. On a 10+, choose 3. On a 7-9, choose 1.
● You do it quickly.
● You do it quietly.
● There’s no collateral damage.
● Nobody gets hurt.

Daylight Savings: When you defeat an enemy, roll +BIZ. On a 6-, nothing happens. On
a 7-9, reverse your Damage Track by 1. On a 10+, reverse your Damage Track by 1
and set the Phantom Clock back 1 hour.

Advanced Moves

Bloody Knuckles: Scrap viciously, with no regard for your own safety. If you succeed,
choose two Scrap options instead of 1. On a 9-, advance your Damage Track twice
instead of once.

Light a Fire: When someone is caught in the clutches of despair, speak unabashedly
about why they matter and why they can't give up, then roll +GLAM. On a 7+,
GM-controlled characters will be inspired to keep going, and player-controlled
characters will gain +1 Forward. On a 10+, GM-controlled characters will return your
kindness sooner or later, and player-controlled characters gain +1 Ongoing for the
remainder of the scene.

Taunt: Insult your enemies and demand their attention, then roll +GLAM. On a 10+, all
enemies in the area will prioritize you over everyone else. On a 7-9, only the most
gullible and irritable enemies will react.

Rushdown: Describe how you use your Eidolon to instantly close the distance between
you and any enemy in your line of sight, then Scrap with them.

Sucker Punch: Take the “Quick-Draw” Move from the Virtuoso Playbook.
Unstoppable: If your Damage Track would advance to “Defeated,” explain why this fight
is too important to you to lose. Keep your Damage Track at “Desperate,” but take -1
Ongoing for the rest of the battle. If you take damage again, advance your Damage
Track as normal. Advance your Damage Track to “Defeated” as soon as combat ends.
You can only use this Move once per session.

Actually, I Meant For You to Kick My Ass: When you roll a 6- when Scrapping or Beating
the Odds, you can explain how any negative consequences are actually beneficial to
you, and Reveal Your Master Plan with +POW instead of +GEN.

Never Fight a Stranger: After fighting someone, take +1 Ongoing to any future attempts
to Dazzle them.

Coordinated Strike: When you successfully Help someone Scrap or Bombard, they take
+2 on their roll instead of +1.

Bad Reputation: When you meet someone who might have heard of you, roll +POW. On
a 10+, they'll know you're a serious threat and hesitate to confront you; take +1 Forward
to Threatening or Scrapping with them. On a 7-9, take +1 Forward to Scrapping or
Threatening them, but they'll know about your Eidolon Power and have a plan to fight
against it.

Unflappable: You can roll +GLAM instead of +TIE when Hindering a player who's
Threatening you. If a GM-controlled character tries to threaten or intimidate you, show
them that you can’t be intimidated and roll +GLAM. On a 10+, they'll believe you, and
treat you with a higher degree of respect moving forward. On a 7-9, they’ll buy your
bluff, but they definitely got to you. Take -1 Forward when acting against them.

Overdrive: You can Push Yourself twice per session instead of once.

Master Moves (Requires Level 5 or higher)

My Friends Are Behind Me: Set your Damage Track to “Desperate,” and summon the
Eidolon of every friend you have a Tie with. You can only use this Move once, ever.

Punch Parade: When you deliver the finishing blow to an Eidolon master, you can strike
with such force that you destroy their connection to The Undertow. Roll + POW. On a
10+, their Eidolon is sealed. On a 7-9, their Eidolon is severed.
Battle Bond (Requires Never Fight a Stranger): After Scrapping with someone, you
can attempt to grasp some deep truth about them. Roll +BIZ. On a 10+, you will have a
vision of a past memory that has turned your opponent into who they are. On a 7-9,
you'll still have the vision, but you'll also need to describe the vision they see about you.
You can’t use this Move on the same person twice.

ABOUT THE VANGUARD

Like the name suggests, Vanguards usually stand at the forefront of their group. They
excel in combat, with lots of Moves that expand their options when fighting. Many of
their Advanced Moves hinge on building a roller coaster-like flow of risk and reward,
opening themselves up for more severe consequences in exchange for the chance to
hit enemies harder and heal themselves in the process.

Outside of combat, Vanguards tend to be forceful and direct, since they usually want to
have a high POW stat. This can mean they’re stubborn and stand-offish, but it can just
easily mean that they’re a stalwart friend who’ll never stop fighting what they believe in.
This is a Playbook for players who want to engage in high-stakes combat and role-play
someone with an open but forceful heart.

EXAMPLE VANGUARD EIDOLON POWERS

“My Eidolon obliterates enemies by punching extremely hard and extremely fast.”

“My Eidolon obliterates enemies by crushing them in its giant crab claws.”

“My Eidolon obliterates enemies by stopping time and beating the crap out of them
while time is stopped.”

“My Eidolon obliterates enemies by flowing through my veins as pure energy, giving me
super speed and strength.”

“My Eidolon obliterates enemies by conjuring fire.”

THE INFILTRATOR
You’re really not one for the “direct approach.” There’s always a shortcut, a workaround,
an angle that no one else considered. A way to slip through the cracks and take out
your target with surgical precision, without anyone even realizing you’re the one who
pulled the trigger. You know, metaphorically. Or not? Whatever. Blend in, slip by, and
aim carefully.

“My Eidolon can cloak itself from detection by _____________________, and attack
from hiding by _____________________.”
Range: 100 Feet
Stats: -1 POW 2 ELE 0 GEN 1 GLAM 0 BIZ

Starting Moves

Vanish: When you use your Eidolon’s cloaking power while no one’s watching, roll
+ELE. On a 10+, Hold 2. On a 7-9, Hold 1. Spend 1 Hold any time you use your Eidolon
to make a Move, or anytime someone thoroughly searches the area your Eidolon is
cloaking in. Your Eidolon cannot be located as long as you have at least 1 Hold.

Pick Locks, Hack Consoles: You have the ability to disarm security measures and pick
locks. Roll +ELE. On a 10+, choose three. On a 7-9, choose two.
● You stay out of sight.
● Your tinkering doesn’t set off any alarms.
● You don’t break the lock or device.
● You don’t lose your tools.

Advanced Moves

Gather Intel: Take the Move "In-Depth Analysis" from the Navigator Playbook.

Natural Charm: When you successfully Dazzle someone in an attempt to gain entry to
somewhere you shouldn’t be, take +1 Forward in that location.

You’re Already in My Sights: If you Reveal Your Master Plan to declare that your Eidolon
has been hidden in the area all along, you can roll +ELE instead of +GEN.

Run Silent, Run Deep: When you Vanish, gain an extra Hold on a 7+.

Eagle Eye: Increase your Eidolon’s Range to 200 feet.

Intimidation: Take +1 when Threatening someone to give you information.

Ambush: When you successfully attack an enemy from hiding, choose one of the
options from successfully Scrapping.

Pickpocket: When you attempt to take something from someone without them noticing,
roll +ELE. On a 10+, you take the object without drawing any suspicion. On a 7-9, The
GM chooses one:
● The target notices you touching them.
● The target immediately notices the stolen object is missing.

Fade Away: Your Eidolon can cloak you as well as itself. You become uncloaked if you
make a Move independently from your Eidolon, or if your Eidolon becomes uncloaked.

I’m Supposed to Be Here: You can put together a disguise of your choosing out of any
available materials you have. Roll +GLAM. On a 10+, your disguise is good enough that
no one will question it. On a 7-9, it contains certain flaws, described by the GM, which
will give you away to any particularly attentive or knowledgeable observers.

Smuggle (Requires Fade Away): When your Eidolon Vanishes, it can cause anything
smaller or equal in size to you that your Eidolon is touching to become cloaked along
with it. If you try to Smuggle a player character or NPC, roll +TIE instead of +ELE; on a
7-9, they will only become cloaked if they want to. Your target uncloaks only when your
Eidolon does.

Shadow Heist (Requires Pickpocket): When Pickpocketing a target, focus your mind on
one object you know the target owns, but which isn’t currently on their person; that
object is now in their pocket. You can only use this Move once per session.

Master Moves (Requires Level 5 or higher)

Soul Shot: When you Bombard an enemy Eidolon master and roll a 13+, sever their
Eidolon.

Decoy: When you run out of Vanish Hold and someone is about to discover you, create
an illusion of your Eidolon decloaking, along with anything else it's cloaked. Regain 1
Vanish Hold. You can only use this Move once per session.
Everything Fades (Requires Smuggle): You can cloak any inanimate object your Eidolon
is touching, regardless of size. Roll +BIZ. On a 10+, it stays cloaked until you will it to
appear again. On a 7-9, it will stay cloaked for at least 30 minutes of in-game time, after
which it will reappear at the GM’s discretion. You can only use this Move once per
session.

ABOUT THE INFILTRATOR

The Infiltrator is a Playbook for people who want to be on the front lines, but don’t want
the attention or risk that The Vanguard brings with it. The Infiltrator’s Moves are all
about sneaking and subterfuge, avoiding danger while lining up deadly attacks and
supporting the team through reconnaissance and espionage.

Keep in mind that your Eidolon Power doesn’t necessarily mean that your Eidolon (or
you, or anything else you cloak with Smuggle or Everything Fades) becomes invisible,
just undetectable.

EXAMPLE INFILTRATOR EIDOLON POWERS

“My Eidolon can cloak itself from detection by merging into the shadows, and attack
from hiding by attacking their shadows with its cool sword.”

“My Eidolon can cloak itself from detection by turning into a puddle of water, and attack
from hiding by launching sharks out of itself.”

“My Eidolon can cloak itself from detection by dissolving into soundwaves, and attack
from hiding by blasting enemies with bone-shattering bass.”

“My Eidolon can cloak itself from detection by unraveling into invisibly thin but extremely
strong wire, and attack from hiding by slicing anyone that it touches.”

“My Eidolon can cloak itself from detection by turning invisible, and attack from hiding by
just punching them, because it’s invisible and what are they gonna do about it.”

THE NAVIGATOR
You’d describe yourself as more of an… ideas person. What good is power without the
right planning? When you’re not rambling on about your pet interests, you prefer to sit
back, gather data, and put together an undefeatable strategy for your comrades to
execute. Study up, prepare your vessel, and chart the course.

“My Eidolon can perfectly sense _______________ in the area around it.”
Range: 5 Feet
Stats: -1 POW 0 ELE 2 GEN 0 GLAM 1 BIZ

At creation, choose an Area of Expertise, a topic on which your brain is a

comprehensive and encyclopedic compendium.

Starting Moves

Ready for Anything: When you spend time researching and making preparations before
a dangerous mission, roll +GEN. On a 10+, Hold 3. On a 7-9, Hold 1. Any time you
Reveal Your Master Plan during the mission, you can spend any amount of Hold to
increase the result of your roll by 1 for each Hold you spend.

Technobabble: If you refer to your Area of Expertise when Dazzling someone, roll +GEN
instead of +GLAM.

Advanced Moves

Dredge Your Mind: When you search your memory for relevant information regarding
your current situation, roll +GEN, and take +1 if it’s related to your Area of Expertise. On
a 10+, you recall specific and useful information, described by the GM. On a 7-9, the
information will be vague and potentially less useful. The GM may ask how you know
this information; answer them.

Ignition: When you speak at length about your Area of Expertise, you open a psychic
link with one ally who listens to you, channeling energy from the Undertow through this
link into them. Choose one of the following benefits, then roll +BIZ:
● They don’t move their Damage Track the next time they’re hurt.
● They take +1 Forward.
● Their Eidolon becomes ready.
On a 7+, your friend receives the benefit you chose. On a 7-9, the GM chooses 1: either
you draw unwanted attention to yourself, or the psychic energy affects other, unintended
targets, benefiting them as well.

Signal Repeater: You can move your scanning ability to center on anyone or anything
you have a Tie with, allowing you to sense the area around them instead of the area
around your Eidolon. Your scanning ability will stay with them until you call it back to
yourself.

Tagging Shot (requires Signal Repeater): When your Eidolon has wounded someone or
something, then until that wound is healed you can use Signal Repeater to move your
Scanning Radius onto them, regardless of whether you have a Tie with them.

Coordinated Assault: When you get Ready For Anything, describe a plan for you and
your allies to follow to complete your mission. You can spend Ready For Anything Hold
to give anyone +1 to a Move they make in service of your plan.

Undertow Astrolabe: Your Eidolon Power works both within your immediate
surroundings and within the equivalent space in The Undertow, or if you’re in The
Undertow, within the equivalent space in the real world.

Ferryman (Requires Undertow Astrolabe): You can attempt to pull something you sense
in one world into the world you currently inhabit. Roll +BIZ. On a 10+, the entity is
successfully pulled through. On a 7-9, something from the world you’re in must take its
place in the world it’s coming from.

In-Depth Analysis: Ask one additional question any time you Investigate. This is not
optional.

Brain Radio: You can broadcast your thoughts from your Eidolon. Anyone within your
immediate vicinity will hear the thoughts you transmit this way in their head. Anyone in
this range that your Eidolon recognizes as an ally can also transmit their thoughts to
you.

Braintap (requires Brain Radio): You can try to telepathically eavesdrop on someone
within your immediate surroundings. Roll +BIZ. On a 7+, you can hear every thought of
your target until they leave the Scanning Radius or you mentally cut the connection. On
a 7-9, they can also hear all of your thoughts.
Soul Spyglass: When you successfully Dredge the Undertow, you can ask any one
question about one of the characters in your immediate vicinity. The player of that
character must answer your question as truthfully as they can, possibly even revealing
information that the character themselves does not know. If you rolled a 7-9, they also
get to ask you a question about your character, and you must answer truthfully.

Threat Detection: Take the “Fight or Flight” Move from the Beast Playbook.

Master Moves (Requires Level 5 or higher)

Astrologic Clock (requires Undertow Astrolabe): Overcharge your Eidolon to see what it
will sense one minute in the future. Roll +BIZ. On a 10+, the future is beneficial to you
and your allies; everyone gets +1 Ongoing when acting to bring it about. On a 7-9, the
future information is neutral, and you'll need to get creative to take advantage of it. On a
6-, you are doomed to an unfortunate outcome.You may only use this Move once per
session.

Eureka (Requires Brain Radio): Just before an enemy advances your Damage Track to
“Defeated,” you have a flash of inspiration about how to beat them. State a critical
weakness the enemy has; whatever you say is now true, and always has been. Roll
+GEN. On a 10+, you have a brief instant to exploit this weakness before you're
defeated. On a 7-9, you only have time to telepathically share this information with an
ally. On a 6-, take -1 Forward to Facing Death; if you die, the enemy's weakness dies
with you.

Perfect Deduction: When you roll a 12+ when Investigating, answer the first question
you ask yourself, rather than having the GM answer it; whatever you state as the
answer to your question is true. You can only use this Move once per session.

ABOUT THE NAVIGATOR

The Navigator is a Playbook that excels at supporting the rest of the team. Their abilities
let them gather information and impart various bonuses to their teammates, giving them
an edge in battle. The Navigator’s Advanced Moves enable them to be the team
coordinator, managing communications, scouting for enemies, and generally providing
aid. This is a Playbook for players that want to support their friends and focus more on
strategy and information-gathering than head-on confrontation.
EXAMPLE NAVIGATOR EIDOLON POWERS

“My Eidolon can perfectly sense the temperature in the area around it.”

“My Eidolon can perfectly sense all ghosts in the area around it.”

“My Eidolon can perfectly sense the romantic tension in the area around it.”

“My Eidolon can perfectly sense evil intentions in the area around it.”

“My Eidolon can perfectly sense the safest path forward in the area around it.”

THE ALCHEMIST
You deeply understand that everything is connected, and that the categories people
divide the world into are ultimately arbitrary. Naturally, your Eidolon is able to transcend
these boundaries. It can change the shape and structure of things, giving you nearly
limitless creative potential when it comes to solving problems. Take a deep breath,
consider the world around you, and figure out how to change it.

“My Eidolon can transform any _________________ it touches into _______________.”

Range: 10 Feet
Stats: 0 POW -1 ELE 0 GEN 1 GLAM 2 BIZ

Starting Moves

Revert: If you or your Eidolon touches something you've transformed, you can make it
turn back to its original form.

Healing Touch: You can only take this Move if your Eidolon Power can somehow heal
wounds (if it’s ambiguous, get approval from your GM and fellow players before taking
this Move). When you use your Eidolon’s healing abilities, roll +TIE with the target
you’re healing. On a 10+, reverse their Damage Track by 2. On a 7-9, reverse it by 1.

Advanced Moves
Delayed Reaction: When your Eidolon touches a valid target of its power, instead of
making the transformation take place right away, you can instead choose to Hold 1. You
can spend this Hold at any time, and the transformation won’t take place until you do.

Release: You don’t need to touch something to Revert it.

Transformative Vision: You may transform something that your Eidolon has line of sight
with, regardless of whether it’s touching it. If you do this with the intent to cause harm,
treat it as Bombarding.

Domino Effect (Requires Delayed Reaction): If you’ve imbued something with a Delayed
Reaction, and it comes in contact with something else that your Eidolon can transform,
you can transfer the Delayed Reaction to this second target; when you spend your Hold,
it will transform instead of what you originally touched. You can transfer the target of
your Delayed Reaction as much as you want.

It’s Already Been Changed (Requires Delayed Reaction and/or Release): When you
Reveal Your Master Plan to declare that you secretly imbued something with a Delayed
Reaction that you’re now triggering, or that you’re Releasing something that was
actually already transformed by you, you can roll +BIZ instead of +GEN.

Make Your Own Luck: Take the “Living Luck” move from the Wildcard Playbook.

I’ll Give You Everything (Requires Healing Touch): When another player’s Damage
Track advances to Defeated, you can imbue your Eidolon with a burst of energy to
stabilize them, but doing so will drive you to the brink of death. Your target does not
Face Death, and is instead rendered unconscious. Immediately Face Death regardless
of your Damage Track. You can only use this Move once per session.

Improvised Armor: When you use your Eidolon’s ability to create armor for yourself, take
+1 ongoing when resisting harm, for as long as the armor remains intact.

Chain Reaction (Requires Domino Effect): When you attempt to transform something
that’s in direct contact with other valid targets of your Eidolon’s power, you can attempt
to push your Eidolon past its limits to transform every target. Roll +BIZ. On a 10+, the
transformation goes exactly as planned. On a 7-9, the GM chooses one:
-More is transformed than you intended.
-The transformation process is flawed in some way.
-The transformation is permanent.
Remember What You Were: When you transform something with your Eidolon, you can
make it retain a single attribute of what it used to be.

Social Transmutation: Give an impassioned speech about how the status quo is
unacceptable, and your vision for how to change it for the better. Roll +GLAM. On a 7+,
everyone who hears your speech gains +1 Forward when acting to advance your
agenda. On a 10+, any GM-controlled character who hears your speech will buy into
your vision (though they may remain hostile to you personally). You can only use this
Move once per session.

You’ve Transformed Me: When you take the time to truly understand someone else,
who they are and what they want, take +1 Ongoing to any future attempts to make their
dream a reality.

Master Moves (Require Level 5 or higher)

Something From Nothing: Instead of transforming the usual base material into what you
want to create, you can conjure it out of thin air.

Transform the World: When you achieve an incredible victory against impossible odds,
your Eidolon radiates raw transformative power. Declare one change you want to see in
the world. This change occurs immediately. You can only use this Move once, ever.

Everything Changes: Change your Eidolon’s ability to the following, and fill in the
blanks:

“My Eidolon can transform any _________________ it touches into _______________,

and it can change THAT into _________________.”

ABOUT THE ALCHEMIST

The Alchemist has one of the most versatile Eidolon Powers in the game, and most of
the Playbook’s Moves are dedicated to letting you make full use of that versatility. It’s
especially important to keep in mind though that when you have a power this
open-ended, you need to limit yourself somewhat. “My Eidolon can transform any thing
it touches into anything else” is technically a valid Eidolon Power for The Alchemist, but
it’s also extremely broad to the point of being a little… much. The Playbook will
generally be a lot more fun if you impose some restrictions on yourself when creating
your Eidolon Power, though of course you’re free to do whatever you’d like as long as
the group you play with is cool with it. This Playbook is for players that want a more
off-the-wall ability, who like solving problems by thinking outside the box and finding
clever, unique solutions.

EXAMPLE ALCHEMIST EIDOLON POWERS

“My Eidolon can transform any broken thing it touches into a repaired version of itself.”

“My Eidolon can transform any inanimate object it touches into any living thing.”

“My Eidolon can transform any part of my body it touches into computer circuitry.”

“My Eidolon can transform any written word it touches into what that word represents.”

“My Eidolon can transform any thing it touches into a pillar of salt.”

THE VIRTUOSO
You are a person who has achieved an extreme level of mastery in a particular
profession or hobby, so much so that your Eidolon isn’t some abstract being but rather
the primary tool of your trade, imbued with the power of your soul. Using it enhances
your talents to a level that can only be described as supernatural. Choose your weapon,
tune it up, and bring the house down.

“My Eidolon is a real, physical _____________, and I’m so good with it that when I use
it I can ____________________________________.”
Range: Infinite
Stats: 0 POW 2 ELE -1 GLAM 0 GEN 1 BIZ

At creation:

If your Eidolon Power can be used to heal others, take the Healing Touch move from the
Alchemist Playbook. Consult your GM and your fellow players if you’re unsure if you
should take the Move.

Starting Moves
Recall: You can call out to your Eidolon wherever it is, and it will attempt to fly to you.
Roll +ELE. On a 10+, your Eidolon will effortlessly navigate toward you and come into
your control in one smooth motion. On a 7-9, The GM chooses one:
● It’ll take some time for it to figure out how to get to you.
● It takes a wild, reckless path to reach you, breaking through anything in its way.

Flawless Form: You may choose to Scrap with +ELE instead of +POW when wielding
your Eidolon as a weapon.

Heirloom: Your Eidolon’s concrete form means that it can outlive you. When you die,
name the person you choose to inherit it. They become the Eidolon’s new master, and
once per session they can use any one Move from your character sheet.

Advanced Moves

Captivating Mastery: You are an artist with your Eidolon. When someone watches you
do something spectacular with it, gain +1 Forward to the next time you Dazzle them.

Chameleon: You can will your Eidolon to change into any object of comparable size.
Roll +BIZ. On a 10+, you decide what it looks like. On a 7-9, the GM decides. It reverts
to its true form as soon as you use it to make a Move.

Equipment Expert: You have thorough, intimate knowledge of objects like your Eidolon.
Take +1 when Investigating any object that’s similar to your Eidolon, and on a 10+, gain
+1 Forward to the next time you Investigate a place or person related to it.

Tinker (Requires Equipment Expert): You are knowledgeable enough about the tools of
your trade that you can repair or upgrade them with relative ease. Take +1 Forward to
any attempts to fix or improve on an object similar or related to your Eidolon.

Mentor: Take +1 Ongoing when Helping someone who makes a Move using your
Eidolon.

Riposte: If you successfully use your Eidolon to evade or deflect an attack or other
source of damage, you can immediately Bombard or Scrap with the source of the
damage you avoided, and if you do, take +1.
Actually, That Was My Spare: If you lose your Eidolon, you can reveal that you actually
just lost an ordinary object that looked like your Eidolon, and Reveal Your Master Plan
with +ELE instead of +GEN to pull your Eidolon out from where you were keeping it.

Can Opener: Take either Break Through from the Vanguard Playbook or Pick Locks,
Hack Consoles from the Infiltrator Playbook. You should take the Move that best suits
the form of your Eidolon.

Ceasefire: During combat, throw away your Eidolon and make a call to negotiate with
your enemies. Roll +GLAM. On a 10+, all Eidolons involved in the conflict become
severed until you pick up your Eidolon again. On a 7-9, no Eidolons become severed,
but the enemy will stop attacking long enough to hear you out. You can only use this
Move once per session.

Quick-Draw: When you use your Eidolon to attack someone who doesn’t believe that
you can or will attack them, take +1 Forward on the attack roll.

Forge of the Heart: Meditate on your Eidolon and infuse it with the energy of your soul
to increase its power. Roll +POW. On a 7+, your Eidolon transforms into a larger, more
powerful version of itself, according to your description. On a 10+, Hold 3. On a 7-9,
Hold 1. You can spend 1 Hold to get +2 on any Move you make with your Eidolon. Once
you’re out of Hold, your Eidolon reverts to its normal form. You can only use this Move
once per session.

Reverse Recall: Instead of calling your Eidolon to you, you can call yourself to your
Eidolon. Roll +BIZ. On a 10+, you will teleport to your Eidolon, wherever it is in the
world. On a 7-9, you will fly toward your Eidolon until you either reach it or you make
yourself stop.

Master Moves (Requires Level 5 or higher)

Soul Transfusion: Your Eidolon becomes an ordinary object. A new object in your
possession becomes your Eidolon. You may only use this Move once, ever.

Cursed: If your Eidolon comes in contact with someone else, you can attempt to make
your Eidolon take control of them. Roll +BIZ. On a 10+, Hold 3. On a 7-9, Hold 1. As
long as your target remains in contact with your Eidolon, you can spend 1 Hold to force
them to take some action against their will. Lose any remaining Hold you have if your
Eidolon loses contact with them.
Remote Operation: Your Eidolon can float in the air and move freely. Take -1 Ongoing
when trying to use your Eidolon without touching it.

ABOUT THE VIRTUOSO

The Virtuoso is a somewhat odd Playbook. A Virtuoso Eidolon doesn’t behave like any
other kind; instead of being an ethereal spirit that represents the soul of its master, it’s
an inanimate object that its master has to wield in order for it to do anything. Even if
other Eidolons are invisible to those with sealed Eidolons, a Virtuoso Eidolon is visible
and tangible. It just… seems like an ordinary object.

Even so, it is alive, and still channels the spirit of its master to do incredible things.
Because a Virtuoso Eidolon can be literally any physical object, the Playbook is really
versatile, and the role you serve in your story depends heavily on the form your Eidolon
takes. This is a Playbook for players that want to play as experts with impossible levels
of skill, whose craft is fundamental to who they are.

EXAMPLES OF VIRTUOSO EIDOLON POWERS

“My Eidolon is a real, physical gun, and I’m so good with it that when I use it I can
change the trajectory of the bullets in mid-air.”

“My Eidolon is a real, physical laptop computer, and I’m so good with it that when I use
it I can hack reality itself.”

“My Eidolon is a real, physical violin, and I’m so good with it that when I use it I can
make objects dance to my music.”

“My Eidolon is a real, physical spice rack, and I’m so good with it that when I use it I can
cook dishes with magical properties.”

“My Eidolon is a real, physical prosthetic arm, and I’m so good with it that when I use it I
can punch holes in space.”

THE VETERAN
You… sorta thought you’d retired from the whole Eidolon thing, but apparently people
still need you. You and your Eidolon aren’t quite as fit for action as you used to be, but
you’ve figured out how to channel what you still have into a more supportive role, which
can be invaluable when combined with your wealth of knowledge and experience. Plus,
maybe once you shake the rust off you can still pull some of the stunts you used to be
known for. Get back up, rediscover your power, and show ‘em how it’s done.

Use the Eidolon Power and Range from your Former Playbook.

Stats: 0 POW 0 ELE 2 GEN 1 GLAM -1 BIZ

At creation, choose a Former Playbook. If you’re creating a new character, choose any
Playbook and fill in its Eidolon Power. If you’re changing Playbooks to make an existing
character into a Veteran, use your actual former Playbook and add any out-of-Playbook
Moves you had. Do not add any Moves from your previous Character Sheet to your new
one. If you’re creating a new character as a Veteran, do everything listed under “At
creation” in your Former Playbook.

Starting Moves

In addition to the Moves below, you can use your Former Playbook’s Starting Moves.

Like Old Times: At the beginning of a new session, Hold 1. You can spend this Hold at
any time to use an Advanced Move from your Former Playbook. After spending this
Hold, you can still use Advanced Moves from your Former Playbook, but advance your
Damage Track once each time you do.

First Aid: When you and an injured person or group of injured people are in a safe
environment for a significant stretch of time, you can attempt to heal them. If you use
your Eidolon’s powers to heal them magically, roll +TIE. If you use your own medical
know-how, roll +GEN. On a 7-9, reverse their Damage Track by 1. On a 10+, reverse
their Damage Track by 2.

Advanced Moves

Always Prepared: If you know the power of an enemy Eidolon, take +1 when Revealing
Your Master Plan to counteract its power.
World Traveler: When you arrive somewhere that you’ve been before, you can ask a
favor of the friends you have there and roll +GLAM. On a 10+, they’ll be able to help you
out. On a 7-9, they’ll be supportive, but not able to offer any material help.

Accumulated Knowledge: Take the Dredge Your Mind Move from The Navigator
Playbook (if The Navigator is your Former Playbook, you no longer need to use Like Old
Times to Dredge Your Mind).

Improvised Alarm: While outside of combat, you can use objects in your environment to
construct a makeshift alarm to warn you when something is coming. Describe how you
build the alarm and roll +GEN. On a 10+, choose two. On a 7-9, choose 1.
● The alarm is well hidden.
● The alarm will only be set off by an impending threat.
● It’s quick and easy to set up.

Improvised Trap (requires Improvised Alarm): When setting up an Improvised Alarm,

you can incorporate something hazardous. If you do, anyone who sets off your trap will
sustain harm as described by the GM.

Just Something I Picked Up: You’ve learned a lot of odd skills and techniques
throughout your life. When you attempt something no one watching has seen you do
before, you can explain when and how you learned to do it and roll +ELE. On a 7-9 or
10+, you successfully perform the task, and anyone watching will gain more trust in you
and your abilities; take +1 Forward to your next attempt to Dazzle one of them.
Additionally, on a 10+ you display absolute mastery of the skill in question; take +1
Forward to the next time you attempt it.

Tell ‘Em It’s Just Something You Picked Up (Requires Just Something I Picked Up): You
can teach someone else a skill that you’ve demonstrated using Just Something I Picked
Up. Roll +TIE. On a 7-9, your teaching is beneficial; they receive +1 Forward to the next
time they attempt the skill. On a 10+, your lessons serve as a bonding experience; any
time they use the skill in the future, they can roll +TIE with you instead of the relevant
Stat.

Protector: When you or your Eidolon throw yourself in harm’s way to defend someone
you have a Tie with, they take +1 Forward to retaliating against the source of harm.

Master Moves (Requires Level 5 or Higher)

Don’t Call It a Comeback: Take 2 Advanced Moves and 1 Master Move from your
Former Playbook; you no longer need to use Like Old Times to make these Moves.

Go Out With a Bang: Attack an enemy with everything you have left within you.
Advance your Damage Track to Desperate, or if it’s already at Desperate, to Defeated.
Immediately Crash an enemy twice. You can only use this Move once, ever.

ABOUT THE VETERAN

The Veteran is for characters who’ve had Eidolons for a long time, but who’ve gone so
long without using them that their skills have faded. This can be for any number of
reasons. Maybe they finished whatever mission they set out on, and enjoyed a long
stretch of peace before being called back to adventure. Maybe they suffered a serious
physical or psychological trauma at some point that had-long lasting effects on their
mind and body. Or, maybe they just got old! That does tend to happen to people.

To be clear, just because some or all of those possibilities describe your character
doesn’t mean that you have to play as a Veteran. Remember, your physical body
doesn’t have a direct impact on your Eidolon or your stats. The kind of changes
described above should only turn your character into a Veteran if you feel like they were
coupled with a significant shift in their psychology that the Veteran Playbook accurately
reflects.

The only time you’re required to turn a character into a Veteran is if you’ve retired them
previously, and are now interested in playing as them again. This Playbook limits how
much you can rely on all the abilities you racked up before, while also giving you some
new abilities that reflect all the experience and know-how your character has built up
over time. This is a Playbook for players who want to primarily take on a mentor role for
the rest of their team.

EXAMPLE VETERAN EIDOLON POWERS

There aren’t any!

THE BEAST
You’re an… animal? Well, technically, we’re all animals I guess. But you’re, y’know, not
a human. Can animals even have Eidolons? I mean, you have one, so… yeah, I guess
they can. Awakening to your Eidolon has vastly expanded your mental faculties, but
you’re still fundamentally a creature driven by instinct. Maybe we all are, but you’re
more honest about it. Spread your wings, bare your teeth, and do what comes natural.

“My Eidolon helps me pursue my animal urges by ______________.”

Range: 20 Feet
Stats: 2 POW 0 ELE 0 GEN -1 GLAM 1 BIZ

At creation, choose one of the following Animal Qualities based on what kind of animal
you are, and take the related bonus:
● Ferocious: When you Scrap and roll a 10+, choose 2 advantages instead of 1.
● Thick Hide: You can not be hurt by anything other than direct attacks targeted at
you specifically.
● Massive: treat “Invigorated” as the default position for your Damage Track,
instead of “Fresh.”
● Perceptive: Set your Range to 100 Feet.
● Tenacious: You may Push Yourself one additional time per session.
Retain these bonuses even if your Eidolon is severed.

Also, take one of the following Instinctive Desires:

● Food
● Shelter
● Dominion
● Freedom

Starting Moves

Beast Tongue: You can talk to any non-human animal. You can understand human
speech, and anyone with an unsealed Eidolon can understand you.

Fulfillment: When you satisfy an Instinctive Desire, gain one of the following benefits,
depending on which desire you satisfy:
● Food: Reverse your Damage Track by 1.
● Shelter: Your Damage Track cannot advance as long as you remain in your
shelter, unless the source of damage is also in your shelter.
● Dominion: Take +1 Forward when Dazzling or Threatening.
● Freedom: Turn the Phantom Clock back 1 hour.
Inconspicuous: Anyone who doesn’t recognize you and doesn’t see your Eidolon will
assume that you’re an ordinary animal unless you give them reason to believe
differently.

Advanced Moves

Voracious: Take one more Instinctive Desire.

Apex: Take 1 more Animal Quality that accurately describes you.

Survival Instinct: Take +1 Ongoing while your Damage Track is at “Desperate.”

Shadow Tongue: As long as your Eidolon isn’t severed, you can speak to Shades and
Phantoms, even if they normally can’t or don’t talk.

Pack Mentality: When you’ve satisfied an Instinctive Desire, you can share your food,
shelter, dominion, or freedom with someone else. If you do, they gain the same benefits
from it as you.

Wild: Take the “Unpredictable” Move from The Inhuman Playbook.

Agile: Take +1 when Beating the Odds using whatever kind of movement your species
excels at (running, jumping, climbing, flying, swimming, etc.).

Play Dumb: If someone begins to suspect that you’re not an ordinary animal, you can
try to act like one to throw them off your trail. Roll +GLAM. On a 10+, they’ll dismiss their
concerns and ignore you. On a 7-9, they’ll buy into your act, but also decide that you’re
being a nuisance, and try to remove you from the area.

Unrestrainable (requires Ferocious or Tenacious Animal Quality): You can force yourself
out of any restraint, advancing your Damage Track by 1 to break out of it instantly. If you
have an Instinctive Desire for Freedom, this counts as satisfying it.

Bloodhound (requires Perceptive Animal Quality): Take +1 when Investigating using any
animal senses you have that are sharper than a human’s.

Impenetrable (requires Massive or Thick Hide Animal Quality): Take the Break Through
Move from the Vanguard Playbook.
Fight or Flight: You can intuitively tell anytime the situation you’ve found yourself in is
dangerous, but not any details about the source of the danger.

Master Moves (Requires Level 5 or Higher)

Howl for Backup: During combat, you can cry out for any creatures in the area to
support you. Roll +GLAM, and take +1 if you’ve satisfied an Instinctive Desire for
Dominion in the area. On a 7-9, smaller, weaker animals will respond, swarming the
enemy and drawing their attention away from you. On a 10+, larger and more
dangerous animals will answer your call. You can only use this Move once per session.

Insatiable (requires Voracious): Take the 2 Instinctive Desires you don’t already have.

Evolution (requires Apex): The energy constantly flowing through you from The
Undertow has caused your body to mutate. Take an Animal Quality that didn’t used to
describe you, but does now.

ABOUT THE BEAST

The Beast is a Playbook all about playing as an animal. It has a very open-ended
Eidolon Power, to give you plenty of freedom when figuring out an Eidolon that makes
the most sense for the animal you’re playing. This is a Playbook for players who want a
more offbeat character that brings a weird perspective, flavor, and skillset to the team.

As an animal, you’re driven towards goals that will most likely be irrelevant to the rest of
your group, which is represented by your Instinctive Desires. You should role-play your
character faithfully to fulfill their desires whenever possible, but don’t go so far with it
that you regularly drag the game off-track. Your Instinctive Desires are meant to give the
Playbook a unique flavor, not give you tools to annoy the rest of the group. “Play in good
faith” is, as always, the most important thing here.

Keep in mind that your Instinctive Desires need to be something external to you. For
example, if you’re a turtle, you can’t satisfy an Instinctive Desire for Shelter by
withdrawing into your shell. You still need to find a safe place to take shelter in if you
want to be completely safe. Also, keep in mind that fulfilling your Desire will only trigger
the related bonuses a single time. For instance, say you’re playing as a grazing animal;
you can’t heal infinite amounts of damage by just eating grass nonstop. The entire
opportunity to graze is what represents your desire being satisfied. Again, play in good
faith; if it feels like you’re cheating the system, you probably are. The GM has final say
over whether something you do satisfies one of your desires.

EXAMPLE BEAST EIDOLON POWERS

“My Eidolon helps me pursue my animal urges by shape-shifting to suit my needs.”

“My Eidolon helps me pursue my animal urges by conjuring water so that I can swim
through the air.”

“My Eidolon helps me pursue my animal urges by making any wound it inflicts bleed
catfood instead of blood.”

“My Eidolon helps me pursue my animal urges by generating any smell I want to attract
prey.”

“My Eidolon helps me pursue my animal urges by hypnotizing people into taking me for
walks.”

THE INHUMAN
You are a Shade, a creature from The Undertow, which means you have broken the
rules. Your kind is not supposed to live in this world, let alone have an Eidolon. Do you
have an Eidolon? If so, it’s not really clear where it ends and you begin. Regardless,
sooner or later all of this is gonna come back to bite you. Ah well! No sense dwelling on
it now. You’re here, and you’re you, and you’re not about to let anyone forget that. Fade
in, take form, and assert your truth.

“My Eidolon can _______________________________________________________.”

Range: --
Stats: -1 POW 0 ELE 0 GEN 1 GLAM 2 BIZ

At creation:

If your Eidolon Power can be used to heal others, take the Healing Touch move from the
Alchemist Playbook. Consult your GM and your fellow players if you’re unsure if you
should take the Move.
Starting Moves

Anomaly: Your sheet has a Dissonance Clock, set to 1:00. Advance it by 1 hour every
time you roll a 6- and every time someone ignorant of the supernatural witnesses you
use your powers. As the Dissonance Clock advances, The Undertow will encroach
more and more upon the real world in the area around you, causing strange and
unpredictable effects. When your Dissonance Clock hits midnight, something from The
Undertow will come to take you back there by force.

Facade: You can make yourself look like a human being, and revert back at will. If the
Dissonance Clock advances while you are in your human form, roll +BIZ. On a 10+, you
maintain your Facade. On a 7-9, you’ll slowly begin to change back into your true form.
On a 6-, you’ll revert to your true form instantly.

Advanced Moves

Unpredictable: When making a Move against a human target in a way that no human
could predict, treat their Eidolon as if it were severed, even if it isn’t.

Wander: You can disappear from the real world by moving into The Undertow, or
vice-versa, but only for a second or two before returning to the exact spot you
disappeared from.

Facsimile of Charm: You’ve figured out how to act in your human body to come across
as more charismatic. Take +1 Ongoing to attempts to Dazzle while wearing your
Facade.

Otherworldly Horror: Take +1 when Threatening someone who’s never seen a Shade or
Eidolon before. This Move doesn’t work if you’re wearing your Facade.

Noclip (Requires Wander): When Wandering, you can remain in the other world for
slightly longer than before, about 10 seconds, and when you reappear, it can be
anywhere within twenty feet of where you disappeared from. When using this ability to
Beat the Odds, roll +BIZ. On a 7-9, something from the other world will follow you back
when you return.

Dissonance Dweller: The incursion of The Undertow makes you feel more at home.
Gain +1 Forward each time the Dissonance Clock advances.
Strange Journey (Requires Noclip): You can create a temporary portal to the Undertow.
Roll +BIZ. On a 10+, choose 2. On a 7-9, choose 1:
● The other side of the portal is in a safe location.
● The portal can only be seen and used by those who you permit.
● You can close the portal whenever you want.
Once closed, the portal can only be re-opened by using Strange Journey again.

Witching Hour: When your Dissonance clock hits 10:00, choose one physical law; it no
longer applies in the area around you, until your Dissonance Clock hits 12:00.

Soul Hacker: You can try to reprogram someone’s Eidolon to carry out a task of your
choosing, as long as it doesn’t involve directly harming someone. Roll +BIZ. On a 10+,
the target Eidolon becomes severed, and will mindlessly pursue the goal you gave it
until its master can regain control. On a 7-9, the Eidolon still becomes severed, but it
will mindlessly attack you instead of carrying out the goal you assigned it.

Shadow Reading: Take the “Soul Spyglass” Move from The Navigator’s Playbook.

This IS My Beautiful House: When in your Facade and pressed for details about your
human life, you can attempt to conjure physical evidence to back up your answers. Roll
+GLAM. On a 10+, the physical artifacts of your life appear as you describe them. On a
7-9, something about them is strange or unsettling, as described by the GM.

Relief Valve: When you experience a moment of inner peace, you can take a moment to
center yourself and release the dark energy welling up in you. Roll +BIZ. On a 10+, turn
your Dissonance Clock back 3 hours. On a 7-9, turn it back 1 hour.

Master Moves (Requires Level 5 or Higher)

Conditional Surrender: Immediately set your Dissonance Clock to 12:00, and surrender
yourself to the agents of the forces trying to take you back to The Undertow that appear.
In exchange, you may ask your captors to do something to help your friends, and they
will do everything within their power to fulfill your request.

Scapegoat (Requires Strange Journey): When you’re confronted with a defeated

enemy, you can summon a portal to the Undertow to swallow them, temporarily tricking
your pursuers into thinking they’re you. Roll +BIZ. On a 10+, everything goes according
to plan; set your Dissonance Clock to 1:00. On a 7-9, the GM chooses something or
someone else for the portal to swallow. Set your Dissonance Clock to 6:00.

Drag Out the Darkness (Requires Soul Hacker): When you defeat an enemy Eidolon
Master, you can attempt to transform their Eidolon into a Phantom. Roll +BIZ. On a 10+,
their Eidolon becomes a Phantom, transforming based on their Greatest Fear. On a 7-9,
their Eidolon becomes a Phantom, but the negative energy you unleash causes the
Phantom Clock to advance 3 hours. On a 6-, set the Phantom Clock to 12:00.

ABOUT THE INHUMAN

You know like, the fun cutesy mascot character in an anime, who then turns out to have
some really off-the-wall superpowers at some critical moment, and really deep ties into
the lore of the story? That’s kind of what The Inhuman is. If you take this Playbook then
your character is a Shade from The Undertow who’s crossed over into the real world for
some reason. In doing so, they’ve become a fugitive from whatever enigmatic
authorities enforce cosmic order.

The Inhuman’s nature allows for them to have the single most open-ended Eidolon
Power, and in fact it’s so open-ended that we really can’t make any presumptions about
how yours might work. Because of that, this Playbook’s Moves largely focus instead on
the kinds of things that you can accomplish as a Shade, and the ways that your mere
presence has an effect on the world around you.

Because of how this book’s Eidolon Power works, it’s especially important to not go too
overboard during character creation. Remember to play in good faith and get
permission from your group before giving yourself some wildly overpowered ability, and
don’t be afraid to introduce limitations to how your Eidolon Power works.

There are Moves in this Playbook that suggest your character might not quite have a
tight grasp on human morality; keep in mind that you’re under no pressure to play your
Inhuman that way. This Playbook is for players who want maximum freedom when
creating their character, and who want to push at the outermost boundaries of their
game world’s internal logic.

EXAMPLE INHUMAN EIDOLON POWERS

“My Eidolon can eat anything, and I mean anything.”

“My Eidolon can conjure real life versions of video game power-ups.”

“My Eidolon can teleport from any cat it touches to the next nearest cat in the world.”

“My Eidolon can throw a BANGER of a party.”

“My Eidolon can turn off gravity.”

THE WILDCARD
You contain multitudes. Your Eidolon is never any one thing for long, constantly shifting
and changing. Maybe you’re just too complex and brilliant to define concretely. Maybe
you’re a disorganized mess who can’t figure out a coherent self-image. Or maybe you
just DON’T LIKE LABELS, OKAY?! Shuffle the deck, deal the cards, and go all in.

“My Eidolon is.”

Range: —
Stats: 0 POW 0 ELE -1 GEN 1 GLAM 2 BIZ

Your Eidolon’s Range is always equal to the Range of your Active Playbook. Anytime
you get a new Active Playbook, fill out its Eidolon Power and describe what it looks like
to the rest of the players.

Starting Moves

Deal In: Select a new Active Playbook. Roll +BIZ. On a 10+, you can choose any
Playbook. On a 7-9, 3 Playbooks are chosen randomly, and you can choose one from
them. On a 6-, your Active Playbook is assigned to you by the GM. Do not include The
Wildcard in the pool of Playbooks you choose from. Automatically use this Move at the
start of every new play session.

Make a Play: Any time you get a new Active Playbook, Hold 3. You can use any of your
Active Playbook’s Starting Moves, and you can spend 1 Hold to use any of its Advanced
Moves. Immediately Deal in when you run out of Hold.

Card Shark: If you Scrap or Bombard using your Eidolon, you can roll +BIZ instead of
+POW or +ELE.
Advanced Moves

Poker Face: Take the Unflappable Move from the Vanguard Playbook.

Pair of Aces: If your Active Playbook is the same as another player’s Playbook, they
take +2 when you successfully Help them instead of +1.

Mulligan: Spend 1 Make a Play Hold to rewrite your Eidolon Power, maintaining your
Active Playbook’s template. You cannot use this Move if you only have 1 Make a Play
Hold.

Fold: Lose any remaining Make a Play Hold you have and Deal In. Take -1 Forward
after getting your new Active Playbook. You can only Fold once per session.

Bluff: When you Dazzle someone and roll a 7-9, you can make your Eidolon shapeshift
into someone or something that assists in persuading them. While in this form, your
Eidolon is severed, and has a solid physical form. It will revert to its previous shape and
become ready the instant you touch it.

Insurance: Once per session, when you run out of Make a Play Hold, you can choose to
immediately gain 3 Make a Play Hold instead of Dealing in.

Living Luck: If you roll a 12+ or 4-, a spirit embodying the concept of Luck will emerge
from The Undertow, as described by the GM. On a 12+, they’ll be friendly, and give you
a blessing; take +1 Forward. On a 4-, they’ll be antagonistic, and give you a curse; take
-1 Forward. The Luck Spirit will remain until you roll a 5-11.

Friend of Fortune (Requires Living Luck): When a Luck Spirit has appeared before you,
you can ask them a single question. They’ll answer to the best of their ability, drawing
on knowledge unknowable in the material world, but if they appeared because you
rolled a 4-, you won’t like the answer.

Master Moves (Requires Level 5 or higher)

Joker's Wild: When you have utterly defeated an enemy Eidolon master, you can sever
their Eidolon and switch your Active Playbook to the one that most closely matches their
abilities. Your Eidolon transforms to look exactly like theirs until you Deal In, and their
Eidolon remains severed until you do.
High Roller: You can spend 2 Make a Play Hold to use a Master Move from your Active
Playbook. You can only use High Roller once per session.

ABOUT THE WILDCARD

The Wildcard is… well, a lot like its name implies. Their Starting Moves semi-randomly
assigns an Active Playbook to them, which transforms their Eidolon and allows them to
use any Move they want in that Playbook. Since they theoretically have access to any
Move in the entire game, The Wildcard has fewer Playbook Moves than normal. This is
a class for players that want to try a little bit of everything, and who enjoy improvising
around random circumstances.

Note: we do not recommend using this Playbook if you’re new to EIDOLON, or to

RPGs in general. The Wildcard could hypothetically cycle through every single
Playbook in a single session, and in order to keep from dragging down the pace
of the game, anyone using this book needs to be very familiar with every
Playbook.

Also, keep in mind that you don’t have to use the same Eidolon Power for each
Playbook every time. When you change Playbooks, you can introduce a brand new
power, even if you’ve used that Playbook before. For the sake of maintaining the pace
of the game, it’s a good idea to have at least one Eidolon Power for each Playbook
planned out in advance, but feel free to improvise when it feels right.

One final thing: The Inhuman, The Veteran, and The Beast are Playbooks that lean a lot
more heavily on the Eidolon master’s attributes and abilities, rather than their Eidolon’s.
It might seem odd for your character to transform into a Shade or an animal, for
example. Decide at character creation if you’d like to exclude these Playbooks from the
pool you draw your Active Playbook from, or if you’re good with some of the stranger
effects Dealing In might have.

EXAMPLE WILDCARD EIDOLON POWERS

There aren’t any!

RUNNING EIDOLON
If you’re a player, then you’ve read as much of this book as you need to in order to play!
Only the GM needs to read this final chapter. You’re certainly welcome to keep reading
if you’d like, but from here on in it’s completely optional for all but one member of your
group.

If you’re the GM: hi! Let’s talk!

GMing any RPG is a big undertaking. You need a comprehensive understanding of the
rules to help straighten out any confusion or disputes that arise among your players,
and you need to put in a lot of prep-work so that you can bring the world of the game to
life. It can be a difficult task, but it can also be really rewarding. When everything goes
right, you get to set the stage for a fun and dramatic story, and create an environment
that lets your players’ characters do exciting, hilarious, dramatic, and awesome things.

Let’s talk about how GMing works in EIDOLON specifically.

AGENDAS

As the GM, you’re going to make a lot of the “first moves” in telling the story of your
game. You’ll be introducing the setting and providing the inciting action for most of the
adventures your players encounter. With no guidance or structure, it can be hard to
know where to even start. Agendas are the big picture ideas that you should always
return to when planning where things are going to go next. The three Agendas in
EIDOLON are:

● Build a world of surreal mystery and audacious action.

● Thrust the characters into extreme situations that reveal who they really are.
● Play to find out what happens.

Build a world of surreal mystery and audacious action.

Like we discussed in EIDOLONS AND THE UNDERTOW, EIDOLON isn’t a game that
comes with a set genre or setting. Creating the world that your game takes place in is
going to be up to you and your players. The default assumption is that EIDOLON takes
place in a fictionalized version of the real, contemporary world, where the only major
difference is the presence of The Undertow. But, if you want to deviate from that, you’re
more than welcome to. Your story can take place anywhere and be a part of any genre,
as long as The Undertow is a major feature of the setting.

You can check out THE UNDERTOW for a more thorough description of just what The
Undertow is, but to summarize, it’s a shadowy parallel world built out of the dark,
suppressed regions of the collective unconscious. Your story will to some extent involve
the Undertow bleeding into the real world, which will create surreal and bizarre
mysteries for your players to investigate. When the quest for answers leads to
dangerous situations, the ensuing action should completely smash through the
boundaries of the possible or the logical. The game should explode into a cacophony of
strange and absurd powers clashing against one another. Your players will provide a lot
of that, but you need to make sure that the world you build is ready to match them.

Thrust the characters into extreme situations that reveal who they really are.

The protagonists of EIDOLON aren’t chosen heroes. They’re ordinary people who
through sheer happenstance have gained access to incredible power. What does the
nature of that power say about them? What kind of person will that power turn them
into? Deep down, what kind of person have they always been? Part of your job is to
force the player characters into situations where they can’t escape these kinds of
questions. Then, sit back and let the players figure out the answers through their
characters’ words, choices, and actions.

Play to find out what happens.

EIDOLON is a game about building a story collaboratively. As the GM, you have a lot
more on your plate than the players: you have to create and play as a lot more
characters, for one thing, and you’re largely responsible for laying the foundation for the
story. But what you’re not here to do is dictate the events of the plot. A session shouldn’t
be about revealing your meticulously crafted narrative. It should be about creating that
narrative. Don’t write plot lines or script sequences for your players to run through.
Instead, create places, characters, complications and secrets. Introduce these things to
your players, let them react organically, and let their reactions form the driving force of
the plot. Bring pieces of narrative into each session, then mix them together with the
pieces the players bring with them, in the form of their characters, and work together to
build a good story out of them.
If you’re ever stuck and not sure where to take the story next, ask the players!
Encourage them to have their characters do something to drive things forward, or take
suggestions from them on where they’d like to see things go.

PRINCIPLES

The GM Agendas are useful, but they’re also very broad. The Principles are a bit more
specific and directed, and give you a stronger sense of how you should be running your
game. You can’t necessarily fulfill every Principle all of the time, but you should strive to
fulfill as many of them as possible at any given moment.

Here are the 9 GM Principles:

● Make The Undertow seep through every crack of the world.

● Name everyone. Every person matters.
● Blur the line between the literal and the figurative.
● Give enemy Eidolons silly powers and sillier names, then make them terrifying.
● Stack the odds against the player characters, then root for their success.
● Address the characters, not the players.
● Ask the players questions, and use their answers.
● Always couch your Moves in the context of the fiction.
● Play as the whole world, not just the parts the players can see.

Make The Undertow seep through every crack of the world.

Even if your game isn’t set in the real world, it should feel real. The setting should
mostly be mundane, concrete, and rational. But, there should also be seams in the
fabric of your world’s reality, places where things just don’t quite fit together the way
they ought to. In the margins and corners of your world there should be strange, surreal
things happening, places where The Undertow has bled into the real world and eroded
its internal logic. These spaces should be obscure enough that most people don’t notice
or think about them, but common enough that you could accidentally find yourself in one
at any time.

Name everyone. Every person matters.

Anyone who your players interact with should be a complete person. EIDOLON is a
game about the unique beauty and power of each individual, which means there are no
“faceless henchmen” or “generic NPCs.” Sometimes, circumstances might call for you
to come up with a character on the spot, without time to come up with a strong idea of
who they are. That’s okay. Start by giving them a name, and let their details be filled in
organically. If you have a hard time coming up with names, there’s no shame in relying
on one of the dozens of random name generators you can find online. Keep it pulled up
on your phone or laptop in case you need it!

Blur the line between the literal and the figurative.

This is fundamentally a game about big, blunt metaphors. Eidolons themselves are
physical manifestations of a character’s psychology, with strengths and weaknesses
that map directly to their masters’ hearts. The Undertow is a kind of collective
unconscious, and can represent a lot of different things depending on how it’s used:
suppressed feelings, peer pressure, mob psychology, or communal trauma, just to
name a few. Lean into the idea that all of the fantastical elements of your story are loud,
unsubtle metaphors for the character drama underpinning the narrative. Every surreal or
absurd element should be a literalization of the emotional story that your group is telling,
even if you don’t go out of your way to call attention to it.

Give enemy Eidolons silly powers and sillier names, then make them terrifying.

An Eidolon is a manifestation of the human heart, presented to the world shamelessly

and without pretense. Very often, that means it’s going to seem a little goofy or
embarrassing. Don’t shy away from making characters whose Eidolons seem silly on
their face. Instead, lean into it, and demonstrate how even seemingly goofy abilities can
be useful, deadly, or even unstoppable. Make your players respect even the most
outlandish concepts.

Stack the odds against your players, then root for their success.

Hit the player characters hard. Drive them into corners, take away things they care
about, and give them no way out. Then, empower them to fight back. Let them surprise
you with the ways they overcome the hardships you pile onto them. Let them make a
way out, seize what you’ve taken from them, force their way out of the corner and hit
back even harder than you hit them. Your job is to give them antagonistic forces to push
back against, not to completely crush them. Exactly how hard you should push your
players is going to vary from group to group; this is an example of how the GM needs to
play in good faith just as much as everyone else.
Address the characters, not the players.

While playing, you want to do your best to create the illusion of a living, breathing world.
To that end, you should do everything you can to stay within the fiction you’re
establishing, and when you’re speaking to a player about something in-fiction, you
should address them by their character’s name to help them maintain the illusion and
stay in-character.

Ask the players questions, and use their answers.

Eidolon is a collaborative story-telling experience, so make sure to provide opportunities

for the players to contribute to the story. “What do you do?” is probably going to be your
most common question, but find ways to ask other ones too. If you ever hit a point
where you’re not sure where to take the story next, ask the players to drive things
forward.

Always couch your Moves in the context of the fiction.

The next section of this chapter is going to cover the GM Moves. A lot of your actions
during a session will be in the form of making a Move, but you should never just pick a
Move to make arbitrarily. The Moves you make should follow intuitively from the
circumstances of the story. For example, you can’t Deal Damage to someone if there’s
no logical source of danger in the scene. You also shouldn’t ever specifically call out
which Moves you’re using. Just choose the Move you’re making, and describe the
effects it has in-fiction.

Play as the whole world, not just the parts the player characters can see.

The player characters have only a limited window into the world of your game. You
should be honest and up-front with them as often as possible, but there are times when
important events take place that they have no reason to be aware of. You should keep
track of things that are happening beyond your players’ periphery. The players shouldn’t
be the only force influencing the events of your story, and you should occasionally have
the player characters discover that the world can move independently of them, for good
and for ill.

GM MOVES
Just like the players, you have a set of Moves that you make as you narrate the events
of the story. GM Moves work a little bit differently, however. For one thing, you don’t roll
dice when you make your Moves. Instead, you make your Move, and simply narrate
what happens as a result. The timing of your Moves vary from Player Moves as well;
you can’t make your Moves when your character does something with a chance of
failure, because you don’t have a singular “character” that you play as.

Instead, you can make your Moves in the following circumstances:

1. When the players are waiting for you to reveal what happens next.
2. When a Move would be the perfect response to a situation.
3. When a player rolls a 6-.

You’ll frequently hit points where the players aren’t entirely sure what they should do
next. A Move is a great way to give the game a quick push in the right direction. There
might also be times when it just feels obvious that you should make one of your Moves.
Say, for instance, the players talk about how lucky they are to all be together; that
sounds like a pretty good opportunity to Separate Them. To be clear, you don’t have to
take that opportunity, but you’re definitely allowed to.

Any time a player rolls a 6-, you’re allowed to make as hard of a Move as you want. GM
Moves are “hard” or “soft” based on how serious and negative their consequences are.
A hard Move is one that’s going to hurt, in one way or another.

Now, keep in mind: when someone rolls a 6-, you make as hard of a Move as you want
to, not as hard of a Move as you can. Your Moves should carry negative consequences
for the players, but unless the stakes are appropriately high, someone rolling a 6 isn’t a
blank check to ruin their character’s life. Even when you make hard Moves, they should
feel like they logically follow from the dramatic arc of the story. To paraphrase one of the
GM Principles, your job isn’t to crush your players, but to provide hardships for them to
overcome.

Generally, if you’re just trying to move the story along, your Moves should be pretty soft.
You should be giving the players ideas on what to do next, or nudging them into
circumstances that demand action. As a situation continues to escalate, your Moves
should get gradually harder. The way you use your Moves has a big effect on the
narrative of the game, and you should use them to both build and release tension
throughout your story. There should be both high-stakes scenes with serious
consequences and low-stakes scenes with harmless consequences, along with
everything in-between.

The GM Move List

● Use an Enemy Eidolon’s Ability.

● Introduce a Mystery.
● Separate Them.
● Reveal the Existence of Impending Danger.
● Throw Them Into a Tough Situation.
● Deal Damage.
● Crash an Enemy.
● Offer an Opportunity, With or Without Cost.
● Make Them Lose Something.
● Turn Their Move Back on Them.
● Answer a Lingering Question.
● Exploit a Weakness in Their Eidolon’s Ability.
● Sever an Eidolon.

Use an Enemy Eidolon’s Ability.

Make a hostile Eidolon act against your players, subjecting them to its power.

Introduce a Mystery.

Show the players something that doesn’t make sense or that hints at something deeper,
prompting them to investigate.

Separate them.

Force the players to split up for one reason or another. This can be a useful tool for
stacking the odds against them, but keep in mind that it can also represent more work
for you; you’ll need to juggle both subgroups of the party until everyone reunites, and
make sure that no one is being left out. Use this Move whenever it feels appropriate, but
be mindful of the ways that it can complicate things out-of-game just as much as it can
in-game.

Reveal the Existence of Impending Danger.

Show the players that something is happening that will cause some kind of harm if left
unchecked. Just how serious the danger is and how much time they have to react to it
will depend on the situation, and on how hard of a Move you’re making.

Throw Them Into a Tough Situation.

Reveal that the players have stepped into danger. Describe the danger, establish the
stakes, and let the players find a way out.

Deal Damage.

Declare that a player or group of players has been significantly harmed and must
advance their Damage Track(s). This Move should be used sparingly, and as a rule of
thumb it should only be a consequence of the players failing to defend themselves from
a source of danger.

Crash an Enemy.

When a player does something that wounds, overwhelms, or nullifies the threat of an
enemy, Crash that enemy. Increase their Crash Count by 1, then have them strike back
with greater ferocity, raising the tension and dramatic stakes of the battle. Remember
that you are the final arbiter of when and if an enemy is Crashed, and that you must
play in good faith when deciding when to employ this Move. Don’t give players free
Crashes if they haven’t truly earned them; remember that just because a Move is
successful, that doesn’t guarantee a Crash. On the flipside, never withhold a Crash
that’s been honestly earned. If it makes sense in the fiction of the story that a player’s
maneuver struck a significant blow to an enemy, then you must Crash that enemy.
Remember, one of the GM Principles is to stack the odds against the players, and then
root for their success. See Building an Enemy Encounter for more information.

Offer an Opportunity, With or Without Cost.

Point out or reveal a course of action that the players could take, and lay out the stakes
that will be set if they take it. The cost might be something they have to give up, or it
could simply be what they risk in the event of failure. Harder Moves will usually mean
higher costs.

Make Them Lose Something.

Take away something that some or all of your players value highly. Maybe it can be
gotten back, or maybe it can’t.

Turn Their Move Back on Them.

When a player rolls a 6- when making a Move, the obvious course of action as the GM
is to have them fail at what they were trying to accomplish. Sometimes though, it can be
more interesting to let them succeed, only to reveal that their success had implications
they hadn’t or couldn’t have predicted.

Answer a Lingering Question.

Resolve a mystery or reveal a piece of information that the players have been seeking
out. The harder the Move you’re making, the more unfortunate the answer.

Exploit a Weakness in Their Eidolon’s Ability.

Find a loophole that turns their Eidolon Power into a weakness, and have some force
exploit that weakness.

Busy an Eidolon.

Explain that a task assigned to an Eidolon will take time to complete, and make the
Eidolon busy until the task is finished or their master commands them to stop working
at it.

Sever an Eidolon.

This is another Move that you should only use on rare occasions, either when some
force in-fiction breaks the connection between a character and their Eidolon, or when a
character has some kind of internal crisis that prevents them from manifesting their
Eidolon. Anyone without an Eidolon is very vulnerable, which means that severing an
Eidolon is an extremely harsh consequence. This is by definition a very hard Move.

CREATING ENEMIES
EIDOLON is a game with a large focus on combat, and that means that you’ll need to
create enemies for your players to contend with. The enemies you make will largely
come in two varieties: enemy Eidolon masters, and enemy Shades.

Enemy Powers

If a human enemy is going to pose any kind of serious threat to your players, then they
most likely have an Eidolon. Most Shades will also have powers that are functionally the
same as Eidolon Powers, and really powerful Shades might even have Eidolons of their
own, like a hostile version of The Inhuman Playbook. You should have a concrete idea
of how the powers of the characters you control work, and you should stick to it during
play.

If you’d like, you can phrase enemy abilities like Eidolon Powers when you’re drafting
them, but keep in mind that you’re not limited to using the Eidolon Powers from the
Playbooks. Your character’s abilities might look like a Vanguard or a Virtuoso, but
they’re not limited in the same way; functionally, all of your characters have an Eidolon
Power like The Inhuman’s: “My Eidolon can _________.”

Shades are creatures created out of powerful ideas and emotions that drift into The
Undertow. If they’re hostile, then they’re probably made out of violent ideas and
emotions. It can be a good idea to use that as a starting point for how their abilities
work.

Like with player Eidolon Powers, it can frequently be more fun to impose stricter
limitations upon your characters than the game demands. Try building explicit
weaknesses into your enemy powers, or making them hyper-specialized and then
figuring out how to make them dangerous and threatening despite that. Remember that
you want to give your Eidolons silly powers that are nevertheless terrifying.

Building an Enemy Encounter

For every enemy that you prepare in advance, you need to decide on an appropriate
Crash Limit for them. Think of Crash Limits this way: they represent the number of
dramatic twists and turns a fight is going to take. An enemy with a Crash Limit of 1 will
generally go down really quickly, and by definition won’t have any surprises they can
spring on the party. On the other hand, an enemy with a Crash Limit of 10 is going to be
an extremely long and involved battle, full of constant surprises and reversals. You
should tailor the number of Crashes an enemy can take to the kind of experience you’re
trying to make. As a rule of thumb, a Crash Limit of 3 works pretty well as a baseline; an
enemy with a Crash Limit of 3 can provide a sort of “three-act structure” to the
encounter, and provide some exciting twists without dragging out too long. Feel free to
play with different Crash Limits and find what works best for you and your group.

You want to be as prepared as you possibly can for a combat encounter. In order to do
that, you should come up with ideas for how the enemy or the encounter will change
every time there’s a Crash. With a Crash Limit of 3, you need two different ways to
increase the enemy’s threat level (since the third Crash will end the encounter). It might
be helpful to write out an enemy’s information like this in your preparation notes:

[Enemy Name]
“This enemy can…”
Crash Limit: X (fill in any number here)
Crash 0: [Describe the initial conditions of the battle, and the strategy the enemy uses
against the party]
Crash 1: [Describe what happens to raise the stakes after the party strikes their first
blow]
Crash 2: [Describe what happens to raise the stakes after the party strikes their second
blow]
.
.
.
Crash X: Defeat

By planning out your Crashes in advance, you can seamlessly transition the fight
through its various stages, without having to take time to figure it out mid-game and
possibly slow things down.

Now, that said, while you should have a plan in mind for each Crash, this information is
private to you as the GM, and you don’t have to use it. If an intriguing opportunity arises
during play, or if the fight takes an unexpected turn that renders a preplanned Crash
moot, feel free to substitute it with something you improvise on the fly. The point of
planning out the Crashes is just so that you always have something to fall back on.

Keep in mind too that Crashing an Enemy is a GM Move, and as such, you don’t
announce when you use it. When a player successfully strikes a blow on an enemy,
simply describe how the enemy temporarily loses control of the encounter and then
comes back more dangerous than ever.
Sometimes, situations may arise when you have to improvise an entire enemy
encounter. Players are free to do what they want during a session, and while you might
provide narrative prompts to nudge them towards the encounters you’d planned, they
can and will occasionally veer off in unpredictable directions, and initiate combat with
characters you hadn’t prepared anything for. This can be a tricky situation! The best
weapon against it is thorough preparation. Do your best to anticipate the different
directions your players might take, and have at least a rough concept of how any
encounters that lie down those various paths might go. Maybe even come up with some
“stock” Crashes that you can employ in a pinch if you have to throw together a combat
encounter on the fly. As you continue to play and become more familiar with the game,
the setting of your campaign, and your players, you’ll get a stronger sense of what goes
into a fun encounter, and will be able to fully improvise enemies more easily. Even if you
are feeling confident in your improvisational skills, plan out as many encounters as you
can anyway. Giving a combat encounter the proper care and preparation will make it
shine much brighter than if you always try to come up with it on the spot.